Once or twice a month I build data for MAPS.ME application. After the process of downloading OSM data, building coastlines, extracting objects, generating indexes and packaging mwms is done, the final stage is testing. With that, I get notified when a file size changed dramatically, or many objects of a same type were added or removed in a region. I think you might be interested in some of these changes.

So, what happened between 16th March and 17th April?

• Indonesia_Central: file size increased from 67 to 107 MB
• Portugal_South: decreased from 56 down to 53 MB
• Tanzania: 183 up to 212 MB (and it was just 87 MB a year ago!)

And in objects of specific types:

… See full entry

My name is Namitala Gertrude (Trudy Hope). I am a Ugandan IT and GIS professional with over 5 years of experience in developing IT solutions, especially for mapping important features in remote villages and peri-urban areas in Zambia. I am currently working in Zambia where I co-founded OSM Zambia and a managing director TruDigital Technologies. I was introduced to OSM in 2013 by Kateregga Geoffrey after I expressed interest in mapping my primary school. I have been an OpenStreetMap mapper since then. .

I am part of OSM Africa and have supported different countries to establish OSM operations and given them guidance where need be. I got to know about Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team in 2016 when I wanted to use the tasking manager and was impressed at what HOT does. HOT’s ideology resonates with what I believe, so I wanted to contribute more. That is the reason I decided to join the HOT fundraising and HOT summit working groups.

I have led OSM Zambia for two years now and within this short period, the community has grown to over 500 mappers from a handful of mappers when we started out. OSM is now being recognized by the councils all over the country. Open map data sharing is getting more recognition in Zambia and Malawi. I have also been advocating for women participation and inclusion in the mapping community. I have established partnerships with international organizations, government, NGOs, private companies, schools that have all supported our community.

My interest in becoming a board member lies in the reasons outlined below: To grow gender inclusion and get more women involved in HOT and OSM to increase diversity in the community. Increase the presence of HOT in every country in Africa To make OSM the strongest and most trusted map in Africa. To get more partners supporting HOT’s mission

… See full entry

My name is Namitala Gertrude (Trudy Hope). I am a Ugandan IT and GIS professional with over 5 years of experience in developing IT solutions, especially for mapping important features in remote villages and peri-urban areas in Zambia. I am currently working in Zambia where I co-founded OSM Zambia and a managing director TruDigital Technologies. I was introduced to OSM in 2013 by Kateregga Geoffrey after I expressed interest in mapping my primary school. I have been an OpenStreetMap mapper since then. .

I am part of OSM Africa and have supported different countries to establish OSM operations and given them guidance where need be. I got to know about Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team in 2016 when I wanted to use the tasking manager and was impressed at what HOT does. HOT’s ideology resonates with what I believe, so I wanted to contribute more. That is the reason I decided to join the HOT fundraising and HOT summit working groups.

I have led OSM Zambia for two years now and within this short period, the community has grown to over 500 mappers from a handful of mappers when we started out. OSM is now being recognized by the councils all over the country. Open map data sharing is getting more recognition in Zambia and Malawi. I have also been advocating for women participation and inclusion in the mapping community. I have established partnerships with international organizations, government, NGOs, private companies, schools that have all supported our community.

My interest in becoming a board member lies in the reasons outlined below: To grow gender inclusion and get more women involved in HOT and OSM to increase diversity in the community. Increase the presence of HOT in every country in Africa To make OSM the strongest and most trusted map in Africa. To get more partners supporting HOT’s mission

