From a Data Working Group perspective it’d be good to know what the various communities think about this, especially which languages and which dialects are actually in use where. With a DWG hat on I’ve occasionally had to fix issues here (such as when someone has set all language values on something to one value).

Regards,

Andy (from the DWG)

I can understand how frustrating this must be.

I wonder if it might be possible to get in touch with the person telling these “#WARedCrossers” what and how to map? Maybe asking “take me to your leader” a few times in changeset discussion comments might get an answer to that? It’s difficult being too critical in changeset comments when these are people who are (a) new mappers (b) probably just doing what they’ve been told to and (c) are probably a bunch of college kids trying to do something positive for the rest of the world, but maybe we could find out who’s organising the work.

If you need to Data Working Group to get involved (by e.g. sending them messages that they have to read before continuing to edit) let us know.

Best Regards,

Andy, from the DWG.

A restriction at the API level, even if technically possible, would be a bit of a blunt instrument and can’t easily explain to a user what they need to do to resolve their problem.

As stragu mentioned above, you can identify problem changesets via OsmCha. I’ve not checked all possible values, but can’t see any obvious recent problems. If anyone finds a user still using an old version and creating problem data please create a ticket with the DWG (via email or the report button) so that we can explain the problem to them and help them to upgrade.

There certainly are problems in the data still, and some of them aren’t easily fixable (for example, the v1 of osm.org/node/7389230651/history was via the problem version so there’s no way of knowing where that well really is). Some of the node moves will be fixable though - if anyone needs any help identifying problems and undoing problem node moves please ask.

Best Regards,

Andy (from the DWG)

It still doesn’t work. You’ve linked to https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/kaxtillo/diary/youtu.be/MyNaiOE4M3k and I suspect you intended to link to youtube directly.

Excellent stuff - a proper challenge for anyone to walk!

where do you decide to draw the line on tag value usages (e.g. the 12 Temporarily closed and 10 Closed usages might also quality for this rendering),

It’s the usual “80/20 rule” - the first page of .uk values covers >1000 of the 1200 .uk usages, which is the vast majority of them. The 4 .uk “Closed” and 1 “CLOSED” are probably worth changing to “closed” (along with a polite comment on the previous changeset).

I haven’t yet looked at a .ie taginfo but I’d be surprised if I saw significant usage of a different spelling.

As to exactly what “closed; by appointment only” means I’ve no idea! Currently I ignore other values so they will default to appearing as “still open”, which is probably for the best. It’s also worth mentioning that I’d expect many of these values in OSM to be out of date already simply because many places are reopening if they can or closing because they have to. The example that I was going to pick for “definitely still closed because there’s no way they can reopen right now with that venue” was open (ish) on Saturday (warning - Facebook link) but alas it isn’t permanent.

Essentially, there needs to be some way to bring important infrastructure parts back into active maintenance.

In response to that I’d ask “What’s broken? What actually needs fixing?” In some cases it might be something external that’s changing (as is happening with Potlatch2) but in the case of mod_tile is that actually true?

My recollection of https://github.com/openstreetmap/mod_tile/pull/152 was that it was part of a discussion about whether what role OSMF and osm.org should play (should osm.org “compete with google” itself, or should it enable others to do so - my apologies in advance if I’m oversimplifying that; look at the board election manifestos from around that date for more background).

It’s true that the lack of an active maintainer means that things like https://github.com/openstreetmap/mod_tile/pull/168/files get ignored, which is a shame. Separately I’ve seen https://github.com/SomeoneElseOSM/mod_tile/pull/4 (which at some point will need looking at).

How do you handle the offsets between “detected features” and reality? When I last looked at RapiD the imagery used seemed to be the one with the worst offset of the ones available to OSM editors. Usually when adding anything to OSM I’ll align based on a mix of imagery, GPS traces (especially where there are lots of them) and other sources - OS OpenData StreetView can be good for this in the UK.

There’s also the problem of detecting “features that are not features” - my last quick test found lots of detected “service roads” in Mansfield that were either not really useful to map, weren’t really service roads (and were all offset from reality). This is a little unfair- in that area all the real roads have been added so anything “new” detected is obviously going to be rubbish; if used somewhere where there are real major roads to detect that wouldn’t be the case (although as various OSM communities have found to their cost human checking of each piece of data as it is added is still very much needed).

Are you perhaps trying to reply to osm.org/user_blocks/3794 ?

That’s just a message to let you know that lots of people have commented on your changesets. You can see these at http://resultmaps.neis-one.org/osm-discussion-comments?uid=8689197 . To reply to each one, click in the comment box on the changeset, type in your reply, and click “comment”.

Best Regards,

Andy Townsend, from OSM’s Data Working Group.

PS: As the other message says, if you have any questions, you can email us at data@osmfoundation.org .

There’s now an entry on the OSMF blog with all the links here.

See osm.wiki/Sandbox_for_editing#Experiment_with_the_API_.28advanced.29 .

I can hide it if you want (moderators normally only do that for spammers).

