@Pieter Vander Vennet Check out AccessMap.app. It routes via elevators inside of buildings. For example, in downtown Seattle, where the streets are steep, as well as at light rail stations.

It is a shame that the mall doesn’t have elevators for people with mobility issues.

I’ve been mapping sidewalks as separate ways for some time. I got started after working with the University of Washington Taskar Center Accessible Technology. The Taskar center even has a great map tool, AccessMap.app. It likely because the Taskar Center is located in Seattle that they created such a great map tool. Seattle is a very hilly city. So AccessMap.app will even direct wheelchair users to elevators during opening hours.

If you get Regina sidewalks map, let the Taskar Center know so they can add your city to their map.

OSM US is also has a Pedestrian Working Group. We hope to have a sidewalk map done in the near future.

The NeisBot account of Pascal Neis seems to be identifying SEO edits. Having a tools that could accurately flag SEO edits that are being done without following the Organized Editing Guidelines would be nice. Then those edits could be reverted until the SEO complies with our requirements. For now, I’d be happy if someone could identify those SEO edits that use a user name similar to the company being added so they could be reverted.

Is there a publication that SEO firms read? We could write an article explaining how we plan to revert any unauthorized SEO edit will just be reverted. I used to know someone who worked for an SEO in Seattle, but that was so long ago that the contact info is lost.

Wow - amazing work. I struggled just working in a small area in Washington State. (just to the south of Vancouver Island to those not familiar.) Like you, I noticed the impact on my fingers.

Last I read there are just a few glaciers left on Vancouver Island. Did you map any of those? Other than glaciers at higher elevations, like those in the Cascade Mountain Range, did you notice if they are significantly smaller than what government data sets show?

You might want to include adding stop signs if missing and if there are tactile pads.

Your vector tiles project is set to become one of the best major improvements to OpenStreetMap. As @Minh said - excitement is an understatement.

Keep up the great work.

@mycota - are you in Arizona? I spent some time in Tucson. My contacts with the county GIS were unproductive.

I would recommend getting to know your local city/county GIS department. When I started mapping I didn’t know anyone, but now I’m good friends with a number of them. And tomorrow I’m going to the local GIS breakfast. I say this because they can make waivers to use their data in OSM.

Snohomish County data is in the public domain - except when it includes personal information, such as assessor records. Since personal data isn’t appropriate for OSM it shouldn’t be used. The rest of the data is in the public domain.

Thanks for posting on mapping streams and wetlands. I’m in the county just north of Snohomish and plan to figure out how to map wetlands. The stream data from the state/county is good, but the wetlands could use more work. There are a number around me that the state hasn’t identified.

BTW - a few years ago I worked with Marysville GIS department to map buildings and addresses. I’m sure it needs updating with all the new developments. If you are interested I can try to find the name of the person from the city I worked with.

Melody Ovard is in the county’s GIS department and has been very helpful. The Snohomish County GIS manager comes to a lot of GIS events in the area.

Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

Clifford

Hawa, Thanks for posting your wonderful OpenStreetMap story. And to my friend Geoffrey - thanks for your inspiration.

I started out mapping sidewalks as a road attribute but discovered that it doesn’t work for sidewalk routing. Mapping sidewalks as separate footways solves that problem. While OSM may have started mapping roads, there is a portion of the population that uses footways to get around. This is especially important for people with limited mobility. Knowing where kerb cuts exits is very important to people with limited mobility. Mapping footways as separate footways solves that problem.

Plus - trying to route yourself on Google. If there are stair involved, Google fails miserably. Probably because there is no money to be made. OSM solves that problem.

Mapping footways as separate ways is more difficult, but it does pay off in the end.

Check out osm.wiki/Sidewalks

Happy Mapping,

One easy method of finding SEO Spam is to review new users contributions. Since the main culprits seem to limit their changesets to one or two, they show up as a new users. Around me, they show up with a changeset comment of updated and have a username much like the business being added. I would encourage everyone to start welcoming new users in their area using the Welcome tool.

I would also like to thank user_53959 for their world wide work of cleaning up SEO Spam.

When the changeset has many errors, I usually just revert the edit. Otherwise I try to fix minor issues.

Over the years I’ve tried contacting businesses to find out who is adding their business to OSM. So far no luck.

Wille,

I want to thank you and the rest of the developers that work on OSMCha. It has been my goto tool for years.

I look forward to seeing the new features you and your team develop.

Best,

Clifford

I started answering the survey but discovered that most of the answers are open-ended questions. I would recommend, if you didn’t already do so, that you conduct a forum to help create mostly closed-ended questions. Open-ended questions are great for getting detail but limit analytical abilities. Tools like Telegram or Slack are great for conducting forums to gather your initial data to create more closed-end questions.

This is an important topic which I hope gets plenty of attention.

Best,

Clifford

You can see the bounding box of your edits by looking at your history. Just go to your profile and click on my edits. Link below to speed the process.

osm.org/user/brandisbrandisbrand/history

One edit appears to cover a wide area but the rest look good.

Wow - the work they did looks great. They are welcome to improve coastlines around me.

Disclaimer, while I know some of the Apple team members, I’m not involved in their work, which they wouldn’t tell me about anyway.

For those wondering about the proposed change to the bylaws the wiki reads

Vote on OpenStreetMap US Bylaws Changes

This year members will vote again on an amendment to the OpenStreetMap US Bylaws. This amendment would extend the board term to 2 years instead of 1 and introduce the ability to staggered terms of service. This change is being proposed for the following reasons:

Establishing term limits and staggered terms provides a better balance and continuity of board members Term limits also give boards the chance to give those hard working board members a mandatory ‘vacation’ Two-year terms give board members more time to grow into their roles, leading to longer institutional memory and continuity of leadership Amendments to the Bylaws require approval by two-thirds (⅔) majority vote of a minimum of fifty percent (50%) of all members in good standing having voted, so please vote!

In the previous two elections, the two proposals had well over the ⅔ majority support that was required, but they did not achieve the 50% turnout of the OSM US membership in order to pass.

Hey @pedrito1414, I fully agree with you that it’s the project manager who decides on the hashtags. I was just trying to point out that the mappers are just using the hashtags that TM provides regardless of how they got there. I’m more than happy with just the project id that can be looked up on TM to see what is supposed to be mapped. Same with imports - if they just entered the wiki import page then I’m happy. I do think some of the projects have too many hashtags. Like I said, I’m happy with just the project number better yet would be a link to the project but the hashtag makes searching easier.

I am glad to hear that the project managers are supposed to contact the community. Are there suggestions of where to post such as mailing lists, Telegram, Discord, HOT Slack, forums, etc?

I agree that hashtags alone don’t tell the what the user did. But the mapper isn’t adding the hashtags, the Tasking Manager is. I’d suggest working with the HOT team to discuss alternatives. For one I’d like to see a quick link from the changeset comment back to the project they worked.

I know that I don’t like unannounced mass imports or bot changes in my area. I suspect you might feel the same way about Tasking Manager projects in Ghana. Why don’t project managers have to discuss planned tasks with the local community?

I do believe hashtags can be useful. For one thing I discovered that so far this year over 50,000 new mappers contributed to HOT projects. That couldn’t be done without some sort of unique identifier in the changeset comment.

Best,

Clifford

Check out the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) available on both iD and JOSM. While NAIP isn’t the highest resolution it will show that you are fairly close.