Map contributions isn’t essential but this post does focus on that and so that gives people the ability to take it into account. As a voter, it is your choice how much you take map contributions into account. For one, you could consider it difficult to understand how people map, or how to get more people mapping, if you don’t do it yourself.

I don’t think being a new comer alone is a reason to discount a candidate. Relative new comers are great as they have fresh energy and recent views about the community and the organisations. If a voter wants the OSM US board to grow the community, then they should look at people who have been new in the current season and journeyed to being really enthusiastic enough to join. However, if the candidate has only made the odd edit, not been to any meetups, and the candidate pledges to do those things when they are elected then I wonder why they are not doing them now instead of running for the board. Maybe they just want to get on the board for their CV/resume. Maybe being on the OSM US board will support their election to some other board.

On the contrast, those that have not made an edit in several months or years. I wonder, have they not been using OpenStreetMap in the daily lives, showing friends, or even in work? Have they really not noticed anything wrong or out of date on OpenStreetMap? Who do they expect to update it, if not themselves?

Also, I think it needs to be broken down into countries to be of any interest. Certain countries that have had big data imports (USA, Netherlands, etc) will skew the data greatly because all the imported ways will have tags relevant to the import source.

I think the difference of communication method/network is a good thing. The Missing Maps project is reaching a different crowd. Where OpenStreetMap has traditionally worked for pub-loving tech-geeks that love mailing lists or wikis, a whole majority of flower-wearing social-hipsters are now being reached.

Obviously there should be some over lap, especially to aid the teaching/learning, so it would be good if the organisers made an effort to contact the existing local OSM community. My view in London is that it worked better because some of the main Missing Map organisers attended the local pub meetups first (and still do). A few of the OSM-veterans have been attending, but that is not essential and the geeky pub meetup is still preferred event for most of them.

Missing Maps have a mailing list, which I joined (I think via typing on someone’s computer at the London November event). However I didn’t get any knowledge of the Edinburgh event through that.

If you want photos of happy mappers, my album based around SotM EU 2014 is a recent start: https://plus.google.com/photos/116770644863987558390/albums/6027870245083438801

Some of them include selfies. I travelled by Bus, Ferry, Coach, Train, Funicular, Foot, Tram, Car, Bicycle, and tried to take a selfie photo on every mode but haven’t uploaded all the images as I thought it more fun to make an animated gif (but I haven’t done that yet).

Thank you for your help in GB. It would be nice if your change sets were a little smaller, one covered 3 cities and several towns.

When I looked at OSB earlier this month, a lot were marking discrepancies in names with Ordnance Survey Locator data or they were housing developments that need watching. That means they really need on-the-ground checking. Currently it’s very wet so my cycling-distance is limited. I manually moved some OSBs to Notes.

That’s about 70% of the people registered for the conference.

It also depends on if the oompah loompahs like you and/or believe that the road has really changed.

You and your OpenStreetMap App Award idea were mentioned in the SotM planning meeting last night. Probably more discussion on it to follow later.

Welcome to OpenStreetMap!

Someone in the photo turned up early for Operation Cowboy!

Circular routing sounds great. I’d also point people to the Research wiki page. At least put a stubb to say you’re doing something. Feel free to look for ideas and contact people who have done similar stuff. osm.wiki/Research

Where is your jolly face in the 1st photo Harry? Are you holding in the sobbing. Also, how do you get a phone call in the pub if you don’t have your phone?

There are a lot of disjoined red lines. Steps?

There is a skill to cycling and taking photos without stopping.

Welcome! It looks like you’ve been making lots of contributions already, and around Frink Park looks like good detail.

I’ve seen these sprinklers where the centre is fixed but it moves round, as I fly over other countries. Very noticeable from the air, as all the fields are round or an arc! But we don’t want to get into mapping tractors.

I’m for mapping it with landuse=farmland, irrigated=yes. Maybe irragation_type=sprinkler_arm (or something) if you must.

From mapping each field as a farmland then the shapes will distinct which seems to be what you want.

Wow, that’s a lot of detail. Now you can map house numbers and rubbish bins. ;)

That’s terrible… the bot didn’t change Stanley Ave.

It might just be out of date and hasn’t triggered to be rerendered. There is a trick you can do to make it rerender, mark the tile as dirty by reading these instructions. osm.wiki/Slippy_Map#Mapnik_tile_rendering

Rendering is the process of turning the vector data into raster image tiles. Image tiles look nicer and are easier to load lots of for lots of people, so much more suitable for the ‘view’ map.

When changes are made, the area should be rendered again. Sometimes that can take up to 2 hours, or a day in unusual circumstances. If it doesn’t get put in the list to rerender, then it will do it if you look at the area at least 7 days later. There is also the possibility that your browser is caching the images.

What code do you mean?

You may want to investigate/try using JOSM, which is an offline editor osm.wiki/Josm

Upload changes frequently though to avoid conflicts!

If you have problems uploading with JOSM, save it as a file for uploading later.

Good timing for you to attend pre-conference drinks! http://www.stateofthemap.org/pre-conference-drinks-september-5th/