You might want to include adding stop signs if missing and if there are tactile pads.

Your vector tiles project is set to become one of the best major improvements to OpenStreetMap. As @Minh said - excitement is an understatement.

Keep up the great work.

@mycota - are you in Arizona? I spent some time in Tucson. My contacts with the county GIS were unproductive.

I would recommend getting to know your local city/county GIS department. When I started mapping I didn’t know anyone, but now I’m good friends with a number of them. And tomorrow I’m going to the local GIS breakfast. I say this because they can make waivers to use their data in OSM.

Snohomish County data is in the public domain - except when it includes personal information, such as assessor records. Since personal data isn’t appropriate for OSM it shouldn’t be used. The rest of the data is in the public domain.

Thanks for posting on mapping streams and wetlands. I’m in the county just north of Snohomish and plan to figure out how to map wetlands. The stream data from the state/county is good, but the wetlands could use more work. There are a number around me that the state hasn’t identified.

BTW - a few years ago I worked with Marysville GIS department to map buildings and addresses. I’m sure it needs updating with all the new developments. If you are interested I can try to find the name of the person from the city I worked with.

Melody Ovard is in the county’s GIS department and has been very helpful. The Snohomish County GIS manager comes to a lot of GIS events in the area.

Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

Clifford

Hawa, Thanks for posting your wonderful OpenStreetMap story. And to my friend Geoffrey - thanks for your inspiration.

I started out mapping sidewalks as a road attribute but discovered that it doesn’t work for sidewalk routing. Mapping sidewalks as separate footways solves that problem. While OSM may have started mapping roads, there is a portion of the population that uses footways to get around. This is especially important for people with limited mobility. Knowing where kerb cuts exits is very important to people with limited mobility. Mapping footways as separate footways solves that problem.

Plus - trying to route yourself on Google. If there are stair involved, Google fails miserably. Probably because there is no money to be made. OSM solves that problem.

Mapping footways as separate ways is more difficult, but it does pay off in the end.

Check out https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Sidewalks

Happy Mapping,

One easy method of finding SEO Spam is to review new users contributions. Since the main culprits seem to limit their changesets to one or two, they show up as a new users. Around me, they show up with a changeset comment of updated and have a username much like the business being added. I would encourage everyone to start welcoming new users in their area using the Welcome tool.

I would also like to thank user_53959 for their world wide work of cleaning up SEO Spam.

When the changeset has many errors, I usually just revert the edit. Otherwise I try to fix minor issues.

Over the years I’ve tried contacting businesses to find out who is adding their business to OSM. So far no luck.

Wille,

I want to thank you and the rest of the developers that work on OSMCha. It has been my goto tool for years.

I look forward to seeing the new features you and your team develop.

Best,

Clifford

I started answering the survey but discovered that most of the answers are open-ended questions. I would recommend, if you didn’t already do so, that you conduct a forum to help create mostly closed-ended questions. Open-ended questions are great for getting detail but limit analytical abilities. Tools like Telegram or Slack are great for conducting forums to gather your initial data to create more closed-end questions.

This is an important topic which I hope gets plenty of attention.

Best,

Clifford

You can see the bounding box of your edits by looking at your history. Just go to your profile and click on my edits. Link below to speed the process.

https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/brandisbrandisbrand/history

One edit appears to cover a wide area but the rest look good.

Wow - the work they did looks great. They are welcome to improve coastlines around me.

Disclaimer, while I know some of the Apple team members, I’m not involved in their work, which they wouldn’t tell me about anyway.

For those wondering about the proposed change to the bylaws the wiki reads

Vote on OpenStreetMap US Bylaws Changes

This year members will vote again on an amendment to the OpenStreetMap US Bylaws. This amendment would extend the board term to 2 years instead of 1 and introduce the ability to staggered terms of service. This change is being proposed for the following reasons:

Establishing term limits and staggered terms provides a better balance and continuity of board members Term limits also give boards the chance to give those hard working board members a mandatory ‘vacation’ Two-year terms give board members more time to grow into their roles, leading to longer institutional memory and continuity of leadership Amendments to the Bylaws require approval by two-thirds (⅔) majority vote of a minimum of fifty percent (50%) of all members in good standing having voted, so please vote!

