What I did in OpenStreetMap in November 2021

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Hi 👋, I’m Amanda McCann, I’m an current OSMF Board Member, and I’d like you to vote №1 to re-elect me to the OSMF Board. 🙂 Here’s my manifesto.

So who am I?

I’m a (craft) mapper. I’ve loved maps for a long time, and hence was drawn to OSM. I try to edit every day, and I’m doing pretty well that way. hdyc tells me I have mapped 2,700 days. For the last several years, I have mapped for 300+ days per year. I love the term “craft mapper”. I view my mapping contributors to OSM with pride, like a craftsperson of old would look at their work.

We must remember what’s important. If you don’t like maps, what are you even doing here? A board member that keeps mapping will be more aware of what most OSMers are experiencing, and will have insight into what is important, what’s easy, what’s hard, for lots of OSMers. That will make them a better OSMF Board members. OTOH I do lots of contributions which cannot be included in my OSM edit count.

I’m a hacker. I’ve been using linux for 15+ years. I’m a free software programmer. Computers & the internet are wonderful tools for the good in the world. We can use them to make our lives & our society better. You should be able to understand the computing machines around you, and to control them and make them better. In my day job I’m a regular sysadmin for the small OSM consultancy company Geofabrik, so I’ve installed lots of OpenStreetMap software & map styles. I’m pretty good at writing bash scripts, and I can write long PostgreSQL queries to work with your OSM data.

I’m a queer trans woman. I came out as trans & transitioned in mid-2021. (So you might see references to my old name, which started with “R”). Everyone in OSM has been wonderfully supportive about this. Honestly, it’s surreal how anti-climactic it has been in the OSM space. OSM is pretty cool. I founded the RainbOSM telegram group. for LGBTQ+ people & allies in OSM. I guess sometimes OSMers can adjust to a new tagging scheme quickly.

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What I did in OpenStreetMap in October 2021

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What I did in OpenStreetMap in September 2021

(I was on holidays for a few weeks in September)

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What I did in OpenStreetMap in August 2021

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What I did in OpenStreetMap in July 2021

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• Over the course of June, I came out 🏳️‍⚧️. 😊😊 Everyone’s been really great about it. In OSM, we map things as they really are, regardless of how they were used in the past, or what the government assigned it at the start. But, you know how much work is involved in deprecating a previously used tagging scheme. You need to find all data users, and update them to the new scheme.

• CWG
  • Promotation Material Programme
  • posted envelope to DE, UK × 2, CA
• Debugged an issue why someone couldn’t post to the diversity-talk@ list (which I co-mod)
• OSMF Board
  • Possible relocation of OSMF from the UK
    • Ireland?
      • ½hr phone call with Irish lawyer about Irish legal structure
    • Advisory board
      • email AB to ask if can move to your country
      • emailed AB about what type of corporate structure would help them give us money.
  • Attribution Guidelines
    • Started community consultation: osmf-talk@ talk@, Fediverse/Mastodon Twitter
  • AOSMFBAAAoAAAA
    • email osmf-talk & board@ to tell them
  • Bank account
    • posted signed forms to again
  • Advisory Board Meeting
    • created doodle & emailed AB
  • trademark grant request (OpenSnowMap)
    • Recieved, but we probably need a board resolution

Previously:

2021: Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May 2020: Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.

My May 2021 in OSM

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My April 2021 in OSM

• Kept on mapping of course. Usual day to day mapping.
• Saw a new project to map public toilets in Ireland (Pee.ie), and tweeted at them @pee_ie, to explain OSM (no reply yet)
• Attended a meeting with some Irish OSMers & other Irish Open Data activists about possible new Irish Open Data policy
• Reported a bug in Nominatim, where it depending on certain software that it didn’t claim to depend on
• OSMF Board
  • Discussed with the board, and proposed a AOSMFBAAAoAAAA session at State of the Map 2021.
  • Trademarks
    • OpenSnowMap
      • [3] email recv, open ticket, DMed Simon & Packi
  • Take over protection
    • emailed all 27 corp members to seek advice, nothing too detailed.
  • Local Chapters
    • emailed about AB reps: Oceania, DRC, AR
    • emailed FOSSGIS new contract & resigned for mistake
  • Board chat about Attribution Guidelines
  • Renewed the OSMF’s BigBlueButton server with Cloud68
  • email an OSMer to follow up about AoA change ideas.

