# items

guid: https://blog.openstreetmap.org/?p=176636479
url: https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2019/05/28/osmf-board-face-to-face-meeting-2019/
title: OSMF Board face to face meeting 2019
published: 2019-05-28 23:54:46
fetched: 2019-08-25 12:00:04.165492
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:33.841197
updated_at: 2019-08-25 12:00:04.317436
summary:
  The OpenStreetMap Foundation Board is a special thing. Elected by the Foundation members, we come from very different backgrounds and parts of the world. Several of us had never met in person before. Most of our communication is asynchronous. We have only a single one hour phone meeting every month, usually in public. Now imagine [&#8230;]

content:
  <figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/OSMF_Board_F2F2019-2.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-176636513" srcset="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/OSMF_Board_F2F2019-2.jpg 992w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/OSMF_Board_F2F2019-2-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/OSMF_Board_F2F2019-2-768x576.jpg 768w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/OSMF_Board_F2F2019-2-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 992px) 100vw, 992px" /><figcaption><em>The OSMF Board.</em> <em>From left to right: Frederik Ramm, Kate Chapman, Paul Norman, Heather Leson, Mikel Maron, Tobias Knerr and Joost Schouppe. Photograph by Allen Gunn</em>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"><em>CC-BY-SA 4.0</em></a><em>. </em></figcaption></figure>



  <p>The OpenStreetMap Foundation Board is a special thing. Elected by the Foundation members, we come <a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Board_Member_Bios&amp;oldid=5992">from very different backgrounds and parts of the world</a>. Several of us had never met in person before. Most of our communication is asynchronous. We have only a single one hour phone <a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Board_Meeting_Minutes">meeting</a> every month, usually in public. Now imagine this group of people trying to tackle complicated problems together.</p>



  <p>Thus the tradition to have a yearly face to face meeting. Though the meeting was later than we hoped, the timing turned out right. We had already tackled some of the biggest issues that needed attention, and were finally in a good place to look at the bigger picture.</p>



  <p>The face to face meeting means more time to work together than over the rest of the year combined. To make things even more productive, we had professional assistance from Allen Gunn, <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://aspirationtech.org/about" target="_blank">Aspiration</a>. This helped greatly to make sure it wasn’t just the most outspoken who talked, that the important stuff got some attention, and that we didn’t get into each others’ hair. Too much at least. Just kidding: put people who believe in OpenStreetMap together in one room, and it turns out we can have a productive conversation without much issue.</p>



  <h2 id="On-to-actual-business">On to actual business</h2>



  <p>So what did we talk about? (apart from that it’s hard to leave baby goats behind, that you need to be a vegetarian to drive a Land Rover, and sacrilegious stuff like that BrewDog has the best beer in Belgium).</p>



  <p>If we learned one thing from the last election season, it’s that it wouldn’t be technically illegal and not hard at all for a “bad actor” to <strong>game the election</strong>. We spent several hours analyzing what we could do to mitigate such risks. And then a few more to identify the solutions we can actually implement before the next election.</p>



  <p>Working on things like this, we have noticed that our working relationship with the various <strong><a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Working_Groups">Working Groups</a></strong> is not without its issues. We took a long hard look in the mirror and came up with a list of questions we would like to ask the Working Groups, to better understand how we can do better as a board. We’ll be sharing what we worked on with Working Groups soon. The results of that will be a starting point to see where we can help Working Groups to succeed in their goals.</p>



  <p>We started off from our own priorities, but on the second day we took <strong>the recent <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2019/05/09/osmf-board-face-to-face-meeting-suggest-the-topics-and-issues-that-matter-to-you/" target="_blank">survey</a></strong> into account. We got 161 full responses. There were some requests we could not handle, such as smashing the capitalist world system. But even the answers that are not really in Board scope were very informative and sometimes even came as a surprise.</p>



  <p>There were many requests to deal with tags, editor presets, improvements to the website and core technology. On the top of the list were two threats: a hostile takeover scenario, and <strong>our own divisions as a community (community health)</strong>. Having these items outlined by that community did help us to see that it’s not just peculiar board members who care about this, but something that really lives in the community. We want to get deeper insights into these issues and plan to do more detailed surveys in the future. We’ll be sharing more details on the survey and surveying in general soon.</p>



  <h2 id="Any-other-business">Any other business</h2>



  <p>The meeting is a good time to revive some important but “dormant” issues. We’ve made good progress on Board term limits and Microgrants. But we also know that efficiency gains are not enough: we need more help to realise our goals. Since we’re all very happy with Dorothea’s work for us, we are planning to extend her hours. We will always be a volunteer organisation, and we are looking at ways to make sure that she does as little as possible that could have been done by a volunteer.</p>



  <h2 id="Personal-lessons-learned">Personal lessons learned</h2>



  <p>While it is a costly affair, having a full board meeting for two-and-a-half days seems definitely good value for money. Especially for me, as a new member it feels like things have finally started. If we have a more international club in the future, it will be even more useful to bridge the cultural, gender, and power gaps.<br />Personally, I would like to see the face to face happen sooner after the election. There is an advantage to having been on the board for a couple of months already: it gives you a better of idea of what is realistic. While I was a bit frustrated with the relatively limited amount of stuff that made it to the action item list, it would still already be a huge success if we can get most of that list done.</p>



  <p><em>Joost Schouppe</em></p>



  <p></p>



  <p></p>



  <p><em><br />The <a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org">OpenStreetMap Foundation</a> is a not-for-profit organisation, formed in the UK to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project, is financially supported by membership fees and donations, and organises the annual, international <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://stateofthemap.org/" target="_blank">State of the Map</a> conference. The OpenStreetMap Foundation has no full-time employees and it is supporting the OpenStreetMap project through the work of our volunteer&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Working_Groups" target="_blank">Working Groups</a>. Please consider becoming a <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://join.osmfoundation.org/" target="_blank">member</a> and read about our <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://join.osmfoundation.org/fee-waiver-program/" target="_blank">fee-waiver program</a>. </em></p>


guid: https://blog.openstreetmap.org/?p=176636448
url: https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2019/05/24/sotm-2019-ticket-sales-opened/
title: SotM 2019 Ticket Sales Opened
published: 2019-05-24 01:28:40
fetched: 2019-08-04 08:30:03.787305
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:33.844317
updated_at: 2019-08-04 08:30:03.953345
summary:
  Tickets are now on sale for the State of the Map conference 2019 in Heidelberg, Germany. The conference runs from the 21st-23rd September. As always, if you are eager to start, we offer an Early Bird discount, but hurry, as these special prices are only available for a limited time.We have had a large number [&#8230;]

content:
  <figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/SotM2017_early_bird_ticket_wit_2_birds_8-1024x788.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-176636449" srcset="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/SotM2017_early_bird_ticket_wit_2_birds_8-1024x788.jpg 1024w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/SotM2017_early_bird_ticket_wit_2_birds_8-300x231.jpg 300w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/SotM2017_early_bird_ticket_wit_2_birds_8-768x591.jpg 768w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/SotM2017_early_bird_ticket_wit_2_birds_8-624x480.jpg 624w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/SotM2017_early_bird_ticket_wit_2_birds_8.jpg 1586w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption><em>Modified image, based on </em><a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Merops_pusillus_-Little_Bee-eater_-two_on_branch.jpg" target="_blank"><em>Little Bee-eater photo by ThomHasi</em></a><em>. Initially modified by </em><a href="http://www.supercoloring.com/silhouettes/two-birds-on-branch"><em>Bob Comix</em></a><em> and then by the  OSM </em><a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Communication_Working_Group"><em>CWG</em></a><em>.</em> <em>SotM 2019 logo by Michael Auer</em>. <em>Licence</em> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"><em>CC-BY-SA 4.0</em></a><em>. </em></figcaption></figure>



  <p>Tickets are now on sale for the <a href="https://2019.stateofthemap.org/">State of the Map conference 2019</a> in Heidelberg, Germany. The conference runs from the 21st-23rd September. As always, if you are eager to start, we offer an Early Bird discount, but hurry, as these special prices are only available for a limited time.<br />We have had a large number of talks submitted to both the <a href="https://2019.stateofthemap.org/calls/general">regular</a> and <a href="https://2019.stateofthemap.org/calls/academic/#intro">academic</a> tracks, so this year promises to have some really interesting topics. Come and be a part of what should be the biggest SotM to date!</p>



