weeklyOSM 551

02/02/2021-08/02/2021

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Vaccination map by the Ministry of Health of Peru 1 | © Ministerio de salud, Peru | map data © OpenStreetMap contributors

About us

  • In a few days (probably 27 February), the 100,000,000th changeset will be published in OpenStreetMap. This counter tool shows the changeset numbers in real time. In the next issue we will update our current projection. The editors of weeklyOSM would like to start a small challenge: the goal is for the mapper of the 100,000,000th CS to contact us (via any known channel). We are keen to conduct a small interview with this user, which will be published, or he or she will be mentioned in weeklyOSM. In addition, there is the possibility of a nice gift from Geofabrik to the lucky mapper: an individually designed large map of the winner’s surroundings, or anywhere else in the world. Good luck!

Mapping

  • An old proposal has been revived for tagging couloirs, narrow very steep breaks in mountainous terrain. These are particularly of interest to skiers and mountaineers, who regard them as highly distinctive features, as shown by several comments on the tagging mailing list. (Nabble)
  • A proposal has been made for the landuse=shrubs value. This tag would be used on areas in built environments, filled with bushes where barrier=hedge can’t be applied. A tag obviously made for the Knights who say ‘Ni’.
  • Reddit user Buster452 wrote about the importance of mapping dead-end roads on the OpenStreetMap subreddit. In his words, ‘It’s passing knowledge on to someone on the ground so they can make a navigation decision whether to take that road or not’.
  • Florian Lainez (user overflorian) got over-enthusiastic and made a large mechanical edit without pre-announcing it. The replacement of the tag diplomatic=consulate_general with consulate=consulate_general is broadly accepted but, as ever, the policies should be followed. Consequently the edit was reverted and Florian apologised.
  • The tag healthcare=sample_collection was proposed for a ‘site or dedicated healthcare facility where samples of blood/urine/etc. are obtained or collected for the purpose of analysing them for healthcare diagnostics’. The proposal vote is open until Tuesday 16 February.
  • Flo Edelmann is asking for feedback on the proposed takeaway:own_dishes=* tag, which specifies whether a takeaway restaurant accepts customers’ own dishes to help reduce packaging waste.
  • The proposal to modify the vote counting rules was accepted.

Community

  • Seth Deegan (lectrician1) pointed out that they had opened two issue tickets for the main OpenStreetMap website. Both proposed changes relate to the header area. The first proposal is to add a link to the wiki whereas the second is to move the ‘export’ button to the right hand tool pane.
  • Mateusz Konieczny proposes running an automated bot edit that will remove tracking parameters from URLs in OSM tags such as website=. The URLs themselves will be preserved, and dubious cases will be flagged for manual review.
  • Frederik Ramm asked for self-moderation in the Tagging mailing list, to avoid things like ‘repetition of one’s own arguments’, ‘repetition of someone else’s arguments in different words’, ‘quick-fire responses’, ‘mistaking the list for a voting platform’, or ‘wanting to comment on everything’, among others. (Nabble)
  • OpenCage tweeted a small thread of highlights from over five years of OpenStreetMap interviews with communities across the world.
  • User SomeoneElse described in detail how to add a resource to the OpenStreetMap Community Index, a project that lists OSM-related resources (in-person and virtual meeting options, mailing lists, chats…) around the world. He details how to clone a GitHub repository.

OpenStreetMap Foundation

  • Results of the OSMF 2021 Community Survey will be posted as results become available, starting with basic summary statistics, then additional details as the analysis continues. The raw data will be posted after they have been anonymised so that anyone interested may analyse them. As of 9 February, 4460 tokens had been requested, resulting in 3808 responses of which 2664 were in full. Based on demographic data from the in full responses, 8.08% are female, 89.45% are male, 1.37% are non-binary, and 1.1% are other.
  • In his OSM diary, Nicolas Chavent suggests that the OSMF and local chapters formalise the current practice, still unwritten, of banning the provision of paid services as a source of funding, for the sake of their autonomy and internal governance.
  • OpenCage and the OSMF announced that the former is now a silver level corporate member. The joint press release describes OpenCage’s geocoding service, which uses OSM data.