… See full entry

     I was introduced to Opensteetmap by the Unique Mappers Team (UMT) Port Harcourt at the #1 MAPATHON training led by Mr Sunday Victor. He showed how to get registered on Openstreetmap and how to map. For the training, we (those available for the training) worked on project 400 using osm which involved mapping features such as buildings and roads in The University of Port Harcourt and I was added to the Let's Map Our World whatsapp group. From the group, I got to know about The STALL CATCHERS. I participated in the worldwide Catchathon which helped Alzheimer's research. I had a wonderful time catching stalls with the Unique Mappers Team. It was a really fun experience and I enjoyed the pizza.
     I participated in osm task #project-3530 #MXEarthquake 2017 with the guidance of UMT. Alone, I attempted #project-3443 Sierra leone - Regent, Kamayama, Kaningo- Landslide affected area using OpenStreetMap but failed to edit and save  the changeset.
    I have also worked on #project-4370 #mappingperi-urban areas, Lusaka. Mapping this area was successful. 
    I met with the coordinator of Unique Mappers Team, Mr Sunday Victor on Monday 23rd April 2018 for a formal interview and registration as a full member of Unique Mappers Team, Port Harcourt.I am indeed glad to be a Unique Mapper Team member. So far, it's been fun and I know there's a lot more. I'm willing to dedicate my time and passion to mapping the world as long as it does not make me go down academically. This I strongly doubt because I love mapping as well as my course of study, Geography and Environmental Management. I believe spending reasonable time on both will actually help me improve on both. Thanks to OpenStreetMap and my field of study, I'll get to know and map, and soon, visit different parts of the world.

Hello OSM community I had a great weekend.Hope you did too!.

I was lucky to e-meet a wonderful guy Victor Sunday of OSM Nigeria and he proposed UniqueMappers collaborating with Gambia ConnectedYouthMappers which is awesome and I took it whole heartedly.He told me a little bit about letgirlsMap chat group and joined me to the group chat, I was amazed and impress on the work these ladies does, I can’t wait to get to know them more.

Jaria, OSM Gambia ConnectYouthMappers leader.

I learned yesterday that Norwegian airlines use openstreetmap data in their entertainment system. Looking for my edits at 12000 m was fun! :-) They don’t use vector map, but instead they seem to use raster tiles. The quality doesn’t go detailed street level, but it’s not required for a flight map.

I rode from Theale to Bracknell today to check on the progress of the NCN422 cycle route. There are still large holes, and it’s mostly shared use paths rather than proper infrastructure. It will probably be a month or two before I get round to updating OSM with my findings,as there are other things in the pipeline.

Sometimes we find in some cities/countries some boundary ways (the ones that define the political borders of provinces/towns/countries) that are missing some tag(not appearing already in the relations, because it’s better to avoid redundant data.

Example of boundary way without any tag:

For the renders and 3rd party apps that is not a big problem because that way is indide the the corresponding relations with different admin_level, it can be shared by one or many relations, but what happens if we need to add a tag to those ways based on the data from their relations?

The script is the following, based on Dmitri Lebedev’s osm2python library (not python3 compatible yet, help migrating).

… See full entry

osm.org/edit?way=479914933#map=20/40.28546/-74.72373

I have updated some of the missing roadway name to I-295. But why the roadway shield still shows I-95 (Zoom in on roadway section and observe roadway label in the back)

Dear all,

Today, v4.10.0 of the OpenStreetMap Carto stylesheet (the default stylesheet on the OSM website) has been released. Once changes are deployed on the openstreetmap.org it will take couple of days before all tiles show the new rendering.

Changes include

• Adding rendering for historic=castle and historic=manor
• Adding rendering office=* as dots + names
• Adding rendering for waterway=waterfall
• Adding place=square name rendering for nodes
• Adding rendering for big natural=bay
• Adding rendering for leisure=beach_resort
• Adding rendering for amenity=parking_space
• Adding rendering of aerialway=zip_line
• Adding rendering for shop=bed
• Adding rendering for shop=video_games
• Adding halo to roads on z6 and z7
• Extending intermittent waterbody rendering to landuse=basin
• Moving highway=mini_roundabout rendering to higher zoom level
• Dropping waterway=derelict_canal rendering
• Small documentation and code fixes

Thanks to all the contributors for this release, including d3d9, doktorpixel14 and hikemaniac, new contributors.