  <h3><strong>Early bird ticket prices</strong></h3>



  <p>There are many different tickets on offer, so make sure you select the correct one when ordering.<br /><br /><strong>Regular &#8211; €180 (early bird)</strong><br />Regular tickets for €180 are available for individuals.</p>



  <p><strong>Community &#8211; €75 (early bird)</strong><br />If you are a member of the volunteer OSM community, you can get your SotM ticket for a special discounted price of €75.</p>



  <p><strong>Supporter &#8211; €700 (early bird)</strong><br />For those businesses who want to help support the SotM but cannot sponsor, we offer the supporter ticket costing €700.</p>



  <h3>Included in your ticket</h3>



  <ul><li><strong>entrance for one person to the social dinner</strong> and</li><li><strong>use of local public transport</strong> in Heidelberg (VRN), so you don&#8217;t have to worry about paying for public transport each time you use it.</li></ul>



  <h3><strong>Additional offers</strong></h3>



  <p>Alongside the regular tickets, we have some extras to offer.<br /><br /><strong>Additional persons to social dinner &#8211; €50</strong> per person<br />If you are bringing more people with you to Heidelberg who are not attending the conference, you can still buy extra tickets for the social dinner. Each one is €50.<br /><br /><strong>Heidelberg Altstadt guided tour &#8211; €15</strong><br />Heidelberg has a very historic city center, and we are pleased to offer a guided tour which will take place in the afternoon of 20th September, costs €15 per person and will last approximately 3 hours. <br /><br />We will be happy to see you in Heidelberg.</p>



  <h3 style="text-align:center"><a href="https://join.osmfoundation.org/?page=CiviCRM&amp;q=civicrm%2Fevent%2Finfo&amp;reset=1&amp;id=13">Get your ticket</a></h3>



  <p><em>SotM Organising Committee<br /><br /></em><a href="https://2019.stateofthemap.org/"><em>Sign up for event updates</em></a><em>&nbsp;and follow us&nbsp;</em><a href="https://twitter.com/sotm"><em>@sotm</em></a><em>!</em></p>



  <p></p>



  <p><em>The <a href="https://stateofthemap.org/">State of the Map</a> conference is the annual, international conference of OpenStreetMap</em>,<em> organised by the&nbsp;<a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/">OpenStreetMap Foundation</a>. The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, formed in the UK to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project. The&nbsp;<a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/StateoftheMap_Organizing_Committee">State of the Map Organising Committee</a>&nbsp;is one of our volunteer&nbsp;<a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Working_Groups">Working Groups</a>.</em></p>



  <p><em><strong>What is OpenStreetMap</strong><br /><a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org">OpenStreetMap</a>  was founded in 2004 and is a international project to create a free map  of the world. To do so, we, thousands of volunteers, collect data about  roads, railways, rivers, forests, buildings and a lot more worldwide.  Our map data can be downloaded for free by everyone and used for any  purpose – including commercial usage. It is possible to produce your own  maps which highlight certain features, to calculate routes etc.  OpenStreetMap is increasingly used when one needs maps which can be very  quickly, or easily, updated.</em></p>


guid: https://blog.openstreetmap.org/?p=176636425
title: OSMF Board face-to face meeting: Suggest the topics and issues that matter to you
published: 2019-05-09 08:52:40
fetched: 2019-07-24 03:00:04.242433
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:33.847143
updated_at: 2019-07-24 03:00:04.394493
url:
  https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2019/05/09/osmf-board-face-to-face-meeting-suggest-the-topics-and-issues-that-matter-to-you/

summary:
  The OSMF Board is going to have a face-to-face meeting in Brussels later in May for strategy and planning. We very much want to prioritize and focus on topics and issues that matter most to the OpenStreetMap community, so we are requesting your input to help us understand what matters to you personally.  We have [&#8230;]

content:
  <figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/OSM_microphone-1024x683.png" alt="" class="wp-image-176636426" srcset="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/OSM_microphone-1024x683.png 1024w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/OSM_microphone-300x200.png 300w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/OSM_microphone-768x512.png 768w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/OSM_microphone-624x416.png 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption><em> </em><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"><em>CC-BY-SA 4.0</em></a><em> OSM <a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Communication_Working_Group">CWG</a></em></figcaption></figure>



  <p>The <a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Officers_%26_Board">OSMF Board</a> is going to have a face-to-face meeting in Brussels later in May for strategy and planning. We very much want to prioritize and focus on topics and issues that matter most to the OpenStreetMap community, so we are requesting your input to help us understand what matters to you personally. </p>



  <p style="text-align:center"><strong>We have created the following survey, with 3 questions</strong>:<br /><a href="https://osmf.limequery.org/489698?lang=en"><strong>https://osmf.limequery.org/489698?lang=en</strong></a></p>



  <p>Thank you for your participation.</p>



  <p></p>



  <p><em><strong>What is the OpenStreetMap Foundation</strong><br />The <a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org">OpenStreetMap Foundation</a>  is a not-for-profit organisation, formed in the UK to support the  OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth,  development and distribution of free geospatial data for anyone to use  and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the  infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project.</em></p>


guid: https://blog.openstreetmap.org/?p=176636402
title: The OpenStreetMap Foundation is now an Open Source Initiative affiliate
published: 2019-05-08 00:04:18
fetched: 2019-07-09 16:00:03.911790
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:33.849898
updated_at: 2019-07-09 16:00:04.062619
url:
  https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2019/05/08/the-openstreetmap-foundation-is-now-an-open-source-initiative-affiliate/

summary:
  The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is actively involved in Open Source community-building, education, and public advocacy to promote awareness and the importance of non-proprietary software. They have approached us last year, asking if we would consider throwing our weight behind that cause by becoming an affiliate. The OpenStreetMap Foundation board had a vote and decided [&#8230;]

content:
  <figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/OSI.png" alt="" class="wp-image-176636407" srcset="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/OSI.png 719w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/OSI-300x155.png 300w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/OSI-624x323.png 624w" sizes="(max-width: 719px) 100vw, 719px" /><figcaption><em>Image by the Open Source Initiative. License: </em><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"><em>Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 </em></a></figcaption></figure>



  <p>The <a href="https://opensource.org">Open Source Initiative</a> (OSI) is actively involved in Open Source community-building, education, and public advocacy to promote awareness and the importance of non-proprietary software. They have approached us last year, asking if we would consider throwing our weight behind that cause by becoming an <a href="https://opensource.org/affiliates">affiliate</a>.<br /><br />The OpenStreetMap Foundation board <a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Board/Minutes/2018-12-20#Becoming_an_Open_Source_Initiative_affiliate">had a vote</a> and decided in favour. The application has now been accepted and OSMF joins the Initiative alongside other affiliates like Creative Commons, DemocracyLab, The Document Foundation and others.<br /><br />As an OSI affiliate, the board has a delegate who:<br />&#8211; is the main liaison to OSI.<br />&#8211; can participate in OSI Working Groups.<br />&#8211; may nominate and vote for the five Affiliate Member seats on the OSI Board of Directors. <br />The current delegate is <a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Board_Member_Bios&amp;oldid=5992">Kate Chapman</a>.</p>



  <p>The OSI&#8217;s mission is: &#8220;The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a non-profit corporation with global scope formed to educate about and advocate for the benefits of open source and to build bridges among different constituencies in the open source community. Open source enables a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is higher quality, better reliability, greater flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in. One of our most important activities is as a standards body, maintaining the Open Source Definition for the good of the community. The Open Source Initiative Approved License trademark and program creates a nexus of trust around which developers, users, corporations and governments can organize open source cooperation.&#8221;<br /></p>



  <p></p>



  <p><em><strong>What is OpenStreetMap</strong><br /><a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org">OpenStreetMap</a> was founded in 2004 and is a international project to create a free map of the world. To do so, we, thousands of volunteers, collect data about roads, railways, rivers, forests, buildings and a lot more worldwide. Our map data can be downloaded for free by everyone and used for any purpose – including commercial usage. It is possible to produce your own maps which highlight certain features, to calculate routes etc. OpenStreetMap is increasingly used when one needs maps which can be very quickly, or easily, updated, such as ambulance services, fire brigades and humanitarian crises response.</em></p>