Local chapter news

Humanitarian OSM

  • Benjamin Herfort, from Heidelberg University, reported about global indicators of mapping related to the HOT Tasking Manager. Analysis in an associated blog post lets us see the progression in the number of contributors since 2012 followed by a decline since 2017. No breakdown of contributors by experience (i.e. days of contribution, objects edited, etc.) is given. The author notes that to associate all these tasks with humanitarian mapping (or all humanitarian mapping with only these tasks) is therefore an oversimplified definition and the results must be taken with a grain of salt.
  • Bo Percival (user bo_hot) shared a call for volunteers for an experiment to test the efficiency and efficacy of AI assistance in the remote mapping of buildings. The experiment is organised by HOT, in partnership with NESTA Collective Intelligence grants, and the Netherlands Red Cross. The call for volunteers is open until Saturday 20 February.
  • Resilience Mappers from Uganda have won a US$5000 microgrant to enable community engagement and participation in the HOT Summit 2021.

Education

Maps

  • [1] The Ministry of Health of Peru has created a ‘Vaccination Map’ (es) based on OpenStreetMap. The totals, first and second vaccination, and regional values are broken down for region, province, and district. The locations of vaccination centres are also shown on the map along with a lot of information that can be accessed through the map.

Software

  • The GIScience News Blog introduced a new tool based on ohsome. The preliminary results presented by the ohsome Quality AnalysT (OQT) website are about the completeness of mapping in a region (i.e. low level of buildings count vs population and the density of points of interest).

Programming

  • OSM tools are often designed for Linux OS and the new WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux) represents a good solution to use them from Windows, as Pierre Béland describes in his OSM diary. He recommends a virtual lightweight Ubuntu 20.04 OS environment to use Linux scripts in a development context on a Windows machine.

Did you know …

  • osm2pgsql, which converts OSM data for import into PostgreSQL databases?

OSM in the media

  • The Russian and Ukrainian language media arms of the US-government-funded Radio Free Europe (Крим.Реалії (ru) > en and Radio Svoboda (uk) > en) reported about the Ukrainian Railways objecting to the depiction of the borders of Crimea on OpenStreetMap.
  • Local print (es) > en media and radio (es) in San Juan (Argentina) covered Guillermo Maldonado’s work mapping the new public transportation system, now nearing completion. Although it is not long before its launch, clear maps of the routes have not yet been published. In order to understand the new network, Guillermo uploaded them to OpenStreetMap and created a uMap with the routes, which has been well received by locals.
  • The Deccan Herald profiled Ramya Ragupathy, who works on analytics for the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT), in order to show what’s involved in the multi-disciplinary role of a ‘data scientist’.
  • The Inverness Courier reported on volunteer mappers in the UK who are adding buildings on OpenStreetMap in Tanzania, as part of a Crowd2Map initiative to fight female genital mutilation.

Other “geo” things

  • Google started to roll out a new version of Google Maps in January 2021, featuring pedestrian oriented details such as pedestrian crossings and pavements. To do so, Google is using an automated system, analysing satellite imagery and Street View.
  • Pocketnavigation profiled (de) > en
    changes that have been made to the Outdooractive web portal and smartphone app, which now show blocked and closed routes.
  • The Swiss Federal Office of Topography, swisstopo, has completed de > en a seven year process of revising official maps to use digital cartography.

