I tend to wonder a bit about this community we supposedly have. In about 6 years of edits, but only about 200 edits, I had one single interaction with community and it’s still bugging me 2 years later.

You see, this character wandered over to my changeset and commented that they had removed a trail because it “might be misleading” and they couldn’t find it on their USGS map.

Which is cute considering the USGS for the area doesn’t date back to 1995 like much of them. It dates back to 1960. You can’t find the Redwood National Park on most of it, much less any of the trails the park has made. You find the logging roads the park has actively and successfully decommissioned. The one thing you can be sure about USGS for this area is that it is wrong. Heck, I hiked on a combination of Forest Service and USGS maps all over the west for a couple years and I’ve gotten to a point that if I see these two sources agreeing, I am certain I’ll run into something very different on the ground. It’s better than a coin flip. So it’s not even uncommon that USGS is wrong. It’s just particularly wrong in this area. And it should be obvious.

But it wasn’t to this new then mapper. So they submitted this changeset to “exclude a non-existing trail”.

It’s an official trail! It literally has signs at both ends pointing it out! When you get a permit to backpack here, they send you a map that includes this trail! Yes, with all those fords that have been left swimming there in the creek. I painstakingly got it onto that map using my GPS track from actually hiking this actual trail and imagery. That track bounced around a lot there under the big trees making it quite an effort. I want this trail back.

So that bit of community didn’t leave a good taste.

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I received the following reply from Bill Beaver, Senior GIS Analyst for Santa Cruz County, Arizona in regards to copyright and importing data. All county GIS data (hosted at https://sccaz-gis.maps.arcgis.com/home/index.html) except parcel data is in the public domain and not copyrighted.

I have created the user SantaCruzCountyAZImport for this import.

From: Bill J. Beaver <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, Feb 15, 2023 at 9:02 AM
Subject: RE: OpenStreetMap and SCC GIS Copyright
To: Galen Asphaug <...>


Hi Galen,

Anything on that site is open data except parcels. To download the data in various formats try our public data share at: https://v953w.app.goo.gl/CtgX

Bill

Bill Beaver | Senior GIS Analyst
Santa Cruz County IT Department
275 Rio Rico Dr. #1
Rio Rico AZ 85648
(520) 375-7786

-----Original Message-----
From: Galen Asphaug <...>
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2023 11:51 PM
To: Bill J. Beaver <[email protected]>
Subject: OpenStreetMap and SCC GIS Copyright

Hello, I hope this message finds you well.

Thank you for making Santa Cruz County GIS data available to the public. My name is Galen Asphaug. I am a contributor to the OpenStreetMap project, a collaborative open project to create a global geodata set freely usable by anyone.

We respect the intellectual property rights of others, and I write to ask if we may use your data. We are interested in reproducing some of the data hosted at https://sccaz-gis.maps.arcgis.com/home/index.html
(specifically: building footprints, addresses, road names and paths, and 'Patagonia Addresses with Businesses' data). This is a fantastic dataset and we appreciate the field work.

Can you please clarify what license (if any) this data is being shared with?

Thank you again for helping to ensure that this data is being used as widely as possible, and to support the general public and local commerce.

Galen Asphaug.

Esta Semana comecei a mapear os cursos dagua no Estado do Parana, para isso estou usando a sobreposição IBGE rios e drenagem. Existem muitas regioes onde os cursos daguas nao haviam sido mapeados, e ou ainda estavam sem nomes.

10 days ago, I wrote an essay about Bing Map Builder and how it could be used to fork the OSM community.

I made a prediction there:

Assume that Bing Map Builder becomes a really decent and good editor and that about a third of the edits happen through Map Builder. Microsoft could then -at some time in the future- decide to let updates from Map Builder flow to Bing Maps first, and only let them flow towards OpenStreetMap at a later time, “to review them for quality”.

It seems that this prediction has become true already (1). In the discussion under my previous entry, people noticed that “no bing accounts appeared anymore” in the new to OSM-listing. Time to re-investigate!