  <p><em><strong>What is the OpenStreetMap Foundation</strong><br />The <a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org">OpenStreetMap Foundation</a> is a not-for-profit organisation, formed in the UK to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project.</em></p>


guid: https://blog.openstreetmap.org/?p=176636392
url: https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2019/04/16/state-of-the-map-2020-call-for-venues-open/
title: State of the Map 2020 – Call for Venues Open
published: 2019-04-16 07:46:22
fetched: 2019-07-04 11:00:03.971463
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:33.852777
updated_at: 2019-07-04 11:00:04.114172
summary:
  The call for venues for State of the Map 2020 is now open: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/State_of_the_Map_2020/Call_for_venues Assemble your team and propose your city as host for the next OpenStreetMap conference. The State of the Map organising committee helps you. We encourage you to contact us on sotm@openstreetmap.org as early as possible so that we can provide guidance, [&#8230;]

content:
  <div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img src="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Sotm_logo.png" alt="" class="wp-image-176627508" srcset="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Sotm_logo.png 400w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Sotm_logo-300x187.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px" /></figure></div>



  <p>The call for venues for State of the Map 2020 is now open:</p>



  <p style="text-align:center"> <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/State_of_the_Map_2020/Call_for_venues"><strong>https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/State_of_the_Map_2020/Call_for_venues</strong></a></p>



  <p style="text-align:left">Assemble your team and propose your city as host for the next OpenStreetMap conference. The State of the Map organising committee helps you. We encourage you to contact us on <em><a href="mailto:sotm@openstreetmap.org">sotm@openstreetmap.org</a></em> as early as possible so that we can provide guidance, if required.</p>



  <p style="text-align:center">Submit your proposal by <strong>15th June 2019</strong>.</p>



  <p><em>SotM Organising Committee</em><br /><br /><a href="https://2019.stateofthemap.org/"><em>Sign up for event updates</em></a><em> and follow us </em><a href="https://twitter.com/sotm"><em>@sotm</em></a><em>!</em></p>



  <p></p>



  <p><em>The <a href="https://stateofthemap.org/">State of the Map</a> conference is the annual, international conference of OpenStreetMap</em>,<em> organised by the&nbsp;<a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/">OpenStreetMap Foundation</a>.  The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, formed  in the UK to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to  encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial  data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and  maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project. The&nbsp;<a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/StateoftheMap_Organizing_Committee">State of the Map Organising Committee</a>&nbsp;is one of our volunteer&nbsp;<a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Working_Groups">Working Groups</a>.</em></p>


guid: https://blog.openstreetmap.org/?p=176636372
url: https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2019/03/30/spend-a-summer-of-code-with-openstreetmap-2/
title: Spend a Summer of Code with OpenStreetMap!
published: 2019-03-30 14:15:25
fetched: 2019-06-21 22:30:03.835966
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:33.855298
updated_at: 2019-06-21 22:30:03.982360
summary:
  The student application period for this year&#8217;s Google Summer of Code is currently open! Are you a student who likes to code? Google Summer of Code offers you the opportunity to spend a couple of months contributing to an open source software project – such as OpenStreetMap – and get paid for it! In 2019, [&#8230;]

content:
  <div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img src="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/gsoc_logo.png" alt="" class="wp-image-176627413" srcset="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/gsoc_logo.png 192w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/gsoc_logo-150x150.png 150w" sizes="(max-width: 192px) 100vw, 192px" /><figcaption>GSoC Logo (CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0)</figcaption></figure></div>



  <p>The student application period for this year&#8217;s Google Summer of Code is currently open!</p>



  <p>Are you a student who likes to code? Google Summer of Code offers you the opportunity to spend a couple of months contributing to an open source software project – such as OpenStreetMap – and get paid for it!</p>



  <p>In 2019, OpenStreetMap has been selected again as a mentoring organization by Google, continuing eleven years of GSoC experience with many successful participants. Our <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code/2019/Project_ideas">project ideas page</a> lists a variety of possible tasks which use a broad range of programming languages and technology stacks, and cover topics ranging from work on our search engine to editor software improvements. Plus, you’re not limited to that list of suggestions, so if you’d like to contribute to a project from the OSM ecosystem that’s not listed there, feel free to discuss it with us!</p>



  <p>Some pointers for interested students:</p>



  <ul><li>Choose your (our!) organisation and project idea or even suggest your own idea!</li><li>Get to know your organisation and mentor</li><li>Apply and wait to see if you will get selected</li><li>Community bonding</li><li>Work hard on your project, pass evaluations</li><li>Don’t forget to document your code and project</li></ul>



  <p>Our project is big and we have a very broad and diverse set of tasks, and project ideas which require an equally diverse set of skills. But one thing is quite common to all of them: You should learn about our database and how mapping is supposed to be performed. So go out and start mapping! Add your local grocery store, your favorite clothes shop or that one bench you love to sit on. No matter what, it’s important to get yourself familiar with OpenStreetMap. </p>



  <p style="text-align:center">Interested? Read up on how to work with us:</p>



  <h3 style="text-align:center"> <a href="https://wiki.osm.org/GSoC_2019">https://wiki.osm.org/GSoC_2019</a></h3>



  <p style="text-align:center"><strong>We encourage you to apply!<br />Deadline for applications: 9 April 2019, 18:00 UTC</strong></p>


guid: https://blog.openstreetmap.org/?p=176636288
title: OpenStreetMap wins Free Software Foundation award for projects of social benefit
published: 2019-03-27 17:36:31
fetched: 2019-06-19 02:00:03.424666
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:33.857834
updated_at: 2019-06-19 02:00:03.557384
url:
  https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2019/03/27/openstreetmap-wins-free-software-foundation-award-for-projects-of-social-benefit/

summary:
  OpenStreetMap was selected as the winner of the Free Software Foundation 2018 Award for Projects of Social Benefit. FSF founder and president Richard Stallman &#8211; who presented the award during the LibrePlanet 2019 conference in Cambridge, MA &#8211; mentioned that: &#8220;it has been clear for decades that map data are important. Therefore we need a [&#8230;]

content:
  <figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Kate_and_RMS2-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-176636333" srcset="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Kate_and_RMS2-1.jpg 700w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Kate_and_RMS2-1-300x163.jpg 300w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Kate_and_RMS2-1-624x339.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" /><figcaption><em>Kate Chapman, holding the Free</em> <em>Software</em> <em>Foundation 2018 award for projects of social benefit, together with FSF founder and president Richard Stallman, who presented the award during LibrePlanet 2019.<br />Copyright © 2019 Madi Muhlberg,  <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC-BY 4.0</a>. Image modified. </em></figcaption></figure>



  <p><br />OpenStreetMap was selected as the winner of the Free Software Foundation 2018 Award for Projects of Social Benefit. FSF founder and president Richard Stallman &#8211; who presented the award during the <a href="https://libreplanet.org/2019/">LibrePlanet</a> 2019 conference in Cambridge, MA &#8211; mentioned that:</p>



  <blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p> &#8220;it has been clear for decades that map data are important. Therefore we need a free collection of map data. The name OpenStreetMap doesn&#8217;t say so explicitly, but its map data is free. It is the free replacement that the Free World needs.&#8221;</p></blockquote>



  <p style="text-align:left">The award was a custom-made piece of art: a golden-looking record that had on its label the four reasons why OpenStreetMap was nominated.  It was accepted on behalf of the OpenStreetMap community by Kate Chapman, who went on to thank the Free Software Foundation and the large community of OpenStreetMap contributors. Kate is the chairperson of the <a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org">OpenStreetMap Foundation</a>  &#8211; which supports the OpenStreetMap project &#8211; and she presented some key milestones of the project during her Sunday talk</p>



  <blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>&#8220;The FSF&#8217;s Award for Projects of Social Benefit honors projects that have taken the ideals of the free software movement and applied them to intentionally and significantly benefit society in other aspects of life. OpenStreetMap&#8217;s use of free software, freely shared data, and international grassroots collaboration has massively benefited not only the daily lives of individuals around the world but also saved lives through humanitarian uses like improved disaster response. We all owe OpenStreetMap contributors a debt of gratitude, and the FSF is happy to show our appreciation through this award&#8221;, said FSF executive director John Sullivan. </p></blockquote>



