Monthly Archives: April 2018

Participate in our poster competition!

Poster competition at SotM-EU 2014. Photo by Michael Reichert. Licence: Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

At State of the Map we love hearing what has been done with open map data, but we also love seeing it too. This year we’re taking inspiration from regional SotM EU conference and holding a poster competition. Your poster could show how well your home is mapped, it could be a beautiful new style or map. It might not focus on a map but instead focus on a community or statistics, it might be a poster explaining and inviting people to OpenStreetMap. What’s important, is we want it to be about OpenStreetMap.

Rules for the competition

  • Poster should be for A0 size (841×1189mm)
  • Poster should be about OpenStreetMap
  • One entry per person

How to enter

  • Upload your poster online
  • Send an e-mail to team@stateofthemap.org with the subject “Poster Entry
  • Include: a link to the image, title of the poster, your name(s), whether you would like to bring the A0 poster or for us to print it. The licence of the submitted works is considered to be CC BY-SA 4.0, unless noted otherwise on the image.

Deadline: 30th June 2018

With the entries

  • The SotM team hope to shortlist up to 20 posters that will be displayed during the State of the Map 2018 conference in Milan
  • During the conference, attendees will be invited to vote on their favourite posters
  • As of this time there are no prizes planned other than the satisfaction of sharing your poster with the State of the Map community.

You don’t have to attend SotM 2018 to enter this competition, but great conversations happen while viewing the posters so grab your SotM tickets here!

Recommendations for new (Pokémon GO) mappers by community members

The post below is a modified version of a message written by Spanholz, with input from other OSM community members, aimed at new mappers coming from Pokémon GO. Modified with permission.

Pokémon GO and Ingress changed their base maps to OpenStreetMap in 2017. A lot of you may have discovered a loss in information on the game map. No building shapes, no parks or footways. But you can add them and help to create a free world map.

What is OpenStreetMap?
OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a map that anyone can edit. There are some similarities to Wikipedia, but there are differences too (if you are a Wikipedia contributor please read this). Everything you see in the world could be on one map. Open data, usable by everyone. Niantic uses OSM data for Pokémon GO, Wheelmap users enrich OpenStreetMap to help people with disabilities and Kurviger can show routes for motorcyclists that are more curvy and outside of residential areas. There are many more examples how the data you contribute is used.

How is it different from other online maps?
OpenStreetMap data is open. You are allowed to commercially print maps based on OSM data, with the appropriate attribution on them. You can take the map data and create your own routing engine. You can create your own map style and use it to visualise OSM data. We believe that geographical information should be available in one big database free for everyone.

Isn’t mapping complicated?
No. The world of OpenStreetMap consists of elements such as points (nodes), lines (ways), areas and relations. They get their values through so called tags (like name=Africa). For example a playground could be outlined as an area and tagged as:
name=Happy faces
leisure=playground
opening_hours=10:00-20:00
We can use nodes for small features like wastebaskets or bicycle repair stations. Ways for roads, paths, small waterways. Areas for forests, buildings and ponds.
See popular features that are mapped (for more, search the wiki).

How can I edit?
We have two main editors for mapping with computers, iD, a browser editor, and JOSM, an advanced standalone editor. To add things with your smartphone you can use mobile apps which also display the map you help to enrich. See some of the editors.

What are the most important rules?

  • Don’t use copyrighted sources (maps, databases, photographs).
  • Map what’s on the ground.
  • Have fun creating the best map ever!

Where to find help

  • Search the Wiki, many tags are described there. Read the discussion pages of the tags or search the archive of the tagging mailing list.
  • Look at other parts of the world, where something is already mapped. Look in bigger cities or in Europe, where things are mapped to the greatest detail (yes, there are people who add the colour of waste bins!)
  • Ask! Other mappers will help you, ask on help.openstreetmap.org, on the forum, on country-specific OSM mailing lists and IRC channels or on /r/openstreetmap. You can also find community channels on most social media.

You should know

  • Your changes do not go through an approval process. Please be considerate and only add correct information, as the data is used by drivers, pedestrians, cyclists and even canoeists!
  • You are free to create tags, if you don’t find an appropriate one on the wiki or elsewhere.
  • The wiki is helpful but some pages might have inconsistencies or have suggestions that deviate from common practices.
  • You don’t have to create an official proposal of a new tag on the wiki – but creating one will probably provide you with useful feedback and increase its visibility.
  • Aerial imagery might be old. It could also be offset – compare with gps traces.

What is good mapping?

