User BushmanK writes about the quality of foreign names submitted under the name:<language_code>=* tag. An in-depth analysis is presented and suggestions on how to mitigate the issue.
Jochen Topf reports that the multi-polygon fixing effort is going well and provides an issue thread to track the evolution.
A discussion started on the French mailing list about tagging standards for river fishing categories. Concerns were raised about such information only being relevant with regard to local nomenclatures.
User Muzirian proposes the tag amenity=courier to map courier services. However, it received some criticism.
The Tagging mailing list is looking for a neutral name for “Segways and the like”.
On the Tagging mailing list, Warin asks for ideas to map Drying_room or Drying_area.
Dave Swarthout is looking for a tag for cannabis processing plants.
Yuri Astrakhan published a proposal to distinguish between “There is a Wikipedia page about this object” vs “This object is mentioned in a Wikipedia page”. His suggestion was seen rather critically on the OSM Wiki.
Joshua Houston suggests on the Talk-US mailing list to replace the tag man_made to human_made, as a step to make OSM more inclusive. The OSM Latam community had a similar discussion on this issue.
Martijn van Exel posts the latest news from MapRoulette.
For some time now, there have been rumours that Niantic is using OpenStreetMap data to influence Pokemon Go. There’s more discussion about it here, and a recent OSM diary entry has linked to an article amusingly titled ‘How To Create Your Own Nest In Pokemon GO With A Free Tool Called “Open Street Map”’ (and as you’d expect, every other post there, reads like Buzzfeed Bingo too). But this could mean that there are a few people trying to game OpenStreetMap to make things appear in Pokemon Go. Here are a few things that you can do about such vandalism.
Sven Geggus tweets that the German tile server operated by FOSSGIS e.V. is now HTTPS capable.
Events
The Swiss OpenStreetMap Association’s Annual General Meeting will take place in Fribourg, Switzerland on April 8th. A mapping party will follow.
Gregory calls again to submit lectures for the State of the Map in Japan, since not enough papers have been submitted so far. Rob also refers to the deadlines for proposals and the scholarship program.
Humanitarian OSM
Marek Kleciak reports in the German forum that new satellite images from Nepal are available. They allow to map previously untapped areas.
The HOT Team Indonesia organized a mapping event called WomenMap. They introduced women to ICT and digital mapping skills. It was pioneered by HOT as it moves towards promoting inclusion for vulnerable, disenfranchised groups (women, persons with disabilities, youth and marginalized communities) and thus help to narrow the digital divide. The initiative is supported by the Australian Government, Disaster Management Innovation and UN Women.
Mapzen now offers a map style for cycling. European readers have to answer the question themselves if this map design can compete with the long-standing experience and work of all those cycling mappers/developers in Europe. ;-)
switch2OSM
When you do a geo search on the meta search engine Startpage, you will directly see an OpenStreetMap map in the results.
Open Data
The summary of an interview with Antonio F. Rodríguez Pascual provides10 good reasons why the public administration (in Spain) should release data under an open license. (automatic translation)
Mapbox published new satellite imagery for Vancouver and Toronto.
Software
Andrés summarizes all important sources for learning about and using the Overpass API.
The motorcycle route planner “Kurviger”, which prefers beautiful winding routes with elevation changes, is now available worldwide.
Harry Wood created a tool to convert OpenStreetMap notes into KML and to use them in MAPS.ME.
On talk-fr, Florian Lainez announces the launch of Bus Contributor, a new Android app to ease public transport related contributions in OSM. Provided by Jawg Maps, the app is based on OSM Contributor.
Programming
A “monster relation” of an undiscussed import in Brazil with more than 32,767 members was too big for osm2pgsql, which probably caused problems on many servers.
In the second part of his blog series, Roland explained how to deal with numbers in the Overpass API.
Releases
| Software|Version|Release date|Comment|
| —— | ———– |—-|—-|
|OSRM Backend|5.6.3|2017-03-03|Some bugfixes.|
|Osmium Tool|1.6.0|2017-03-06|Many changes, please read release info.|
|libosmium|2.12.0|2017-03-07|Many changes and bugfixes. Please read change log.|
|MapContrib|1.4.6|2017-03-08|Bug fixed.|
|Mapillary Android *|3.32|2017-03-08|Fix background crash in camera and upload.|
|Locus Map Free *|3.22.1|2017-03-09|Bugfix release.|
|VROOM|V1.1.0|2017-03-09|Three extensions and three changes.|
|Mapbox GL JS|v0.33.1|2017-03-10|Many changes and bugfixes. Please read change log.|
|Routino|3.2|2017-03-12|Various bug fixes, more translated phrases and some web page improvements.|
… Multimapas by Javier Jiménez Shaw to compare a variety of different map layers? Javier’s service also supports WMS layers and allows you to add your own layers.
Other “geo” things
Mongabay Wildtech reported on a new mapping platform for environmental protection.
The French magazine ‘Sciences et Avenir’ reports on PaleobioDB, a database inventorying fossils found by hundreds of paleontologists. The corresponding interactive map is based on OSM.
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