  <p>Nominations for the award were collected from the public, and then a committee made up primarily of previous winners voted between them. OpenStreetMap is in good company, with previous winners including <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</a>, <a href="https://publiclab.org/">Public Lab</a>, <a href="https://securedrop.org/">SecureDrop</a>, <a href="https://libraryfreedomproject.org/">Library Freedom Project</a>, <a href="https://www.wikipedia.org/">Wikipedia</a>, <a href="http://health.gnu.org/">GNU Health</a>,  <a href="https://creativecommons.org">Creative Commons</a>, the <a href="https://archive.org/">Internet Archive</a> and others. More background information about the award is at <a href="https://www.fsf.org/awards/sb-award">https://www.fsf.org/awards/sb-award</a>.</p>



  <p style="text-align:center"><strong>Thanks to all those who contribute to the OpenStreetMap project &#8211; </strong><br /><strong>the award belongs to you!</strong></p>



  <p><br /><br /><em>2019-03-30 The post was updated to reflect that the award had on its label the four reasons why OpenStreetMap was nominated, and not the </em><a href="https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/basics/4freedoms.en.html"><em>Free Software&#8217;s Four Freedoms</em></a><em>, as initially mentioned.</em></p>



  <p><em><strong>What is OpenStreetMap</strong><br /><a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org">OpenStreetMap</a> was founded in 2004 and is a international project to create a free map of the world. To do so, we, thousands of volunteers, collect data about roads, railways, rivers, forests, buildings and a lot more worldwide. Our map data can be downloaded for free by everyone and used for any purpose – including commercial usage. It is possible to produce your own maps which highlight certain features, to calculate routes etc. OpenStreetMap is increasingly used when one needs maps which can be very quickly, or easily, updated, such as ambulance services, fire brigades and humanitarian crises response.</em></p>



  <p><em><strong>What is the OpenStreetMap Foundation</strong><br />The <a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org">OpenStreetMap Foundation</a> is a not-for-profit organisation, formed in the UK to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project.</em></p>



  <p><em><strong>What is the Free Software Foundation</strong><br />The <a href="https://www.fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a> (FSF) is a nonprofit with a worldwide mission to promoting computer users&#8217; right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software &#8212; particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants &#8212; and free documentation for free software. </em></p>



  <p><em><strong>What is LibrePlanet</strong><br /><a href="https://libreplanet.org/">LibrePlanet</a> is an annual conference hosted by the Free Software Foundation  for free software enthusiasts and anyone who cares about the intersection of technology and social justice. LibrePlanet brings together software developers, law and policy experts,activists, students, and computer users to learn skills, celebrate free software accomplishments, and face challenges to software freedom.</em></p>


guid: https://blog.openstreetmap.org/?p=176636218
url: https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2019/03/21/the-eu-copyright-directive-threatens-openstreetmap/
title: The EU Copyright Directive threatens OpenStreetMap
published: 2019-03-21 17:45:23
fetched: 2019-06-18 19:30:04.245049
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:33.860455
updated_at: 2019-06-18 19:30:04.402815
summary:
  The EU Copyright Directive threatens OpenStreetMap and our freedom on the internet. Please join the protest! If you are not located in the EU please spread the word! If you are located in the EU: Call your MEP: Phone numbers and assistance. A day of protests will take place in more than 30 cities all [&#8230;]

content:
  <figure class="wp-block-image" style="box-shadow: 0px; border:0px"><img src="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Black_osm_circle.png" alt="" class="wp-image-176636219" srcset="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Black_osm_circle.png 522w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Black_osm_circle-300x293.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 522px) 100vw, 522px" /></figure>



  <div style="margin:2px 0;border:1px solid #9B9;background:#000000;color:#FFFFFF;padding:2px .5em;text-align:left"> 
  <p><b>The EU Copyright Directive threatens OpenStreetMap and our freedom on the internet. Please join the protest!</b></p>
  <ul>
      <li><b>If you are not located in the EU please spread the word! </b></li>
       <li><b>If you are located in the EU: 
      <ul>
       <li><b>Call your MEP: <a href="https://savetheinternet.info/contact-your-mep">Phone numbers and assistance</a>. </b></li>
          <li><b>A day of protests will take place in more than 30 cities all over Europe on 23 March. Please join a demonstration! <a href="https://savetheinternet.info/demos">Locations and dates</a>.</b></li>
  </ul>
  </b></li></ul>
  </div>



  <p></p>



  <p><em>The German OpenStreetMap community explains below the possible impacts of Article 13 of the new EU Copyright Directive on OpenStreetMap. Source: </em><a href="https://www.openstreetmap.de/uf/en.html"><em>https://www.openstreetmap.de/uf/en.html</em></a><em>   (with minor modifications)</em></p>



  <p>On 26 March 2019, the European Parliament will vote for a third time on the new EU Copyright Directive. Article 13 of the new directive will de-facto force content platforms to filter uploaded contributions by their users. If a platform does not prevent uploading of copyright-protected content in accordance with &#8220;high industry standards of professional diligence&#8221; (i.e. upload filters), the operator of the platform is liable for copyright violations of their users. The new rules can be met by the large platforms, such as Google, Youtube and Facebook. Small, independent and free platforms like OpenStreetMap would be forced to introduce such filters or face catastrophic liability. This threatens our project.<br /><br />The European Parliament passed the bill on 12 September 2018 despite noticeable civil society protest. Since then, the European Commission, the Council of Europe and representatives of the parliament, negotiated a compromise. It is expected that the parliament will vote on the compromise in the last week of March. We think that passing the bill would harm the OpenStreetMap and many other small and medium-sized platforms &#8211; regardless of whether they are commercial or not. If OpenStreetMap had to invest more resources on pre-filtering content than on anything else, the project would be a shadow of its former self. If nothing changes, a dark future awaits us.</p>



  <p>The <a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org">OpenStreetMap Foundation,</a> <a href="https://www.fossgis.de/">FOSSGIS e.V.</a>  &#8211; the official local chapter in Germany &#8211; and <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.fr/copyright-article-13/">OpenStreetMap France</a> &#8211; the official local chapter in France &#8211; campaign for free map data. We usually do so in financial and technical matters but sometimes we are forced to become active in politics to defend the project.</p>



  <h3><strong>But the directive does not mention upload filters, does it?</strong></h3>



  <p>The term is not used in the current version of the draft. But operators of platforms will be liable for copyright violations of their users if they do not meet the following conditions: </p>



  <ol><li>They must have made &#8220;best efforts&#8221; to get a licence to use the uploaded content. </li><li>They must have made best efforts to ensure that their platform does not publish content if copyright holders have provided them with the necessary information. </li><li>If they are informed about a copyright violation, they have to remove the content, or disable access to them, immediately.</li></ol>



  <p>Until now, platforms were excepted from strict liability if they reacted immediately to a notification of a copyright violation. This new directive would force platforms to use either upload filters or review all contributions manually. Upload filters are the &#8220;high industry standard of professional diligence&#8221;. For example, Google uses them on Youtube.</p>



  <h3><strong>What&#8217;s the problem with upload filters?</strong></h3>



  <p>Upload filters have a 
  number of issues for small and medium sized and/or free and independent 
  platforms like OpenStreetMap and Wikipedia:</p>



  <ul><li>These filters&nbsp;<strong>do not work as reliably&nbsp;as required</strong>. Even now, and definitely under the new directive, they tend to be too zealous, by erring on the side of caution and excluding more than they should.</li><li>The operators of small and medium sized platforms will be&nbsp;<strong>forced to purchase the filter technology from large companies </strong>to keep up with the current state of filtering technology. This gives more power, and money, to large companies, centralising their power even more.</li><li>The rules will affect any website where users can upload copyrighted content. These are not only social networks but blogs with comments and forums as well. Small and new platforms lack the required financial resources to buy the filters. They will be exempted from the first and second condition (attempt to get a license and prevent uploads of copyrighted contents) if their annual turnover is below EUR 10 million and they are less than 3 years old. But three years is a short time. If the number of users exceeds 5 million, condition 3 (prevent re-upload of illegal content) must be met.</li></ul>