For a full list of commits, see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/compare/v4.9.0…v4.10.0

As always, we welcome any bug reports at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues

— Yay, new mapper! Welcome to OpenStreetMap!

— I see you are using wrong tags. Please read Map Features and don’t come back until you’re done. I don’t care if it’s too long. Go to Google Map Maker if you’re intimidated.

— I don’t know you. Please go to talk@ mailing list and introduce yourself and reasons for your mapping. Yes, I know you have to sign up using some obscure web page, and then receive unwanted mail for eternity. But rules are rules. Go do it, or leave.

— I see you work for a mapping company. I will be watching you, because you do not care for our map. None of you do. Yes, I am working at such company too, but I care.

— I caught you not tracing from Bing like the rest of us. Please explain your sources and acquire specific permissions for using these. Or better stop.

— I see that among 500 buildings you’ve traced, 20 have been recently demolished. I know that they are still on imagery and in the registry. But it looks like your quality of mapping will never reach mine. Please go away and never come back.

— Hey, I’ve seen more edits from you. I think we’ve discussed it. I don’t care if they are good, I have reverted them. Please do not come back.

…

— Hi new mapper, welcome to OpenStreetMap!

123

I would like to be able to view the maps normally without the screen covered in ‘X’s or green Ticks. How do I remove these from my view please.

OSM Links

An open list of useful resources relating to OpenStreetMap.

About

This repository aims to be a community-maintainted list of resources regarding OpenStreetMap. The list can contain anything from materials for contributors, guides for newcomers, etc.

Link

At Development Seed we’re always looking for ways to contribute to open source projects. Recently, we started thinking about how we might be able to help improve the OpenStreetMap (OSM) ecosystem of tools. Of course we had our suspicions, but to insure whatever we came up with had the whole OSM community in mind, we started with a round of user interviews. Below you’ll find our process and findings, in hopes that we can all start supporting tools to serve the greater community.

Process

User interviews are essentially what they sound like, interviewing users to better understand who they are, what they do, how they use OSM tools, and what they feel could be improved within the OSM ecosystem. To try and capture the opinions of such a large group, we broke up the community into 3 different groups:

• Inexperienced mappers, ones who had only mapped a few times
• Experienced mappers, including people who map for their work vs people who map on their own
• People who want map data, people at organizations like American Red Cross or HOT

We interviewed at least 4 people from each group, to ensure that we were hearing from a number of different voices. For the 19 different people we talked to, from Belgium to Japan, we asked them a base set of questions, and asked follow up questions based on the discussion. There were a lot of interesting patterns and ideas that emerged from our conversations:

Having a community is key

• Most mappers want to map what they know and are concerned about what is nearby to them. This seemed to outweigh the desire to contribute to humanitarian efforts, although that did make mappers feel as if they were doing something good.
• New mappers often learn more quickly when they have a community, than they would otherwise. Being a part of the community is a huge motivator for people to map.
• Having someone who can give feedback and make mappers feel welcome increases retention.

Understanding completeness and complexity drives motivation

… See full entry

Project Street-level Photos via Mapillary

Dasmariñas City has to undergo precise mapping, hence DEAR PAUL 24 have boarded the jeep from Salitran to DBB and DBB to WalterMart Dasmariñas at the front seat to provide the updated street imagery where most inner DBB PUV Routes have to base on the correct route line. Some drivers are yet to know the route modernization where the PUV Routes have to map on OSM by DEAR PAUL 24, hence briefing has to be executed himself. Some previously-uploaded street-level photos have resulted in the precise mapping of the sidewalk and roadways, especially in most Congressional Road Networks (Mangubat Avenue segment).