So, what is the behaviour now? I drew a new building, clicked saved and… the building disappeared from my screen. When opening the network console, this network call proved my suspicions. The created data is now sent towards https://bing.com/mapbuilder/changeset/submit and contains the changeset data (and bit of extra information)

… See full entry

As hinted at in my last diary post, I had taken up mapping National Monuments in Ireland using the key ref:IE:nm (as documented in the wiki). I can’t quite remember when I started and how and why, but I think I noticed the numbers in the National Monuments calendar which was kindly sent to me by Jean Farrelly from the National Monuments Service (I presume in recognition of my engagement with them in the shape of reporting possible unknown monuments).

According to ohsome.org, I started on January 20th which happens to be the same day I created the wiki page, makes perfect sense. I “finished” (see TODO below) with Co. Tipperary yesterday.

The first numbers, I added from above mentioned, beautiful calendar (and the 2022 one), but of course, that only gives you roughly 12 per year. (Some beautiful sites are repeatedly presented, apparently.)

… See full entry

been peeing a lot at chipotle recently!

Hoping to get some free time this weekend to map around my neighborhood

1. Pat Metheny, anything jazz/fusion related
2. Nathan Salsburg and related guitar rock
3. Krautrock compilations

(RU)

Сделал несколько объектов в городке Villa Carlos Paz. Здесь практически отсутствует карта автобусной сети местного сообщения. Планирую в ближайшее время создать эту сеть, благо есть местное приложение, содержащее полную информацию обо всех маршрутах и остановках. Если кто-то захочет присоединиться и помочь - пишите, буду только рад сотрудничеству.

(ES)

Realizó varios objetos en la localidad de Villa Carlos Paz. Prácticamente no existe un mapa de la red de autobuses locales. Planeo crear esta red en un futuro cercano, ya que hay una aplicación local que contiene información completa sobre todas las rutas y paradas. Si alguien quiere unirse y ayudar, escriba, solo estaré encantado de cooperar.

Сегодня правил карту по вызову и заметил, что в г. Волжском превалируют номера телефонов вообще код страны )

I have just spent the last 2 months “intensely” making observations around lesser populated areas in WA’s southwest almost solely from the vehicle drivers seat. I then enter that data into OSM ID most afternoons/nights.

The tools;

• Forward looking 8.3MP/4K dashcam 2FPS
• Left facing (270 degrees) old Samsung 8MP phone 0.3FPS
• Left rear facing (225 degs) 1.3MP webcam 1FPS
• The dashcam records audio (my voice) in one minute chunks
• All photos and audio are geo-referenced to their current location
• The Garmin navigation GPS has a current OSM based map, a POI set of all WA stopping places from MRWA and any OSM FixMe’s.

The methods;

Most of the data is by voice prompts that are reviewed afterwards, but a small proportion come from only viewing (mainly) the 270 camera images of shop etc fronts and signs. It is surpising how useful the multiple camera views are.

Voiced items;

… See full entry

About a year ago, I started working as the maintainer of the iD editor for the OSMF. Here’s a short recap of the last year or so and a bit of outlook of what’s lying ahead according to me.

A look back

The year was characterized by the reactivation of processes which had been dormant for a little while before I started:

The tagging schema repository has received regular releases (about one major update every second month on average) after been mostly dormant in the year before. Many of the improvements to the tagging schema came in by various contributors from the community: Thanks to everyone who took part in this, including everyone actively translating on Transifex!