  <p>The directive aims to oppose the business model of big US companies. Indeed, the business model of Google and others is not always well aligned with public interests, but the directive will harm small and medium sized competitors, not the large ones.</p>



  <h3><strong>Why do upload filters harm OpenStreetMap?</strong></h3>



  <p>The OpenStreetMap project emphasises openness. Map changes by all users, new and experienced, are applied immediately and are provided to all other data processors immediately. The map is always as up to date as possible. <br /><br />Upload filters are very impracticable for multiple reasons:</p>



  <ul><li>OpenStreetMap records the reality as it is. Other map data providers do the same. If OpenStreetMap compared the submissions with other datasets, many false positives would occur. Our data is if it is correct, very similar to the data of other map providers. A road in OpenStreetMap has the same curves, the same name, the same speed limit.</li><li>If a user uploads changes which are rejected by a filter, these changes have to be rejected as soon as possible. This requires the time of our volunteers, who would like to improve the map rather than checking whether a filter returned a false positive.</li><li>If a rejected contribution and a contribution of another user edit the same object in the database, a editing conflict occurs. They cannot be solved automatically because our world is too complex. Some conflicts are not that obvious: If two users add the same recently erected building, the two of them create a new object. In reality, this is a building recorded twice in our data.</li><li>If an edit by a new contributor is rejected by the filter although the edit is fine, the contributor becomes demotivated due to a lack of positive feedback.</li><li>The development, setup and optimisation of the filter&nbsp;requires&nbsp;a large amount of work&nbsp;from&nbsp;our volunteer software developers. Maybe we will have to spend money to purchase services. Both the work of our volunteers and the donations and membership fees are&nbsp;precious limited resources which can be better spent elsewhere to take our project forward.</li></ul>



  <h3><strong>There is an exception for Wikipedia, isn&#8217;t&nbsp;there?</strong><br /></h3>



  <p>It is not clear whether the &#8220;Wikipedia exemption&#8221; would be valid for OSM and even Wikipedia does not feel confident: María Sefidari Huici, member of the board of Wikimedia Foundation, calls the proposed changes a threat for the living and free internet. The Wikimedia Foundation, the organisation behind Wikipedia, <a href="https://medium.com/freely-sharing-the-sum-of-all-knowledge/your-internet-is-under-threat-heres-why-you-should-care-about-european-copyright-reform-7eb6ff4cf321">doubts</a> that this exemption satisfies their requirements. We share these doubts. <br /><br />The directive has to be implemented in national law by EU member states. The implementation will not be the same among the countries. Some differences are possible. In some countries, terms like &#8220;commercial&#8221; and &#8220;business-like&#8221; are interpreted very strictly. Our data is used in commercial environments a lot. There are many companies using our data and contributing back to OpenStreetMap by developing software or paying their own data contributors – or just by making OSM available to the broad public. If OpenStreetMap becomes harder to use for commercial data purposes, due to these new restrictions, it will harm all of us.</p>



  <h3><strong>What can I do to oppose&nbsp;the directive?</strong><br /></h3>



  <p>There are multiple options to become active:</p>



  <ul><li>Sending emails to MEPs is not useful or effective. It is likely that would be&nbsp;treated as spam&nbsp;and/or&nbsp;boost the (false) impression&nbsp;put forward&nbsp;by&nbsp;some&nbsp;advocates of the directive that the folks against the directive are &#8220;Google&#8217;s bots&#8221;.</li><li>You can phone your MEP and try to convince them. <a href="https://savetheinternet.info/contact-your-mep">savetheinternet.info/contact-your-mep</a> provides phone numbers and a filter by country of origin.</li><li><strong>Our number one request is that you join a protest. Join one of the many demonstrations or organise one yourself.</strong> There is a day of action in more then 30 cities all over Europe on 23 March. Dates and locations can be found at <a href="https://savetheinternet.info/demos﻿">savetheinternet.info.</a></li></ul>



  <p>The web site <a href="https://saveyourinternet.eu/">saveyourinternet.eu</a> provides suggestions and support to get in touch with members of the European Parliament. If we succeed in explaining to enough MEPs that upload filters as described in article 13 are a bad idea, the Parliament can reject the article or the whole proposal.</p>



  <h3><strong>Press contact</strong></h3>



  <p>Enquiries can be answered by the Communication Working Group at <a href="mailto:press@osmfoundation.org">press@osmfoundation.org</a>. As the Working Group members are volunteers, we invite you first to use your favorite search engine to see if your question has been answered in our <a href="https://forum.openstreetmap.org/">forum</a> or <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mailing_lists">mailing lists</a>. You can also ask your questions on the forum <em>(OpenStreetMap account required for log-in)</em>, our mailing lists and in our <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/IRC">chat rooms</a>.<em><strong><br /></strong></em></p>



  <p><strong><em>What is OpenStreetMap</em></strong><br /><em>OpenStreetMap was founded in 2004 and is a international project to create a free map of the world. To do so, we, thousands of volunteers, collect data about roads, railways, rivers, forests, buildings and a lot more worldwide. Our map data can be downloaded for free by everyone and used for any purpose – including commercial usage. It is possible to produce your own maps which highlight certain features, to calculate routes etc. OpenStreetMap is increasingly used when one needs maps which can be very quickly, or easily, updated, such as ambulance services, fire brigades, humanitarian development and humanitarian crises response.</em></p>



  <p><strong><em>What is the OpenStreetMap Foundation</em></strong><br /><em>The <a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org">OpenStreetMap Foundation</a> is a not-for-profit organisation, formed in the UK to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project.</em></p>



  <p><strong><em>Source: <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.de/uf/en.html">https://www.openstreetmap.de/uf/en.html</a> with minor modifications</em></strong></p>


guid: https://blog.openstreetmap.org/?p=176636182
url: https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2019/02/28/sotm-2019-call-for-participations/
title: Call for SotM 2019 talks and presentations is now open
published: 2019-02-28 17:20:52
fetched: 2019-06-13 00:30:03.702471
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:33.863070
updated_at: 2019-06-13 00:30:03.878692
summary:
  As of now we are accepting your talks and presentations in the following State of the Map 2019 tracks: OSM Basics: Information dedicated to newcomers&#160; Community &#38; Foundation: Bringing people together, working group experiences, strategies &#38; vision Mapping: All about making the mapping easier and better Cartography: Your ideas on how to create good-looking manifestations [&#8230;]

content:
  <figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/43646438822_2d3443991d_k-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-176636184" srcset="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/43646438822_2d3443991d_k-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/43646438822_2d3443991d_k-300x200.jpg 300w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/43646438822_2d3443991d_k-768x512.jpg 768w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/43646438822_2d3443991d_k-624x416.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption><em>Photograph by Thomas Skowron, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">CC BY 2.0</a></em></figcaption></figure>



  <p>As of now we are accepting your talks and presentations in the following <a href="https://2019.stateofthemap.org/">State of the Map 2019</a> tracks:<br /></p>



  <ul><li>OSM Basics: Information dedicated to newcomers&nbsp;</li><li>Community &amp; Foundation: Bringing people together, working group experiences, strategies &amp; vision</li><li>Mapping: All about making the mapping easier and better</li><li>Cartography: Your ideas on how to create good-looking manifestations of the OSM dataset</li><li>Software Development: Software for processing and editing data</li><li>Data Analysis &amp; Data Model: Reflections about the OSM data, its model and analysis of quality and completeness</li><li>User Experiences: Tell your surprising story of using OSM as an end-user</li><li>Academic Track: There will be a proper academic track, it will be announced separately!</li></ul>



  <p>Two novelties deserve a special mention:<br /></p>



  <ul><li>The &#8220;OSM Basics&#8221; track: We would like to welcome newcomers with contributions that get them started in the fascinating world of OpenStreetMap. These talks should specifically address the needs of people not overly familiar with the OSM ecosystem.</li><li>The &#8220;Extended talk&#8221; submission type: Big ideas need time to grow. For talks in this category we will allow double the time (40 min) compared to the usual talks. Make sure to mention why your talk needs this extended space.</li></ul>



  <p>You will find the Call for Participations and the link to the submission form at:<br /></p>



  <h4 style="text-align:center"><a href="https://2019.stateofthemap.org/calls/general/">https://2019.stateofthemap.org/calls/general/</a></h4>



