There is no “systemic misbehaviour” in OSM. This is not an opinion, it is a fact.

Yes, there are proposals for systemic racial, ethnic and gender discrimination that attempt to bypass OSMF democratic process. See the Heather’s post yesterday, which is by the way far more offensive and divisive than anything Frederik have said.

There’s indeed a lot of discrimination in the world, often codified in law. Changing these laws is a worthy goal but it is outside of scope of OSM and OSMF. The best thing we can and should do about it is to allow everyone to participate in development of Openstreetmap on equal terms and that’s exactly where we are now.

Where can I sign a petition against these proposals? Frankly, I disagree with almost every single statement above. Large part of your post violates your own Code of Conduct and I don’t see your ideas inclusive or fair at all. They are objectively far worse than the status quo because we do not currently exclude people based on their background or values and that’s what your proposals amount to.

Splitting an object in jOSM/utilsplugin2.

@IpswitchMapper

What is the “split areas” function?

It is actually called “split object” in utilsplugin2. There is a brief and slightly confusing description on OSM wiki.

I’m using it this way (using a “split path”):

• Draw a new path starting at one edge of the shape and ending at another. It can have any number of points (doesn’t have to be a straight line) and must have no tags.
• Select the path and press “Alt-x” to split the original shape.

What do you mean by “copy-paste” tags?

Regular Ctrl-c/Ctrl-v copies/pastes the whole selected object. Copy/paste tags only copies the tags from/to selected objects. I used it extensively in the past for adding addr:postcode tags to existing buildings.

IpswichMapper, it is an excellent tutorial, I wish I’ve seen something like this a year or two ago, and no doubt it will be very useful to others. Perhaps you could put it in the wiki so it can be updated and expanded.

I didn’t bother tagging buildings as houses, mainly because sometimes the use of a building is not obvious (can be garages, businesses etc). But if StreetComplete needs it I’ll try to revisit buildings I’ve mapped. Thanks for the tip.

I’m fully with you on the level of detail matter - to me it’s far more important to have buildings with addresses than correct shape of extensions. Of course anyone can map whatever they like, and different things matter to different people.

Now some tips from me:

Changing multiple addresses. Perhaps it is obvious but other editors (iD) can’t do it, so it is worth mentioning with jOSM we can edit multiple objects at once. Simply select buildings to edit and press Alt-a to add new tags or Alt-s to edit a selected tag.

In addition to joining areas (Shift-j) there is also a split areas (Alt-x) function. Draw a “split” path from one side of an area to another, select it and press Alt-x - the area will be split along the “split path”. It can be a bit finicky in complex cases but it is much more versatile than the terracer plugin as it works with any shapes of any type (buildings, landuses etc).

For copying/pasting addresses I recommend “copy/paste tags”. By default they are not very accessible but it is easy to change keyboard mapping in settings.

For mapping postcodes I’ve prepared my own tutorial on https://github.com/ndrw6/import_postcodes/ . This is a bit more advanced technique but it can significantly (5-10x) speed up adding CodePoint Open postcode tags to buildings.

For such use I’d strongly recommend you to try jOSM + utilsplugin2. You can draw a path across an object (e.g. a large residential area) and split this object along it (Alt-X). It makes adding detail where large residential areas are already present a lot easier. Or you can do the opposite (merge two overlapping/abutting areas) with Shift-J, but that’s another story.

How far was your car/rover from the base station when collecting your trace examples? What rover device do you use? Is it possible to post-process an existing GPX file (e.g. from a cellphone) or does it only work in real-time with the rover?

Yes, and to certain extent that’s fine. In fact, it was the more advanced features that made me use jOSM for the first time - editing tags of multiple objects and split&merge tools. These operations were either impossible or cumbersome in iD. I started editing simpler objects in jOSM later, when I got tired of switching between iD and jOSM.

I was referring to impressions of a person familiar with iD trying to use jOSM for the first time. It can be a bit overwhelming - different workflow, tons of settings and you are greeted with an empty screen. No data, no imagery, need to log in to osm.org etc. With iD I was taking all these things for granted.

ContinuousDownload does work well, indeed but being a plugin it is not the first thing a new user is looking into. By the way, I am not using it now - I found mapping “File: Download Data” to an easily accessible key more convenient. But that was after a few months of using jOSM and it only works as expected when “zoom to downloaded data” has been switched off, which is an “advanced” option.

Thank you, I’ve been using your imagery for a while now, good stuff. Some places have been updated for the first time since 15 years. It immediately rendered my GPX traces obsolete.