Road Widening, Traffic Island, Drainage and Sidewalk Construction

Dasmariñas City has widened the Congressional Road Network (Burol-J-E-F segment, initially Santa Cruz/San Lorenzo Ruiz 1-San Luis-Fatima section) to consider safety considerations and to avoid wrong-way driving/unsafe passing that may result in another head-on crash disaster. Being the safety and accessibility advocate himself, installing drainage and sidewalk will prevent or mitigate flooding and reduce the pedestrian-vehicle crash incidents, respectively.

Proper PUV Stops and Transit Lanes

… See full entry

Hello

I’m Astou Nathalie SIDIBE, a Human Ressources Manager, Social Activist, committed to Communities building, volunteer and humanitarian activities for a long time, in Mali.

I got involved in OpenstreetMap Project in December 2014 after two weeks of OpenStreetMap and GIS training with the Projet Espace OpenStreetMap Francophone, ProjetEOF in Bamako, then i cofounded OpenStreetMap Mali and advocate for OpenStreetMap and OpenData projects with a volunteer group in Mali.

So, since January 2015, i’ve been planning and organizing mapping parties, MappingCamps in Mali, cofacilitating OSM trainings in Mali and in West Africa with the support of the ProjetEOF.

I’m personnally involved in developing partnership with Public and Private Administrations, Universities, High Schools, local and International Organizations and NGO.

I’m currently leading, with the technical support of Les Libres Geographes, a mapping project on Organizations working in the Digital fields. This project, called [CarteInnov] (https://carteinnov.francophonelibre.org/t/ca1a3e-CarteInnov), is initiated and financed by the Organisation International de la Francophonie in 14 African countries including Mali. I’m also Leading the French-Speaking Africa Community for OpenData, CAFDO, in Mali.

Joining HOT Board is an honour and an opportunity to support and contribute more to HOT, to collaborate and learn more from other Board Members, to strengthen my leadership skills and also share my fews experiences leading a local community.

Thank you !

Nathalie

I am running for the elected position of Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team’s Chair of Voting Members.

Voting Members are the core of HOT’s work and values; I see the position of chair as one that facilitates the Membership in many of the actions that lead and grow the organisation. A number of the responsibilities are procedural, such as the calling and convening of meetings, but I also believe the Chair should foster and encourage individual volunteers to become Members, Mappers, Working Group contributors, Board candidates and more.

I have previously served on the Board of Directors, and have most recently been a member of the Governance Working Group. I have been a Mapper, have lead mapathons and have spoken publicly about our work. As such I believe I possess the range of experience required for this position.

HOT Members are a incredible group of humanitarians, mappers, hackers and creatives: I would like to efficiently and productively help these wonderful people lead the organisation.

As it has been mentioned before, establishing a Telegram channel as a major matter of communication for Russian-speaking OSM community is a questionable step itself since it creates an additional fragmentation and benefits only a certain group of people within this community.

However, this situation got some development recently. Russian communication regulator authority, RKN (actually, the government censorship agency) officially started blocking Telegram messenger communication protocol. Ironically, at the same time, iD got Russian OSM Telegram channel listed on its sidebar, above the link to OSM Russia forum section (which was always the main method of communication), giving a hint of its greater importance.

So, from now on, only those Russian users of those rare internet service providers who haven’t started following the order of RKN or those who are able to set up and use network tunneling services (soon they will be illegal in Russia too) will have an access to Telegram.

Most likely, some commenters might argue that it is so easy to set up a VPN and so on, but that’s not the point. The point is that any random OSM user from Russia should not have to violate (obviously, stupid and unconstitutional, but still existing) law or learn how to be an IT specialist to have an access to community communication channel. It doesn’t mean that some people can’t keep using that channel privately if they want to, but it should not be listed anywhere as a major or preferred channel of communication.

Over on the diversity-talk mailing list I’m floating the idea of a quarterly project to map traditionally under-represented things. There’s been lots of legit talk lately about what is and isn’t mapped in OSM, so let’s try to map it. I’ve set up a poll to gather ideas and select something. If you’re interested in helping with this, feel free to vote, take part, and/or join the mailing list.