  <p>We are looking forward to your fresh ideas and beautiful maps!<br />&nbsp;<br /><em>SotM 2019 Program Committee</em><br /><br /><a href="https://2019.stateofthemap.org/"><em>Sign up for event updates</em></a><em>&nbsp;and follow us&nbsp;</em><a href="https://twitter.com/sotm"><em>@sotm</em></a><em>!</em><br /><br /><br /><em>The <a href="https://stateofthemap.org/">State of the Map</a> conference is the annual, international conference of OpenStreetMap</em>,<em> organised by the&nbsp;<a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/">OpenStreetMap Foundation</a>. The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, formed in the UK to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project. The&nbsp;<a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/StateoftheMap_Organizing_Committee">State of the Map Organising Committee</a>&nbsp;is one of our volunteer&nbsp;<a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Working_Groups">Working Groups</a>.</em></p>


guid: https://blog.openstreetmap.org/?p=176636145
title: Apply for scholarship to join us at State of the Map 2019 in Heidelberg
updated: 2019-02-26 21:26:25
fetched: 2019-06-09 23:32:22.054010
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:33.865658
updated_at: 2019-06-09 23:32:22.235153
url:
  https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2019/02/26/apply-for-scholarship-to-join-us-at-state-of-the-map-2019-in-heidelberg/

summary:
  Applications for State of the Map 2019 scholarships are now open! State of the Map is the annual event for all mappers and OpenStreetMap users. In line with our motto “Bridge the Map”, we invite all OSM enthusiasts – whether you are a hobby mapper, a scientific researcher, a humanitarian, with an NGO or a [&#8230;]

content:
  <figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/SotM2019_scholarship_applications-1024x682.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-176636146" srcset="https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/SotM2019_scholarship_applications-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/SotM2019_scholarship_applications-300x200.jpg 300w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/SotM2019_scholarship_applications-768x512.jpg 768w, https://blog.openstreetmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/SotM2019_scholarship_applications-624x416.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption><em>The SotM 2019 logo was created by Michael Auer. Image © </em><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"><em>CC-BY-SA 4.0</em></a><em> OSMF CWG</em></figcaption></figure>



  <p></p>



  <p>Applications for <a href="https://2019.stateofthemap.org">State of the Map 2019</a> scholarships are now open!<br /></p>



  <p>State of the Map is the annual event for all mappers and OpenStreetMap users. <br />In line with our motto “Bridge the Map”, we invite all OSM enthusiasts – whether you are a hobby mapper, a scientific researcher, a humanitarian, with an NGO or a government agency, a small business or a global company &#8212; &nbsp;to join us in Heidelberg, September 21-23, 2019 and strengthen existing and build new bridges. The HOT Summit, the annual gathering of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team community, will also be directly preceding SotM &#8211; to enable all SotM participants to easier attend HOT Summit and vice versa &#8211; and facilitate further exchange. <br /></p>



  <p>We want to enable as many of you as possible to be part of State of the Map 2019. We are happy to announce that we can provide financial support, thanks to the generosity of our sponsors</p>



  <h4 style="text-align:center"><a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe4PqzO6y5sifr27ejY5rONlZuj5KmDLZXE-MKNjsmENd5T3A/viewform"><strong>Apply now for support to join us in Heidelberg for State of the Map 2019!</strong></a></h4>



  <h4 style="text-align:center"><strong>Deadline: 30th March 2019</strong></h4>



  <p>Each year we receive more scholarship applications than we are able to support. To help us best allocate the funds, we have different levels of scholarship to pick from:</p>



  <ul><li>Support scholarship (admission and accommodation)</li><li>Full scholarship (admission, accommodation and full travel costs)</li><li>Enhanced scholarship (admission, accommodation, full travel costs and extra support to cover evening meals and supplementary costs)</li></ul>



  <p>Here are some tips to help you complete your application. You can also check out <a href="http://www.livingwithdragons.com/2018/01/finding-people-to-bring-to-sotm">Gregory’s post</a> on how we selected scholars from previous year’s applicants.</p>



  <ul><li>Select the minimum level of scholarship you need. This will help us to make the best use of limited funds and enable more scholars to join.</li><li>Make sure you clearly state your visa and travel requirements, as well as potential other funding sources.</li><li>Answer the question “Please describe your involvement in OSM and how will attending State of the Map benefit you, your local mapping community and the wider OpenStreetMap project” in 1500 characters maximum. Keep sentences short. Focus on the benefits to you and to OpenStreetMap.</li><li>We want to hear about your contributions to OpenStreetMap, your project or your group. We do not want an account of a group’s work but your individual part in it. Try to use “I” not “we“.</li><li>You may include links to your OpenStreetMap profile, a local group you run, or software you created. If your written answer is satisfactory to get in our shortlist – we might take a look at these additional details.</li><li>What topics or views will you bring to SotM that are otherwise missing?</li><li>What do you plan to achieve through coming to the SotM?</li><li>What do you plan to do when you return home after SotM?</li></ul>



  <p>To enable our scholars to have the chance to extend their stay for the HOT Summit, this option will also be supported through generosity of HOT Summit sponsors. Please make sure to indicate if the HOT Summit is of interest for you on the form as well. </p>



  <h2 style="text-align:center"><a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe4PqzO6y5sifr27ejY5rONlZuj5KmDLZXE-MKNjsmENd5T3A/viewform"><strong>Apply now!</strong></a></h2>



  <h4>Reviewing scholarships</h4>



  <p><strong>Review team</strong><br />For SotM 2019 we decided to contact past scholars who might want to be involved in the review process. </p>



  <ul><li>Twelve persons will review the applications (Thanks!). All people who replied or self-volunteered were included.</li><li>Eleven are past scholars.</li><li>Four are women. </li><li>Four volunteered prior to being contacted. </li></ul>



  <p>Geographic distribution of review team&#8217;s nationalities:</p>



  <ul><li>4    Africa West, East, Central and Southern<br /></li><li>4    Asia-Pacific</li><li>4    Europe</li></ul>



  <p><strong>Criteria for reviewing the applications:</strong></p>



  <p>Here&#8217;s a list of factors  that we will consider when reviewing the applications:</p>



  <ul><li>Is the applicant part of an under-represented minority group?</li><li>Are they from an under-represented location?</li><li>Are they contributing to OSM in a substantial way? (Not only OpenStreetMap edits, but contributed to wiki and documentation, trainers, developers).</li><li>Have they applied previously and not gotten a scholarship?</li><li>Do they have a unique story or experience to share?</li><li>Are they in a position to share their SotM experience with a larger group?</li><li>Will their attendance benefit their local community in some way?</li><li>How difficult will their visa application be?</li><li>How will attending State of the Map benefit them and OpenStreetMap?</li></ul>



  <p style="text-align:center"><strong>You can update your application before the 30th of March.</strong></p>



  <h4><br />Can you support the scholarship program?</h4>



  <p>Is your company or organisation interested in sponsoring State of the Map 2019 and our scholarship program? Take a look at our <a href="https://2019.stateofthemap.org/Sponsorship2019.pdf">sponsorship packages</a> and email us at <a href="mailto:sponsor-sotm@openstreetmap.org">sponsor-sotm@openstreetmap.org</a> for more information.<em><br /></em></p>



  <p><em>2019-03-12: This post was updated to add information about the review team and the criteria that will be used.</em></p>



  <p></p>



  <p><a href="https://2019.stateofthemap.org/"><em>Sign up for event updates</em></a><em> and follow us </em><a href="https://twitter.com/sotm"><em>@sotm</em></a><em>!</em><br /><br /><em>The international State of the Map conference is organised by the <a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/">OpenStreetMap Foundation</a>. The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, formed in the UK to support the OpenStreetMap Project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data for anyone to use and share. The OpenStreetMap Foundation owns and maintains the infrastructure of the OpenStreetMap project. The <a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/StateoftheMap_Organizing_Committee">State of the Map Organising Committee</a> is one of our volunteer <a href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Working_Groups">Working Groups</a>.</em></p>


guid: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Rozinha2019/diary/368781
url: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Rozinha2019/diary/368781
title: Newbie
published: 2019-06-09 14:27:25
fetched: 2019-06-12 20:30:04.106128
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.230976
updated_at: 2019-06-12 20:30:04.230902
summary:
  <p>I’m a newbie in mapping.</p>