For iD itself, I soon learned that it is better to perform small iterative improvements, rather than tackling big reworks all at once. Therefore, my focus in the last year was primarily on stability, bug fixes and incremental improvements. There were still a few improvements to point out from last year:

• version 2.21 switches the development build system to a more modern system based on esbuild and droped support for Internet Explorer 11
• version 2.22 contains a first step towards making iD understand lifecycle prefixes of tags
• version 2.23 significantly improves startup times, improved input fields in various ways and introduced a few improvements under the hood to manage presets
• version 2.24 adds a remaining input length indicator for fields which are constrained to OSM tags’ maximum length of 255 characters and introduces a new field type for directional tags

A glimpse ahead

Another highlights of the year 2022 was the State of the Map conference in Firenze, where I spoke about the history of the iD editor (in summer 2023, it will celebrate 10 years of being the default editor on osm.org!), and tried to explain what the mid to long term high level goals are which I would like to tackle for iD. I identified five big topics to work on:

… See full entry

I’ve been closely involved with the journey Rapid is on. The first version of Rapid was released in 2019 as the first OSM editor that added machine learning-derived layers you could easily add to OSM in one click: roads from Meta and building footprints from Microsoft. This groundbreaking work enabled efficient, but human powered adding of vetted external data to OSM, and continues to be one of the most widely used methods for doing so. Since the original launch, a collaboration with Esri’s community data program added many additional layers of authoritive data available to add to OSM in the same way.

As government agencies continue to make more data available to OSM through Rapid (around 145 as of now, with hundreds of millions of features), work on version 2 started in early 2022. Developers Ben Clark and Bryan Housel presented the early stages at State of the Map US in Tucson last March, and followed up with a more technical talk about the underlying technology changes at FOSS4G in Firenze. Alpha versions of version 2 have been circulating since then. I have been using these extensively, especially in the past two months. I’ve been barraging Ben and Bryan with bugs and feature requests, as have many others who have participated in the alpha testing phase. A ton of issues have been resolved since the first alpha release, and we’re very happy with where we are with Rapid 2.0. Happy enough to launch version 2 beta today! 🎉

What’s new in Rapid 2.0

If you haven’t used Rapid at all yet, this is a great opportunity to try it for the first time. Many things will feel familiar if you’ve used the built-in editor on openstreetmap.org, but you will also notice small conveniences you won’t find there—or anywhere—like a shortcut to quickly cycle through highway types when you have a way selected, “virtual nodes” that are displayed for polygons with POI tags and improved polygon labeling:

… See full entry

I’ve created a small josm preset for the 2023 Turkey earthquake for use with HOT mapping.

If something is missing go and edit the preset ;)

I’d used the OSM editor for work some time ago, and decided to practice a bit- using my own stomping grounds as the subject material.

I don’t know if any Locals are trying to keep up with the Town’s alterations, but I still haven’t fixed ‘Costumes, Balloons, and Stuff;’ It’s still on the map despite having closed Six and a Half Years Ago. I’ll get it next time. ((Not that I want to. I really miss that place.))

I fixed a few of the nagging sidewalk issues, and some of the more popular buildings and businesses. Remove the demolished bridge, that sort of thing.

That’s it. I just wanted OSM to reflect the local reality.

Rooftop area in Kathmandu Valley. I am interested in estimating the total rooftop area of Kathmandu valley residential homes. It will be helpful in order to estimate the solar PV potential of the valley.

Este post es la traducción del post de Heather Leson en su diario OSM personal.

Nota del editor: Escrito por Heather Leson, Dinar Adiatma y Can Unen.

Tener los datos del mapa lo más actualizados y precisos es crucial para la respuesta de emergencia. La comunidad y los socios de OpenStreetMap crean esto para apoyar a los trabajadores humanitarios. Los datos de OSM se comparten en la plataforma Intercambio de datos humanitarios (HDX) y se utilizan para desarrollar productos de gestión de información (IM) para los responsables de la toma de decisiones que responden a emergencias.

Esta breve nota es para ayudar a los nuevos mapeadores a empezar y fomentar la calidad de los datos. La comunidad turca local, Yer Çizenler y HOTOSM coordinan esta activación. Para Siria, el mapeo es más complejo ya que es una zona de conflicto. HOT está trabajando en estrecha colaboración con los colegas y socios de OSM para evaluar cuidadosamente cualquier tarea HOT en Siria. Como es una zona de conflicto, colaboraremos para garantizar que las contribuciones de OSM al Tasking Manager de HOTOSM no causen daños. Estamos aquí para ayudar a los que ayudan. Sabemos que muchos quieren ayudar. Te pedimos que hables con otros mapeadores para aprender y ayudar a los socorristas respetando las indicaciones locales.