Could you shine some light on image quality (resolution/clarity) and alignment? I would like to understand what the limiting factors are (e.g. technology, licensing) and if there is a short or long-term improvement expected. For example, imagery at google.com or even bing.com(!) is clearer, sometimes a lot clearer, than what I see in jOSM.

Just stating my preference: if for any reasons spam can’t be contained and getting rid of diaries was on the table, I’d be OK with making them accessible to logged in users only. It wouldn’t make them any less open but we would have lost their promotional aspect. I consider diaries a useful community building and communication tool. Definitely better than following hundreds of Facebook or Twitter accounts.

I don’t mind having diary pages delisted from search engines if that helps reduce spam. It doesn’t make the project any less open and it matters that the community communication tools are kept functional (this includes them not being overwhelmed by spam).

We will probably need a full text search feature, though.

This is what I was looking for when making a tool for adding code point open data to osm. I have settled on preparing .osm files jor josm but it raises the entry barrier considerably.

How about the deployment, can you assist me with that?

Wait, every piece of ddocumentation I have seen so far claims we use WGS84 worldwide and transform from it. Which makes sense, as having multiple coordinate systems in the same database would be asking for trouble.

In practice 60cm error is not an issue - we are rarely more accurate than that, but we should definitely agree on what coordinate system we intend to use.

I wasn’t able to log in with my usual OSM credentials. “Sorry, could not log in with those details.” Android 7.0, log in page opens up in Firefox.

Map rotation feature can be a bit annoying, it would be good to have an option to lock it down if not needed.

How would you describe (future) differences between Observe, Vespucci, Osmand, Go Map and Maps.me? Especially Vespucci, seems to have similar project goals.

My preferred way of surveying larger areas is to cycle through them while recording continuous video+audio commentary in my helmet camera and a GPX trace in Osmand. When walking (can’t attach any modern phone to a helmet) this could work well with just a mobile application. It would be great to have video and trace recording integrated in the OSM editor.

Yes, this is indeed an excellent resource. I used it myself for several months myself. In fact, I still havet this layer on, as you can see in the screenshot above. This is still the best option for iD users, although I would strongly recommend to use jOSM for any work with addresses.

The biggest difference between the two solutions is speed, convenience and accuracy. Typing postcodes simply takes a lot more time, effort and leads to errors.

By the way, there are postal areas (e.g. Sheffield) with tens of thousands of postcodes ready to be transferred to existing buildings. That’s a low hanging fruit for anyone who wants to get involved.

Dear Heather,

Sorry for my silly response, it was a poor attempt at a joke. In case you wondered, no, I wasn’t at all offended myself. I just wanted to point out a mismatch between the message and the tone.

I disagree with your advice to moderate discussions. OSM is a collaborative project. We rely on open communitation and occasionally have to express criticism in changeset comments or discussions, correct or revert someone’s work. All that can be upsetting but is necessary for a project like this to function. The alternative is no communication or closed communication.

The question is, where do we draw a line between exchanging opinions and harming people. Myself, I would stick to the laws of the country involved, or if in case of multiple jurisdictions, a set of laws that is common to them all. That’s the best approximate of public consensus we have.

Yes, I think having meetups in pubs, which these days are as accommodating to everyone as restaurants, is pretty much irrelevant as far as discrimination goes. It does not prevent anyone from contributing to OSM or indeed attending the meetup - drinking alcohol or eating meat is entirely optional.

I found the latter part of your comment rude. I could have said you are discriminating against my ethnic origins but we all know you are in fact a bit of a pig on the wing.

OSM, as an organization, is already open and doesn’t discriminate anyone. It does so in the best possible way - by not caring who the contributors are. Here less is more.

OSM is a mapping project, that is what interests and unites us. There are many other worthwhile things to do in life but in here they are all nothing more but distractions from mapping.

OSM is a global project. Many contributors come from places with different social, moral or indeed legal rules from ours. Some would vigorously oppose our moral standards and there is nothing wrong with that in the world they live. Do go ahead and change them, just be prepared for a lot of work and time and don’t drag the rest of us into it.

Our views evolve too. What is desirable today may be incriminating in a non-obvious way 30 years later.

In view of that it is better for us to focus on mapping and, as much as possible, stay away from politics. At best politics divides us, at worst it can get some contributors or the project itself in trouble.

Happy mapping.

Can you expand on “Server-side rendering is possible but is a secondary target”? To me, anything that requires Open-GL capable client should not be considered as a candidate for default style on osm.org.

I really like the rendering. Current Carto style indeed looks a bit washed out, so a bolder style would be welcome. Do you have a roadmap for matching OSM Carto features?

I hope such transition is not ultimately about aesthetics, though. There is so much we could improve usability-wise: user-defined language, transport overlays, foot paths, cycle paths, clickable POI overlays etc.