  <p>Very interesting experience and looking forward to making a difference in the world.
  As I am still learning if you feel to give me some hints I will appreciate.
  I’m saving my tasks, but I don’t see it on my profile, is it normal?</p>


guid: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/TuanIfan/diary/368773
url: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/TuanIfan/diary/368773
title: Micro mapping
published: 2019-06-09 05:37:06
fetched: 2019-06-12 10:30:03.701913
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.233678
updated_at: 2019-06-12 10:30:03.818046
summary:
  <p>Micro mapping brings a lot of fun. After hours and hours tracing roads and analysing surveys for shops and services, one can relax about by micro-mapping.
  How can we do it?
  - micro Mapping can be done by beautifying the maps. This includes adding more “colours” into the maps, by enriching it with nature.
  - add more parks, nature reserves, rivers and trees into it.
  - Be creative: add more types of items (as many of possible), and arrange them in the same way as they look like in reality. For example, when drawing a park, make sure lawns and trees are visible. For footpaths, instead of drawing a red-dotted line (highway=footway), draw each of them as highway=pedestrian with area=yes.
  - Use relations to show items that lie within other items.</p>

  <p>In the sample below, I have mapped the park areas surrounding the statue of President Ho Chi Minh in Nguyen Hue Boulevard, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City. This park has been re-designed in 2015 after the establishment of the Nguyen Hue Square.</p>

  <p>Link: <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/10.77590/106.70192" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/10.77590/106.70192</a></p>

  <p><img src="https://i.postimg.cc/gjbRn1nP/micro-mapping.png" alt="Before mapping">
  Before micro-mapping</p>

  <p><img src="https://i.postimg.cc/JhbRRgVX/micro-mapping-2.png" alt="After micro-mapping">
  After micro-mapping</p>


guid: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/daniel-j-h/diary/368771
url: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/daniel-j-h/diary/368771
title: Servus, Bayern: The robots are coming!
published: 2019-06-08 08:54:55
fetched: 2019-06-12 10:30:03.701913
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.235950
updated_at: 2019-06-12 10:30:03.820214
summary:
  <p>Servus, Bayern! After releasing <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/daniel-j-h/diary/368726" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">robosat v1.2</a> I trained it on 80cm aerial imagery to predict all buildings in Bavaria.
  tl;dr - <a href="https://github.com/mapbox/robosat/releases/download/v1.2.0/bavaria-dop80-release-1.tar.gz" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">here</a> you can find the checkpoint ready to use.</p>

  <p><a href="https://github.com/mapbox/robosat" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Robosat</a> is an open source end-to-end pipeline for feature extraction from aerial and satellite imagery seamlessly integrating with OpenStreetMap for automated dataset creation.</p>

  <p>I downloaded the CC-BY-3.0 80cm aerial imagery from 2018 for Bavaria the <a href="https://geoportal.bayern.de/geodatenonline/seiten/wms_dop80cm" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Bayerische Vermessungsverwaltung</a> provides. I then used the open source <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/daniel-j-h/diary/368726" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">robosat v1.2 release</a> to automatically create a training and validation dataset and trained it on my gpu rig. Within days we already get reasonable results without manual work involved.</p>

  <p>For detailed instructions on how to create a dataset and run the robosat pipeline see <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/daniel-j-h/diary/44321" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">my previous diary</a> where I explain the process on drone imagery.</p>

  <p>Here is a heatmap of all the z17 tiles in Bavaria where there are buildings</p>

  <p><img src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/527241/59144441-509e3e80-89d8-11e9-9028-72343d06e73b.jpg" alt="bavaria-dop80-heatmap"></p>

  <p>And here are two examples for the segmentation probabilities I get</p>

  <p><img src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/527241/59144439-509e3e80-89d8-11e9-8897-f0dee75705a4.png" alt="bavaria-dop80-example-0"></p>

  <p><img src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/527241/59144440-509e3e80-89d8-11e9-9a77-ab0a08162e6d.png" alt="bavaria-dop80-example-1"></p>

  <p>In the second image there are buildings in OpenStreetMap but not in the predictions. This is due to the aerial imagery showing construction sites where there are now buildings.</p>

  <hr>

  <p>I released the trained checkpoint <a href="https://github.com/mapbox/robosat/releases/download/v1.2.0/bavaria-dop80-release-1.tar.gz" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">here</a> which allows you to</p>

  <ul>
    <li>
      <p>efficiently predict buildings on your laptop; we provide pre-build docker images for robosat v1.2 to make this a single command</p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <p>use the checkpoint when training your own models on your gpus so that you only have to fine-tune the model and will reach solid results earlier and easier</p>
    </li>
  </ul>

  <p>As usual I’m happy to hear your feedback; hit me up be it in comments here, on Github tickets, or in the robosat channel in the osmus or thespatialcommunity slack.</p>


guid: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/ivaldonm/diary/368767
url: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/ivaldonm/diary/368767
title: Quando sera minha edição 6K?
published: 2019-06-08 01:05:56
fetched: 2019-06-12 07:30:03.964962
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.238670
updated_at: 2019-06-12 07:30:04.082163
summary:
  <p>Estou hesitante, afinal é uma marca considerável  para quem só usa o iD editor. Verdade que dei uma desacelerada recente no OSM, pois estou colaborando com outras plataformas que uso, como Waze, Here e mesmo o Google, e também preferindo editar estradas rurais no OSM.</p>

  <p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/bSU5HT4.png" alt="6k"></p>

  <p>Vamos ver.</p>


guid: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/RADAR76/diary/368766
url: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/RADAR76/diary/368766
title: meu primeiro diario #1
updated: 2019-06-07 18:10:55
fetched: 2019-06-11 16:00:03.789928
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.240817
updated_at: 2019-06-11 16:00:03.915610
summary:
  <p>mas um trabalho concluido , dia perfeito para mapear ruas 
  nada melhor em um dia perfeito em busca da perfeição</p>


guid: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Silka123/diary/368763
url: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Silka123/diary/368763
title: Интервью с Еленой Балашовой
updated: 2019-06-07 06:50:06
fetched: 2019-06-11 14:30:04.291788
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.243664
updated_at: 2019-06-11 14:30:04.435714
summary:
  <p>Год назад администрация Тольятти перевела почти все свои интернет-ресурсы на лицензию Creative Commons Attribution, а данные своего ГИС-портала персонально разрешила использовать сообществу OpenStreetMap. Почему они решили это сделать, отчего чиновники боятся открытых данных и как лучше всего добиваться их получения — обо всем этом в <a href="https://habr.com/ru/post/455164/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">интервью</a> рассказала руководитель департамента информационных технологий и связи администрации г.о. Тольятти Елена Балашова.</p>


guid: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Harry%20Wood/diary/368757
url: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Harry%20Wood/diary/368757
title: A little shop contact page ...with OpenStreetMap
updated: 2019-06-05 23:22:33
fetched: 2019-06-11 08:00:03.896035
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.245856
updated_at: 2019-06-11 08:00:04.021747
summary:
  <p>A rare thing happened with some shop mapping I was doing just now. I was adding “HOM Concept” from <a href="https://www.mapillary.com/app/?pKey=5KjssSvCYEfapzJA3nAypw&amp;lat=51.58724208230539&amp;lng=-0.10084471144710579&amp;z=17&amp;focus=photo&amp;menu=false" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">my Mapillary view out of a bus window</a>. I looked up <a href="http://www.homconcept.co.uk/contacts_3.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">the website of the shop</a>  …and look! OpenStreetMap!</p>

  <p><a href="http://www.homconcept.co.uk/contacts_3.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/hHubc0r.png" alt="Imgur"></a></p>

  <p>Actually it might be the first time I’ve ever come across a contact page for a small London shop (just a few branches) as I was mapping, and found an OpenStreetMap map.</p>

  <p>I have noticed OSM maps popping up around the web more and more lately. That’s something I’ve always pondered ways of encouraging, dreaming up quite a few different angles on the challenge of attracting web developers to use OpenStreetMap, but I guess it’s predictable that the thing which <em>really</em> shifts them off google maps is google maps themselves, as they start getting more strict with charging for high traffic.</p>