In the previous two elections, the two proposals had well over the ⅔ majority support that was required, but they did not achieve the 50% turnout of the OSM US membership in order to pass.

Hey @pedrito1414, I fully agree with you that it’s the project manager who decides on the hashtags. I was just trying to point out that the mappers are just using the hashtags that TM provides regardless of how they got there. I’m more than happy with just the project id that can be looked up on TM to see what is supposed to be mapped. Same with imports - if they just entered the wiki import page then I’m happy. I do think some of the projects have too many hashtags. Like I said, I’m happy with just the project number better yet would be a link to the project but the hashtag makes searching easier.

I am glad to hear that the project managers are supposed to contact the community. Are there suggestions of where to post such as mailing lists, Telegram, Discord, HOT Slack, forums, etc?

I agree that hashtags alone don’t tell the what the user did. But the mapper isn’t adding the hashtags, the Tasking Manager is. I’d suggest working with the HOT team to discuss alternatives. For one I’d like to see a quick link from the changeset comment back to the project they worked.

I know that I don’t like unannounced mass imports or bot changes in my area. I suspect you might feel the same way about Tasking Manager projects in Ghana. Why don’t project managers have to discuss planned tasks with the local community?

I do believe hashtags can be useful. For one thing I discovered that so far this year over 50,000 new mappers contributed to HOT projects. That couldn’t be done without some sort of unique identifier in the changeset comment.

Best,

Clifford

Check out the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) available on both iD and JOSM. While NAIP isn’t the highest resolution it will show that you are fairly close.

@martien-vdg - Yes I’m well aware of the site. I include it in every welcome message I send to new users in my State. I should have also recommended it to @kate. I’ve also asked Frans Schultz for permission to modify his OSMCha Concepts for the Welcome Tool.

About your comment that iD should validate unsquare buildings. I also mentioned it to the developers. It was my number one suggestion to new mappers. See my diary entry at https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Glassman/diary/395633. I plan to follow up when there is a replacement for Quincy.

Kate, a.k.a. Kicking Leaves, have you looked at the information available on https://teachosm.org? I recommend new users visit this site. I’d be interested in hearing what your opinion is of the site.

Clifford aka Glassman

@martien-vdg, It’s pretty much all done manually. To see how many users I welcomed I manually county the number of messages sent.

For the comments I do have a database table from the planet with comments. I can find those with a simple query. However the tips summary is again manual calculated from the query results.

I just switched to using the new OSM Welcome Tool. The tool has links to OSMCha. At some point I hope we can insert canned tips via the OSMCha tool which could then easily be counted. But until the iD developers show more interest in adding more validation warnings it doesn’t warrant the OSMCha development.

I look at a lot of new mappers first edits while I welcome new mappers in my state. I see a lot of great first edits and some that will certainly improve as they get more comfortable with the tools and how to find information. I do agree with you that there are come common errors that could be reduced.

HOW

• I’m a firm believer that we should first look at improving our editing tools. As great as iD is, there is room for improvement. Published in my diary entry are a list of tips I’ve given new mappers. First on the list is to square buildings. It would be great of iD would warn new user that the building isn’t square. Check out the list to see what you think could be flagged to the user.

• Users can skip the built in tutorial iD offers. Maybe it should be mandatory for any new user with no edits. It might be too much if a user just wants to add a phone number or address so maybe we need another tools for those users.

• Welcome new users with a message full of helpful information. That along with providing helpful tips on their first edits. While it doesn’t help with their first edits, it will help with subsequent ones. A good way to start is to start welcoming new mappers in your geographical area. Just go to the new Welcome Tool and read the instructions on how to have your area added.