Upcoming Events

WhereWhatOnlineWhenCountry
OSMF Survey 2021 osmcalpic2021-01-25 – 2021-02-14
Gülşehir merkezRıdvan Özdemir osmcalpic2021-02-10 – 2023-02-10flag
Jóvenes Mapeadores Universidad de Panamá: Día de Carnaval Virtual 2021 Mapathon osmcalpic2021-02-13
OSMPH Wiki pages edit-a-thon osmcalpic2021-02-13
OpenStreetMap Ghana: Mapping Accra Mapathon osmcalpic2021-02-13
Missing Maps CartONG Mapathon osmcalpic2021-02-15
Missing Maps American Red Cross Poland Mapathon osmcalpic2021-02-15
Youth Innovation Lab: Learning OpenStreetMap Training and Mapathon osmcalpic2021-02-16
LyonRencontre mensuelle (virtuelle) Lyon osmcalpic2021-02-16flag
Missing Maps London mid-month Mapathon osmcalpic2021-02-16
BerlinOSM-Verkehrswende #20 (Online) osmcalpic2021-02-16flag
136. Treffen des OSM-Stammtisches Bonn osmcalpic2021-02-16
LüneburgLüneburger Mappertreffen (online) osmcalpic2021-02-16flag
AlbuquerqueMapABQ February virtual meetup osmcalpic2021-02-18flag
Stammtisch Köln osmcalpic2021-02-17
KadıköyYer Çizenler Aylık Mapathon osmcalpic2021-02-17flag
San JoseVirtual Civic Hack & Map Night osmcalpic2021-02-19flag
gmina KrośniewiceVirtual community meeting. osmcalpic2021-02-19flag
YouthMappers + MapBeks: OSM Workshop and Mapathon osmcalpic2021-02-20
Department of Geography Brown Bag/PGS Lecture: Participatory Mapping of LGBT Experiences and Safe Spaces osmcalpic2021-02-20
OpenStreetMap Hungary Workshop: Buszútvonalak hozzáadása szakszerűen / Adding bus routes osmcalpic2021-02-22
Missing Maps CartONG Mapathon osmcalpic2021-02-22
BremenBremer Mappertreffen (Online) osmcalpic2021-02-22flag
Ville de Bruxelles – Stad BrusselVirtual OpenStreetMap Belgium meeting osmcalpic2021-02-23flag
Disastermappers Heidelberg: Access to Healthcare Infrastructure Mapathon osmcalpic2021-02-23
Missing Maps Friends of MSF Newcastle Mapathon osmcalpic2021-02-24
Missing Maps Spanish Red Cross Mapathon osmcalpic2021-02-24
Vandœuvre-lès-NancyRencontre mensuelle (virtuelle) Nancy osmcalpic2021-02-24flag
Missing Maps German Red Cross: Validierungsmapathon für erfahrene Kartierer osmcalpic2021-02-24
Osborne CountyOpenStreetMap U.S. Virtual Mappy Hour osmcalpic2021-02-25flag
Missing Maps Slovakia Mapathon osmcalpic2021-02-25
okres ŽilinaMissing Maps mapathon Slovakia online #2 osmcalpic2021-02-25flag
Missing Maps German Red Cross Mapathon osmcalpic2021-02-25
Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team Community WG: Colonialism in Open Data and Mapping Webinar osmcalpic2021-02-26
Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team Community WG: Colonialism in Open Data and Mapping Webinar osmcalpic2021-02-26
gmina KrośniewiceVirtual community meeting. osmcalpic2021-02-26flag
Virtueel treffen Openstreetmap NL osmcalpic2021-02-27
EssenFOSSGIS-OSM-Communitytreffen (Online) osmcalpic2021-02-28flag
Missing Maps CartONG Mapathon osmcalpic2021-03-01
LondonMissing Maps London Mapathon osmcalpic2021-03-02gb
Landau an der IsarVirtuelles Niederbayern-Treffen osmcalpic2021-03-02flag
San JoseVirtual Civic Hack & Map Night osmcalpic2021-03-05flag
Nordrhein-WestfalenMapper*innentreffen Bochum osmcalpic2021-03-04flag
gmina KrośniewiceVirtual community meeting. osmcalpic2021-03-05flag
Open Data Day 2021 osmcalpic2021-03-06
Dar es SalaamTanzania Data Lab + OpenMap Development Tanzania: HIV/AIDS hotspots and testing facilities Mapathon osmcalpic2021-03-06flag
臺北市Open Data Day Taiwan 2021 osmcalpic2021-03-06flag

Note:
If you like to see your event here, please put it into the OSM calendar. Only data which is there, will appear in weeklyOSM.

This weeklyOSM was produced by Anne Ghisla, Lejun, MatthiasMatthias, Nordpfeil, PierZen, Polyglot, rogehm, SK53, Sammyhawkrad, TheSwavu, YoViajo, derFred, edvac.