(Sorry for the delay, I’ll try to catch up, which might result in less detail for this month)

Previously:

2021: Jan. Feb. Mar.

2020: Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.

Just for the record (because I’m telling everyone), I’m transgender! 🙂 I’m transitioning to live openly and honestly as myself, as a woman now. 🙂 (To my LGBTQ+🏳️‍🌈 friends, I’m simplifying for the cis 😉) My name is Amanda McCann, and for pronouns they/them is fine, but she/her is nice. Auf deutsch, meine Pronomen sind „sie“.

My old email addresses will still work, but amanda@technomancy.org is my personal email address, and amanda.mccann@osmfoundation.org for OSMF Board matters.

On github, I’m amandasaurus on github, Amᵃᵖanda on the OpenStreetMap Wiki, and @Amanda#2524 on Discord, am{ap}anda on IRC

Like always, I am open to good faith questions from OSMers on LGBTQ issues. If there’s a question you’ve always been afraid to ask, you can ask below as a comment, or email me. 🙂

Don’t forget one of the rules of OSM: Have Fun! 🏳️‍⚧️

My March 2021 in OSM

sorry for the delay

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There is a place=city_block called New York (node 3,495,330,515) in Sweden (rel. 52,822) (admin_level=2), and there is a place=hamlet called Sweden (node 151,467,606) in Arkansas (rel. 161,646) (admin_level=4), and there is a place=hamlet called Arkansas (node 157,545,126) in West Virginia (rel. 162,068) (admin_level=4). That’s a chain of 3 places. I wonder how many there are in OSM… 🤔

I wrote a programme (osm-longest-place-boundary-includes) to look for long chains like this. I will leave my results in a comment on this, but before you look, guess at how long it will be. 😉

My February 2021 in OSM

Last few months have been weird. Those of us in more northern latitudes (I’m at 49° North) are just coming out of winter, with much shorter days. The coronavirus lockdowns make most regular social life is cut off. I (& most people I care about) have been lucky enough not to catch corona, but I’m noticing everyone is more snappy than normal.

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My January 2021 in OSM

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I have successfully received an envelope with my OSM username on it. 🙂

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My November 2020 in OSM

Here’s some of the things I’ve been doing in OpenStreetMap in November 2020. (Yes I know I’m posting this in late January, I’m sorry for being late. Hence some parts of this document will appear out of date)

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My October 2020 in OSM

Here’s some of the things I’ve been doing in OpenStreetMap in October 2020.

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Some of us on the OSM Foundation Board have agreed to do an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on the reddit forum for OpenStreetMap (aka “the r/openstreetmap subreddit”) starting on 15:00 UTC 9th November. It’s an oppertunity to ask us some questions. Be gentle. 🙂

See you there. 🙂👋

More details | event date/time in your timezone | event Countdown

My September 2020 in OSM

• CWG
  • Reply to 2 inquiries on the CWG email account
  • Posted a sticker pack to Finland for SoM Soumi 2020
• Mapping
  • Continued to do lots of mapping
  • Inspired by a post on the mailing lists about hostile architecture, I made a pic4review quest, and answered the original poste about my idea for sleepable:physical=yes/no.
  • Tried to add more brewery tags in Karlsruhe with a pic4review quest, but it wasn’t very successful.
• OSMF Board
  • Mid-month board chat up on 10th.
  • Some minor planning for the October “Screen2Screen” weekend meeting.
  • Attempting to line up a LC for the board meeting
  • Reminded people that the deadline to join OSMF in order to be able to vote in the 2020 AGM is approaching
• Hacking
  • I added an preset for iD for Irish Pubs. My pull request was accepted, and it was deployed as v2.18.5 on 8th September.
    • I made a pic4review editing challenge, and added the theme=irish to some existing venues.
    • I hope OSM gets more of this sort of “deeper” data, rather than surface level name/type.
  • I made another map, of Disance to the nearest building in North America. Posted around the internet: tweet | fediverse | OSM Diary | OSMUS Slack | reddit

Previously: August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 Mar 2020 Feb 2020 Jan 2020

(This is a little low on details, I have been quite busy with non-OSM stuff lately. And after a bicycle accident, I have to type one handed for a few weeks.)