La calidad de los datos es importante en OpenStreetMap (OSM) porque afecta directamente la precisión y la utilidad del mapa. Todos los datos deben ser aptos para su propósito y, para hacerlo, se requiere un esfuerzo. La mala calidad de los datos puede dar lugar a información incorrecta o desactualizada, lo que afecta negativamente a las personas que confían en OSM para la navegación, la planificación y la toma de decisiones. Aprende más aquí.

Contactos: los contactos del coordinador de activación HOT se pueden encontrar en la wiki de OSM.

Mapeadores principiantes

¿Eres nuevo en OSM? Esta es una emergencia compleja y nos complace ayudarte a empezar:

… See full entry

Separating features

• To split a line, select the node, then click on Tools >Split Way (P shortcut). Unglue the node using the shortcut G.

• Buildings tool or Mapathoner plugin: To merge overlapping buildings, join them using shortcut Shift+J (same shortcut for joining node to way).

• To create a circular building, create a line (A), then while it is selected, use Shift+O.

Este post es la traducción del post de Pedrito1414 en su diario OSM personal.

Recibí esta pregunta a través del formulario de comentarios HOT hoy (9/feb). Aquí está mi respuesta en caso de que alguien más quiera saber.

Re: ¿Lo que estoy haciendo realmente está ayudando a alguien en una situación de desastre?

La respuesta corta es sí, creemos que sí: los proyectos del Tasking Manager se crearon en función de las solicitudes de las organizaciones que planean usar los datos.

La respuesta larga es que, inmediatamente después (de un desastre), todo el mundo busca recursos, incluidos datos, pero inicialmente recibimos muy pocos comentarios sobre quién los está usando exactamente.

Las personas y las organizaciones están ocupadas respondiendo. Esta información suele aparecer un poco más tarde y la actualizaremos cuando lo haga. En desastres anteriores, como el terremoto de Haití en 2010, el tifón Yolanda en Filipinas en 2013 y los brotes de ébola en África occidental y central, hemos observado que las agencias encargadas de la respuesta a menudo comienzan a usar los datos del mapa unas semanas después de estar dando respuesta, Luego que la prisa inicial para establecer los conceptos básicos haya pasado. Esto solo es posible si comenzamos temprano, de modo que cuando las agencias los necesiten, los datos realmente existan.

Un dato que tenemos es que las descargas de conjuntos de datos de OSM proporcionados por HOT a través de la plataforma HDX están aumentando. Hay un retraso en los informes (por lo que los últimos números son del 6 de febrero), pero vemos que aumentan. HDX es una fuente de datos clave para el personal de respuesta humanitaria.

… See full entry

First, I want to thank God, the almighty for His blessings and grace always. It’s indeed an honor to represent my beloved country, Sierra Leone and my unique university, Central University SL at the 2023 YouthMappers Leadership Fellowship Summit in Jamaica(Jan 5-12,2023)

Being certified as 2023 YouthMappers Leadership Fellow is something that has inspired me more. The 2023 YouthMappers summit helped me explore in different important areas. I was opportuned to learn about leadership, equity and inclusion and climate change and resilience and geospatial mapping tools and softwares.

Special thanks to YouthMappers,the organizers and our sponsors USAID, Texas Tech University, Arizona University, George Washington University and West Virginia University. We are grateful for the support and knowledge impacted.

Special thanks also to the Openstreet Map Team,Sierra Leone and the YouthMappers Regional Ambassador Sierra Leone for the guidance and mentoring.

A big thank you to Central University Management and my hardworking team, Central University YouthMappers. I am proud to be a Centralist. Thanks to my family and friends for the support. I am blessed to have you all. I am always grateful to you all.

YouthMappers

#ymsummit2023 #Openstreetmap #EverywhereSheMap #centraluniversityyouthmappers