13/08/2019-19/08/2019 Mapping Kevin Kenny has been working on a proposal for protection_class=* which is intended to replace protect_class=*. His aim is to increase readability and usefulness of the tag values used with the key: specifically replacing opaque numeric codes for classes with more memorable mnemonics. …

06/08/2019-12/08/2019 Mapping A new MapRoulette challenge invites you to check the untouched TIGER roads in the US state of Washington. The import was 12 years ago, and there are still more than 15,000 roads, in this state alone, which have never been checked. Eugene Alvin Villar and other members of the OSM …

30/07/2019-05/08/2019 Mapping The discussion on Facebook’s RapiD continues on Twitter and the talk mailing list. For anyone seriously interested in the values of OSM the latter thread is recommended as it highlights many of the pros and cons. The controversy has been noticed by the MapRoom blog as well. The proposal …

23/07/2019-29/07/2019 Mapping Facebook announced that they are making their AI tool available for OSM mappers through their RapiD editor. According to the press, Facebook wants to improve the map data in OSM on which the company relies. Facebook’s AI mapping activities are not undisputed and were a constant source of …

16/07/2019-22/07/2019 Mapping Marc Zoutendijk thinks landuse=village_green is being misused as a tag for all grass covered areas in villages. His post to the mailing list provides the detailed background to his view. The mapping, by Amazon Logistics relying on their own GPS data, of service roads to buildings provoked …

09/07/2019-15/07/2019 Mapping François Lacombe announced the start of the voting for line_attachment=* proposal, which is supposed to add information how lines such as power or telecom lines are attached to their supports. Contributions of poor quality by Amazon Logistics (up to adding roads in former villages in a …

02/07/2019-08/07/2019 About us ERRATUM: In weeklyOSM #467 we wrote “The Japan Times reported that Benin is now proud to have a modern digital map to replace the last map from 1957”. Actually the link to OSM was wrong, as it directed to a city in Nigeria and not to Benin the country. Besides this, the geodata produced …

25/06/2019-01/07/2019 Mapping A new iD feature, which adds Wikidata and Wikipedia tags for brands of retail chains, caused issues when restaurants with very similar names were tagged mistakenly, according to a GitHub bug report. One proposed solution is to use the tag not:brand:wikidata= to avoid the tag being added …

18/06/2019-24/06/2019 Mapping In the Austrian province of Tyrol, there is often an increase in traffic on long weekends during the summer holiday period. This often results in long-distance traffic, coming to or from Italy and Germany, clogging up local roads when seeking a diversion from main routes. Politicians have …

11/06/2019-17/06/2019 Mapping Mateusz Konieczny plans to remove duplicates tags such as sustenance=fast_food together with amenity=fast_food and atm=yes with amenity=atm. Like all mechanical edit plans, this one has caused some discussion on the tagging mailing list. Joseph Eisenberg revived his idea to tag individual …