Hello and welcome to OpenStreetMap. It’s great reading all that, your experience so far with OSM.

Diaries are indeed somewhat not as prominent and usable as they should, that’s why they are not being used much. They may not be searchable (I think there’s a third-party tool that can search them, not entirely sure), but at least there’s the categorization per language (it’s something :p).

OSM-related services/tools may use the accounts of osm.org via OAuth2. I assume by what you wrote that maybe openstreetmap.fr doesn’t use it, hence you need separate account there.

The wiki is one of the complicated parts of the OSM, because what tags/values are preferred to be used, has to reach community consensus (at least of those who are participating in the related-discussions), which sometimes may change after years if another mapper comes in with their own proposal for that thing that is already documented. And then you would have to get the services that use or would need these tags, to update their software according to any changes the community decided.

About AI pre-processing, I think there’s a plugin in JOSM that’s related to that. Not sure if it’s the RapiD one or something else. But regardless, AI-related tools such as RapiD have indeed been used for mapping in sub-Saharan Africa.

OSM’s forum is a usual place for questions and discussions that sometimes make the wiki been updated, but yes, usually people forget to add the needed info from the forum to the wiki, and thus the next mapper who has the same issue may end up asking what may have already been answered on forum but not mentioned on wiki.

You can check out HOTosm which is an organization (no affiliation with OSMF) and they regularly do mapping activities for humanitarian purposes, so that’s a certain place where you will find where in the world there’s a called need for mapping using OpenStreetMap.

@GreekMountains, your second paragraph refers to tagging in general, and not specifically to changeset descriptions. The tagging for names has its own rules, already discussed a lot by others and established in wiki. Also, don’t forget that the names you see on map, changes depending on which app you use and sometimes which settings your device has. There are apps/services which utilize OSM data and by default showing the local name, others which show the English name and others which the local to you name. In other words, don’t tag for the app :d.

What did you comment there that got hidden?

@Kovoschiz it may or may not be relevant, but the email doesn’t really answer it :)

What’s the exact license of those governmental data?

I have no opinion about the differences in linguistics, even for English itself in region-by-region, but it’s for sure something that is a known issue (that is, making a tagging scheme that would make sense in as many different cultures as possible), and the community tries to achieve that wherever concern arises.

Now something else, why would you go straight away into JOSM if this is your first time contributing at OpenStreetMap? JOSM is designed mainly for experienced mappers who want a better control over the quality of the contributions. iD editor, the default editor of osm.org, should be sufficient enough for a newbie mapper.

Also, there’s the OSM’s wiki which describes the tags and most of their values, and by that you can choose which describes best what you want, and not judging only by the tag’s value itself, because exactly as you said, the same term can have different meaning elsewhere. Even between US and UK English there are different meaning of the same terms. That’s why the wiki exists. And if a case isn’t covered already in there, a proposal can be made about that, or ask the community beforehand just to be sure you didn’t miss it.

Many Greeks use iPhone, not everyone, that’s for sure (I doubt there’s a place where every citizen with smartphone owns an iPhone :P)

I don’t know how many use OSM in Greece, either directly or indirectly, but for sure it isn’t a great usage. Public sector utilizes maps/apps with OSM background as one choice.

There shouldn’t be any missing translations, or there may be 2-3 spots. We have completed in full last year and update it whenever new strings come in.

Personally, I use it mainly for my area. Haven’t used it quite some time now, but I may start again. Issue is that I need to better filter which quests I want active, so to not have the map constantly with quests I’m not certain how to complete them properly.

Have a nice week in Greece :D

That’s indeed a huge step, getting recognized and backed up by the state. Congratulations and thank you for your work on making uMap

Congratulations and great work :)

Nice work, and nice summary.

I also agree that man_made should stop being used, which looks like a needless shortening of human_made. Artificial is more relatable, and also includes cases of extraterrestrial_made :P

Great Q&A session. Informative and clear answers from all of you.

Sounds like you had a great time during the conference. And trip by train is always a cool choise, especially for landscape viewing :d

A week after you got back? That would mean it shouldn’t necessarily be due to the conference/trip. At least if you only had headache, that’s good, even if these are still awful.

Good work Amanda 😃

Bravo for all the work you offer, and the ideas you bring. Statistics and pins/stickers are chef’s kiss, and I can understand from the posts they were pretty appreciated during the conference.

For microphone, ribbon ones may work in such case, capturing sound from both sides (as bidirectional) and also having a good quality. Dynamic ones are decent for live streaming conferences. Personal opinion that is.

“With other words you are being sentimental about something you never actually did”

This is so deep and philosophical xd

Intersting aspect indeed.

I assume some of those places may not have the proper tagging, either the clubs (could be cafe/bar that works as well as club) and fast foods (restaurants/taverns and even cafe/bar, and even possibly rare cases of clubs offering fast food).

So yes, mainly lack of mapping, which can also be caused by cultural features which may not be easy to map properly, and being understand by such queries/apps.

Great project, well-made

That’s a heck of setups over there, amazing job.

I guess it’s necessary because most signs show weight of trucks and not just any vehicle (assuming the local traffic code has a generic vehicle sign for max weight). So, why not tag it for hgv if the sign explicitly refers to trucks and not just any type of vehicle? Regardless of practicality.

Hello there. Abandoned rails? That’s pretty good and useful.

Thanks for the response

Since the definition of the sign isn’t quite clear if it’s about defined or actual weight of the truck, it indeed makes sense to add the maxweight key, even additionally with the other key, just to be “clear” in case any app will actually use it.