@martien-vdg - Yes I’m well aware of the site. I include it in every welcome message I send to new users in my State. I should have also recommended it to @kate. I’ve also asked Frans Schultz for permission to modify his OSMCha Concepts for the Welcome Tool.

About your comment that iD should validate unsquare buildings. I also mentioned it to the developers. It was my number one suggestion to new mappers. See my diary entry at osm.org/user/Glassman/diary/395633. I plan to follow up when there is a replacement for Quincy.

Kate, a.k.a. Kicking Leaves, have you looked at the information available on https://teachosm.org? I recommend new users visit this site. I’d be interested in hearing what your opinion is of the site.

Clifford aka Glassman

@martien-vdg, It’s pretty much all done manually. To see how many users I welcomed I manually county the number of messages sent.

For the comments I do have a database table from the planet with comments. I can find those with a simple query. However the tips summary is again manual calculated from the query results.

I just switched to using the new OSM Welcome Tool. The tool has links to OSMCha. At some point I hope we can insert canned tips via the OSMCha tool which could then easily be counted. But until the iD developers show more interest in adding more validation warnings it doesn’t warrant the OSMCha development.

I look at a lot of new mappers first edits while I welcome new mappers in my state. I see a lot of great first edits and some that will certainly improve as they get more comfortable with the tools and how to find information. I do agree with you that there are come common errors that could be reduced.

HOW

• I’m a firm believer that we should first look at improving our editing tools. As great as iD is, there is room for improvement. Published in my diary entry are a list of tips I’ve given new mappers. First on the list is to square buildings. It would be great of iD would warn new user that the building isn’t square. Check out the list to see what you think could be flagged to the user.

• Users can skip the built in tutorial iD offers. Maybe it should be mandatory for any new user with no edits. It might be too much if a user just wants to add a phone number or address so maybe we need another tools for those users.

• Welcome new users with a message full of helpful information. That along with providing helpful tips on their first edits. While it doesn’t help with their first edits, it will help with subsequent ones. A good way to start is to start welcoming new mappers in your geographical area. Just go to the new Welcome Tool and read the instructions on how to have your area added.

Thanks for all your hard work. Averaging over 100 message a month is a lot of work. There is some indications that welcoming new users help retain a percentage of them that otherwise wouldn’t stick around. A researcher suggested I do a a/b study to confirm that it does retain mappers. Me I’d rather just welcome everyone I can instead of proving some theorem.

Good luck welcoming your next 10,000 new users.

Clifford

Bryce - thanks for all the work you done on GoMap!! over the years. Because of your app, I now own an iPad, just for mapping. By far, GoMap!! is the easiest to use of the mobile apps to use for mapping.

And thanks to your continued support for OpenStreetMap Seattle.

Clifford

Paths that exist but should not exist according to the landowner

In a wilderness like area having these trail can be helpful for search and rescue efforts and should remain. Your tagging suggestion is appropriate.

Paths that exist but illegally travers culturally sensitive areas

I’ve seen these in Washington State and suspect they are elsewhere. They should be removed. The key is they are illegal.

I’ve been adding parking lots lately but haven’t gotten around to micromapping individual spaces. Maybe once I get done with the parking lots I’ll tackle individual spaces. How do you use the building tools to mapping parking spaces - do you change the tags associated with the object the tools creates?

Tip: to add an image in the diary use ![description of image](url of image)

For example,![Seesaw](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/images/0/07/Seesaw_3.png) becomes

Best, Clifford

Figure 2 looks like it is mislabeled.

@spiregrain the bing Streetside plugin doesn’t work on my linux. I’m running Fedora 33 with OpenJDK. I usually just open Bing in another window.

On the plugin repository, they state: “The MicrosoftStreetside plugin used JavaFX to implement the Streetside 360 degree viewer JavaFX, which, while bundled in the Oracle Java SE 1.8, is not an official part of the Java SE 1.8 specification, and may not function properly with alternative JDKs (e.g. OpenJDK is not currently supported). JavaFX is licensed under the same terms as Java SE.”

There is an open issue requesting support for JavaFX under OpenJDK.

Leigh,

Thanks for you work. I passed your OSM Queries website to the OSM US Slack so more people can take advantage of all your hard work.

Best,

Clifford

Congratulations to the Community Teams. I look forward to hearing what you learned and how it can help the Local Chapters and Communities Working Group.

Impressive!!

Jikka,

Welcome to OpenStreetMap. I like your suggestions. I’d also add a don’t be afraid to ask for help. Of course know where to ask for help is difficult for #newbies. I’d encourage to start a discussion in your community to set up a committee to welcome new mappers. This way new mappers can be shown the best place to ask for help and become members of the local community. The Belgium and Italy communities are using software to help with the process and are happy to share. As a member of the Local Chapters and Communities Working Group, I know we would be happy to help.

Stay safe,

Clifford

Geoffrey - I believe that the LCCWG can learn from your experiences building communities. Let’s make it part of our monthly meeting so we can share what works and what doesn’t with the broader community.

Clifford

Congratulations Russ and thank you for all the help you given me over the years.

I can’t wait to see what the next 10 years brings. Besides a much older me :)

Clifford

I noticed one of the mappers added a bunch of houses in the last hour. See https://osmcha.org/changesets/91480916 for the first of five edits tonight. They look good but the imagery is from before the fires.

Welcome to OpenStreetMap. When you are ready to start mapping, I recommend mapping what you know best - usually your own neighborhood, restaurants, pubs, parks, and other areas you know well.

I encourage you to join our Slack community. Plenty of friendly people that will help answer your questions.

Did you know that OSM is one of the largest nearly all volunteer organizations? There are millions of volunteer contributors but only a handful of paid staff. We have an assistant to help the OpenStreetMap Foundation, the US Chapter has an Executive Director and we just hired our first developer and soon will be adding a IT person. There may be others but I’m not aware of them.

Clifford AKA Glassman

Easy link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyNaiOE4M3

Welcome to OSM. I love it when people improve their local area. There is plenty to do, from buildings, businesses, sidewalks, trails, benches, parks, playgrounds, and the list goes on. My recommendation - do what you like to do. Just this week I met a person that was paid to map in OSM. He couldn’t stand it. As I explained the difference is I map what I want and when I want.

Can you tell us how you found OSM and what you like about it?

I should also mention RapiD. RapiD has building footprints provided by Microsoft that can easily be added to OSM. Personally I like to merge single address nodes with the building outline.

If you haven’t been invited to the OSM US community’s Slack then please join us at slack.openstreetmap.us. Great place to get help and help others.

Best,

Clifford AKA Glassman