We have got you covered: Good practices primer!
For example,

    • Don’t use the name tag to describe the object. name=bench is wrong, amenity=bench is right. The name tag should only be used for features with actual names, like schools or restaurants (see Names).
    • Don’t connect landuses with streets. It’s hard to change something afterwards and also confusing.
    • Don’t uncritically delete stuff. First ask the mapper why s/he did something the way s/he did. Maybe you just have old satellite data.
    • OSM data can be visualised in many different ways on various websites or apps – please do not add incorrect tags just to see something rendered on www.openstreetmap.org.

What else?

This website by Pascal Neis shows you other mappers near you, if you want to connect.
Upcoming OSM Events. Maybe there’s a social meet up near you. It’s always good to talk to people face to face.

Have fun creating the best map ever!

Pokémon GO is a hugely popular mobile game which uses OpenStreetMap data to influence “spawn points” within the game. It always takes new folks some time to get to know OpenStreetMap, and we hope Pokémon Go players will stick around to contribute some more.

OpenStreetMap is a world-wide collaborative project aiming at providing free map data, under an open license, to anyone who wants it. Volunteers all over the planet contribute their local knowledge and their time to build the best map ever. You can contribute by improving the map, uploading GPS traces, increasing awareness about the project, editing or translating the wiki, becoming a member of the volunteer Working Groups, donating or joining the OSM Foundation. You don’t have to be a member of the Foundation in order to edit OpenStreetMap.

How the new Niantic – OpenStreetMap Foundation collaboration affects mappers coming from Pokémon GO

Happy April 1st everyone! We would be really happy if this announcement was real (but it’s not 🙂 ). We still want to encourage everyone to add correct information to the map, read the links with the tips (1, 2) and get more involved. Many thanks to all Pokémon GO trainers who have correctly mapped their areas. Happy mapping!

OSM logo by Ken Vermette, Pikachu image CC BY-NC.

During the last year the OpenStreetMap community has seen an influx of mappers coming from Pokémon GO, as the hugely popular mobile game was found to be using OSM data to influence “spawn points” within the game. New mappers were welcomed and we shared some tips with them. We got a few people addicted to mapping, new places were mapped and help received a lot of questions. The flurry of new map editing activity also had some unfortunate side-effects, as a few new mappers tried to game the system by adding things that did not exist or by assigning the wrong tags.

Use of leisure=park from 2013 to 2018. Source: http://taghistory.raifer.tech/

 

The OpenStreetMap Foundation has been in contact with Niantic and we are in the happy position to announce a collaboration! Niantic, wanting to show their support to the project, will become our first Rubidium Corporate Member and is also in the process of adjusting their algorithms so that areas with good map edits get more spawn points, while areas where players try to game the system get penalised. While the implementation will be gradual, it will take into account all edits that have happened in an area for the last 1.5 years and it will use a scoring system to determine the increase (or decrease) of spawn points. That means that the good mapping habits of you and your nearby players can positively affect your game.

“Niantic is in the process of adjusting their algorithms so that areas with good map edits get more spawn points, while areas where players try to game the system get penalised.”

What you can do:
Read our tips.
Read recommendations collected from community members.

In addition to that, there are plans to reward other contributions to OpenStreetMap as well. To begin with, for every accepted pull request to core software of the OpenStreetMap infrastructure, the trainer will be rewarded with an unique opportunity to obtain some legendary Pokémon – including those which were up to now only available during limited-time events! At a later stage, we’re planning to use a more elaborate algorithm, which may also include the trainer’s wiki profile, help karma points and other contributor metrics, so stay tuned! The OSMF has approached the creator of the popular “How did you contribute” service, Pascal Neis, to work with Niantic to find  the most effective way to determine a trainer’s score.

We encourage all players of Pokémon GO to take advantage of this early release statement and go out to map, write code or help to enhance the wiki pages!

Pokémon GO is a hugely popular mobile game which uses OpenStreetMap data to influence “spawn points” within the game. It always takes new folks some time to get to know OpenStreetMap, and we hope Pokémon GO players will stick around to contribute some more.
OpenStreetMap is a world-wide collaborative project aiming at providing free map data, under an open license, to anyone who wants it. Volunteers all over the planet contribute their local knowledge and their time to build the best map ever. You can contribute by improving the map, uploading GPS traces, increasing awareness about the project, editing or translating the wiki, becoming a member of the volunteer Working Groups, donating or joining the OSM Foundation. You don’t have to be a member of the Foundation in order to edit OpenStreetMap.