What would also be excellent would be if you could reply to some of the questions that other mappers have asked you at http://resultmaps.neis-one.org/osm-discussion-comments?uid=10474167 .

Best Regards,

Andy

Sarebbe anche eccellente se tu potessi rispondere ad alcune delle domande che altri mappatori ti hanno posto su http://resultmaps.neis-one.org/osm-discussion-comments?uid=10474167.

I migliori saluti,

Andy

Okay I know it’s a hurting truth as China’s army is currently occupying at some islands.

As set out in https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/w/images/d/d8/DisputedTerritoriesInformation.pdf , the “on the ground” situation is what you’ll see reflected in the OSM “standard” map tiles.

We just want people to know there is a conflict there.

As I’ve said above - the data already reflects this.

But I don’t want any people looking at the map and say “oh it’s Chinese” because after a long long period that thinking may become the truth regarding how hard we’re fighting.

I wouldn’t describe “vandalising a shared international resource” or “sending messages full of expletives to people” as “fighting”, personally. If you want to do something constructive, I’d suggest (in the order of “simple” to “more difficult”):

• Use an existing map or app that shows things in your preferred language

• Create a map of the area that shows the names that you want people to see and make that available to people. Lots of information already exists about how to do this, including links from here.

• Help create a solution by which tiles from OpenStreetMap.org can show different languages to users in different locations. That isn’t possible right now, and would be a major technical change. Also for some people it would not be desirable - a number of people have expressed a wish for OSM to continue to show on-the-ground control only, and not to reflect unmappable claims - see the comments here.

But didn’t you revert those Vietnamese edit to @NM$L edit (Sansha in Chinese or Tam Sa or Vietnames) yesterday?

Actually, no. The reverted edits were mostly just vandalism (deleting data, writing obscenities, removing names in some langages). 3 edits by NM$L were made in the area in the last 3 weeks or so; Iv’e commented on one of them osm.org/changeset/82702598

So that means any edit from Vietnam to these areas will not be consider.

No - constructive edits, that try and better reflect the situation on the ground, are welcome from anywhere. Mass deletions and sending lists of obscenities to people (which you yourself have done) are not.

And by “mark” these areas as non-English languages OSM is telling to the world that these areas belong to those Countries. Because any normal human when they saw a map that have a local language on it, I am sure 99% they can tell what country this area belong to.

When it comes to places where people live and work, English has no special status as a language within OSM. We try and use local languages where possible. There are a few exceptions - The Indian OSM community uses English placenames in the “name” tag, and some countries with multiple languages have opted to use combinations of thise languages in names (e.g. Belgium). In each case though it’s a decision of the people that live there, not the decision of a claiming country.

So Why don’t OSM (I say OSM cause we can’t edit these ares :) ) ‘just’ display there areas in English ?

As I’ve already said, if you’d like the rules that the tiles that you see at OpenStreetMap.org by default use to change then raise that at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues - but any suggestion will need to be practical and scalable.

“OSM” does not “ mark these areas” by any name - English, Vietnamese or Chinese. All of these names will be available in the data, and it’s up to people creating maps to decide which to use.

If you’d like the rules that the tiles that you see at OpenStreetMap.org by default use to change then raise that at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues - but any suggestion will need to be practical and scalable. Currently, as noted in https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/w/images/d/d8/DisputedTerritoriesInformation.pdf , the language that you’ll actually need to use on the ground is the one used. Google Maps isn’t a direct comparison here because it actually gives a different result depending on where you access it from. The maps that you see at OpenStreetMap don’t do this, and in any case aren’t designed as a “service” to be used by allcomers in the same way.

Lots of options exist for showing names in different languages - if you’d like to use OSM data to create one showing your desired names and country boundaries you are welcome to do so, and plenty of people already have.

Various mappers have over the years tried to have OSM represent their country’s (and their country’s alone) claim to these islands. The wikipedia article that you linked to for the Paracels notes 3 claims and says “Administered by People’s Republic of China”. The Spratlys are more complicated, with apparently 5 different occupying powers of bits of the archipelago.

I’m aware that a post-COVID-19 campaign has been whipped up by the Vietnamese press (see here for example). This isn’t relevant to OSM.

OpenStreetMap has historically represented disputed boundaries with a “disputed” tag, and that tag is already present on the main Paracels boundary. By all means try and work with the rest of the OSM community towards a better representation of disputed areas. Last year one was proposed but was rejected largely because it was just too complicated.

If you’d like to engage with other mappers and try and work forward to a solution please do so. Like COVID-19, only an international solution will work. However, sending expletive-ridden OSM messages to people and writing (now hidden by us) expletive-filled diary entries will only suggest to people that you are not worthy of trying to have a conversation with.

Best Regards,

Andy Townsend, on behalf of OSM’s Data Working Group

@Jason_Brown - you always have the option to edit diary entries, so at any stage you could have removed you expletive-laden rant. You didn’t do this, so someone has hidden it. The advice that I gave at osm.org/changeset/83634605 still stands - please do follow it.

I’d suggest talking having a chat with people at https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au - the various licences and waivers from potential government sources get discussed there quite a bit.

Who have you asked?