It is one year since I was elected to OSMF board.

I am recording time spend on some things, including time spend on things resulting from being on OSMF board.

So I can report that since 2022-12-09 it was 355 hours.

It records time spend on what I do as result of being on OSMF board. So it excludes for example time spend on mapping and StreetComplete development. And it includes time on some things that I could complete without being on OSMF board like some attribution-related activities - that I do as result of being on OSMF board.

I have seen on tagging mailing list and some other places claims that deprecated tagging schemes continuing to be used are a critical issue.

I also have seen claims that having two tags with the same meaning is a critical issue that cause very big problems.

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In my experience as mapper, someone working on OSM editors, someone working with OSM data:

Deprecated tagging schemes continuing to be used are not a big problem or a serious issue.

There are some tags that should be never used ( class:bicycle=* is a good example of something that is pure waste of time, see for example https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/issues/2210#issuecomment-726974964 ).

But pointless tags can be completely ignored if they are truly bad ideas.

Note that popular tag which is not fundamentally bad idea and someone wishes to get rid of them is just regular duplicated tag for basically all purposes.

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Duplicated tags with the same meaning.

For data consumer it is not a big issue. It is a bit annoying, but as long as new tags do not keep appearing then simple alias solves approximately all the problems.

It can be described as a problem but is definitely not in top 10 issues for data consumer. Maybe not even in top 50.

And is basically eliminated by decent documentation, if one exists at OSM Wiki.

For implementing it in editor - it depends on an exact case and definitely can be annoying.

But the worst part is case when group A demands to deprecate one tag, and group B demands to deprecate tag B. Or when one group accuses someone of being destructive because they followed documentation/consensus that documented some tag as deprecated/not deprecated and situation suddenly changed and another group appeared.

Overall this is quite ironic: people wishing to deprecate, rename, change tags often argue to be doing it to help data consumers.

… See full entry

osm.wiki/Editor_usage_stats has some interesting parts for 2021

• iD use continues to increase by percent (both edited objects and distinct users)
• iD by number of distinct users dropped from all-time-height in 2021
  • end of lockdowns? OSM slowing down? 2018 to 2019 also dropped, this year JOSM edit volume went from 996 million to 905 million edits
• JOSM still used for over 50% of all contributed edits by objects
• StreetComplete is the second most popular editor (by number of distinct users), usage almost doubled
• StreetComplete is still almost not noticeable by edited object volume - 0.8%
  • but last year it was 0.3%, it tripled to 12 million edits
• failed import and its revert is the second most popular editor, by count of edited objects
  • 1.5% of all edits in 2021
  • https://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?pid=760818#p760818 is an example of what was imported
• new editors: Organic Maps
  • ok, “new” as it is MAPS.ME fork
  • and that failed Finland forest import
• MAPS.ME continues to die, also as an OSM editor

StreetComplete is an application allowing to contribute to OSM by answering simple question. It makes possible to contribute without learning about tagging schemes and without learning how to handle interface of more general editor like JOSM, iD or Vespucci.

I contributed to StreetComplete in past. Recently I received a grant that will allow me to spend more time on improving it.

Grant is funded by a NLnet as part of NGI Zero grants. StretComplete grant is mentioned by NLnet at https://nlnet.nl/thema/NGIZeroDiscovery.html and https://nlnet.nl/project/StreetComplete/ pages. It will allow me to spend far more time on improving StreetComplete.

I will participate in project as usual, sending pull requests that will be reviewed and accepted (or rejected) by StreetComplete author, Tobias Zwick and minor changes commited directly (and still subject as review).

Note that I selected topics of work to be done (based mostly on open issues on the bug tracker) on my own, and it was accepted without any requested changes. I am sole beneficiary of the grant.

Total grant will depend on how much I will manage to do before deadline.

See @Mateusz%20Konieczny/diary/368849 for earlier, very similar entry.

I created osm.wiki/NLnet and submitted it OSM weekly as it seems to me that other OSM projects also may be funded.

I made https://mapsaregreat.com/osm_to_svg_in_browser/ that can be used to generate vector maps in SVG format.

Generated maps can be downloaded. This allows much easier reuse of OSM data in some cases. For example where someone needs OSM geometries of relatively small area, but existing tools are too complex for them[0]

It will likely work well for tiny and small areas, it will definitely fail for very large areas.

It is very experimental, feedback is welcomed!

https://github.com/matkoniecz/lunar_assembler/issues has list of known issues and is best place to report existing issues, but feel free to simply leave comments also here.

I am also working on making easier to make own map styles. It is already relatively easy, but documentation is missing.

[0] For many people Overpass Turbo, databases, filtering OSM data will be far too complex.

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… See full entry

StreetComplete is an application allowing to contribute to OSM by answering simple question. It makes possible to contribute without learning about tagging schemes and without learning how to handle interface of more general editor like JOSM, iD or Vespucci.

I contributed to StreetComplete in past. Recently I received a grant that will allow me to spend more time on improving it.

Grant is funded by a NLnet as part of NGI Zero grants. StretComplete grant is mentioned by NLnet at https://nlnet.nl/thema/NGIZeroDiscovery.html and https://nlnet.nl/project/StreetComplete/ pages. It will allow me to spend far more time on improving StreetComplete.

I will participate in project as usual, sending pull requests that will be reviewed and accepted (or rejected) by StreetComplete author, Tobias Zwick.

Note that I selected topics of work to be done (based mostly on open issues on the bug tracker) and that Tobias who will review pull requests remains completely independent - I am sole beneficiary of the grant.

Total grant was 5000 euro.

I have written a short text about what people are doing in OSM. I am curious whatever others would use the same taxonomy.

OpenStreetMap is a large decentralised project. There are thousands of people who participate for various reasons.

Mappers, people mapping the world are the most important group. They collect various information and enter it into the OpenStreetMap database - for example location of playgrounds, shapes of forests, routes of hiking trails, street names and many more.

But to make it possible it is necessary to maintain various software and hardware. It includes creating and improving editor programs used by mappers, maintaining OpenStreetMap servers and website.

… See full entry