  <p>I find it significant to see something like the HOM concept website using OpenStreetMap because it’s a very small organisation. I guess they will have paid somebody to do a quick web-design job for them, and that somebody has chosen to quickly do the map with OpenStreetMap, which is great to see! Also great to see not-the-standard OpenStreetMap tiles, both from a tile usage policy point of view (We want web developers to get maps from a diverse range of tile servers, not always hitting one central OSMF hosted server) and because the choice of a black ‘n’ white style (wmflabs tile server) with a yellow marker fits rather well with their colour scheme.</p>

  <p>There’s a few not so great things. Some folks will have already spotted the lack of OpenStreetMap credits. In fact they seem to have accidentally covered them up with a black box. It only happens if the browser is wider than 1060px actually. Otherwise the layout is completely different and the normal credits appear on there. This black box is some weird scroll progress bar widget which seems a bit pointless. So that’s annoying, but we know people make mistakes like that. What else?…</p>

  <p>Call me a stickler, but I feel a contact page map marker <em>really</em> should point at the right place… like really…  I find it quite unfathomable that someone would put together a map for users to find a business, and then put the pointer in the wrong place! And yet I’ve seen it a lot. One cause I’ve noticed is that some google map widgets can be set-up, not with coordinates, but with a geocode happening every time on an address or postcode, which obviously might then be a little off (even so, you’d think the web developer would notice this and think maybe it’s something they ought to find a way to fix). That’s not the case here. They’ve just coded coordinates in the wrong place. Should be more like <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=51.58697&amp;mlon=-0.10138#map=19/51.58697/-0.10138" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">51.58697/-0.10138</a>.</p>

  <p>But while we’re looking at the marker position, d’you notice something else funny about it? This is another thing I notice web developers getting wrong a lot. Never with google maps. Always with leaflet. I’d like to say it’s only a mistake made by novice web map developers, but I had to point out and fix the same mistake on the map marker of the State Of The Map website last year. Is nobody else noticing this? Well maybe I’ll leave that as a puzzle for you, because I think it deserves it’s own separate blog post.</p>

  <p>It’s fun to grumble about other people’s web map mistakes. But it’s more fun when people mess up using google maps. On the whole my primary message to “HOM Concept” web designer would be… “Yay! OpenStreetMap!”</p>


guid: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/alexkemp/diary/368755
url: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/alexkemp/diary/368755
title: Extreme SEO on osm.org kills both Spam & OSM
updated: 2019-06-05 11:00:24
fetched: 2019-06-10 23:30:03.817612
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.248216
updated_at: 2019-06-10 23:30:03.950509
summary:
  <h1 id="oh-dear-oh-dear-oh-dear"><em>Oh Dear, Oh Dear, Oh Dear</em></h1>

  <p><em>tl;dr:</em>  <br>
  No-one can hear you weep at the bottom of the <em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abyssal_plain" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Abyssal Plain</a></em></p>

  <p>The OSM Admin have succeeded in killing off the recent <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/alexkemp/diary/338244" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">floods of spam</a> from within these Diary pages. They have killed that disease by killing the patient.</p>

  <p>On <em>18 May 2019 at 10:05</em> <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/alexkemp/diary/338244#comment44765" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">TomH said</a>:–</p>

  <blockquote>
    <p>Personally at this point I am inclined to just close down the diaries - they are not core to our service and should probably never have been implemented</p>
  </blockquote>

  <p><em>TomH</em> is the Admin on this site and is thus given the ability to implement site-wide changes.</p>

  <table>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>On the same day (18 May) <em>TomH</em> unilaterally implemented <a href="https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/commit/25951cae383261e057c1a136395780dc88822a6c#diff-cb333937db4fdf75f29294867cd772cf" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">a broken commit</a> to <a href="https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/blob/master/public/robots.txt" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">robots.txt</a> (<a href="https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/commit/71cbb003f8a8db1b077ebeefb776033a3e31ee9a#diff-cb333937db4fdf75f29294867cd772cf" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">fixed 19&nbsp;May</a>) which intentionally killed the Diaries by preventing any Search Engine from listing a single page. You can write anything that you like here now, because no-one will ever read it.</td>
        <td><a href="http://www.reactiongifs.com/picard-facepalm/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer"><img src="http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/facepalm.gif" alt="picard facepalm"></a></td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
  </table>

  <p>Notice also (below) that all nodes, ways &amp; relations in the map have been blocked, so no PoI will ever be found via a Google search. Frankly, there seems little reason to add to the map, either.</p>

  <p>I pointed out a broken link within <em>robots.txt</em> here on 5&nbsp;June and, in the same unilateral manner, that was immediately <a href="https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/commit/31e1204dfab9b81346a2881ac0943ba37a76a323#diff-cb333937db4fdf75f29294867cd772cf" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">fixed by <em>gravitystorm</em></a>. Another update was made to the same file on Thu, 06&nbsp;Jun 2019 17:07:41&nbsp;GMT as that update was post-allocated to a <a href="https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/pull/2249" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">4-year-old issue</a>, and below is the current file:–</p>

  <pre><code>$ wget -S osm.org/robots.txt
  …
  $ cat robots.txt
  User-agent: *
  Disallow: /user/*/diary
  Disallow: /user/*/traces/
  Allow: /user/
  Disallow: /traces/tag/
  Disallow: /traces/page/
  Disallow: /api/
  Disallow: /edit
  Disallow: /browse
  Disallow: /diary
  Disallow: /login
  Disallow: /geocoder
  Disallow: /history
  Disallow: /message
  Disallow: /trace/
  Disallow: /*lat=
  Disallow: /*node=
  Disallow: /*way=
  Disallow: /*relation=

  Host: www.openstreetmap.org
  </code></pre>

  <p>The “<code>Disallow: /user/*/diary</code>” line above means that in the approx. 1,100,000 current results for <em><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=a+site%3Aopenstreetmap.org" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">“a site:openstreetmap.org” on google</a></em> there is not a single result for a Diary page; the results are almost all <em>wiki</em> pages, with a sprinkling of <em>help</em>, <em>blog</em>, etc pages.</p>

  <p>The OSM <em>robots.txt</em> deliberately causes most of <em>openstreetmap.org</em> to be de-listed in Google, including all of the Map. The number of results shown is also bouncing about in an erratic manner (I first ran the search above ~6&nbsp;hours ago and there were 600,000 pages available).</p>

  <p>So remember, the next time that you upload some <em>PoI</em> or important map updates to this site, that OSM will immediately drop them the 7&nbsp;miles to rest, unseen &amp; unloved, upon the vastness of the <em>Abyssal Plain</em>. There they will rest for computer eternity, unseen by humans or bots, unless you make a special point to go and see them. And do do that, because no-one else will, because no-one else can ever find them, no matter how hard they seek for them, because they no longer exist within the Google nor Bing nor any other computer universe other than Nominatum. And who uses that?</p>

  <p>(The information above was discovered during writing an ordinary post for these Diaries. I have rewritten this post as the info above is far more important than the original post. The rest of the original post now continues, although with the info above removed)</p>

  <p>• SEO == <em>“Search Engine Optimisation”</em>  <br>
  &nbsp;&nbsp;(this is almost always a euphemism for <em>“SPAM”</em>)</p>

  <pre><code>    Between 25 Apr &amp; 23 May
      (29 days):
      -----------------------
                Diary Posts
              Human      Spam
              -----   -------
      Total  :  124   320,272
      Per day:    4    11,044
      -----------------------
  </code></pre>

  <p>2 things have prompted this diary post:</p>

  <ol>
    <li>A whole series of posts from me about recent Spam Attacks  <br>
   → <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/alexkemp/diary/338244" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">OSM is now within an iteration of spam-bot software (such as XRumer)</a>   <br>
   → <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/alexkemp/diary/275003" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">How to Stop the Spam-Storm</a>   <br>
   → <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/alexkemp/diary/172800" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Recent Spam Attacks</a>  <br>
   → <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/alexkemp/diary/158832" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Behold Cassandra</a>  <br>
  &nbsp;</li>
    <li>A conversation yesterday with the lady at AST Auto Centre  <br>
  I could not be certain either from my original visit nor from our Bing imagery whether some central buildings were occupied by the <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/694358064" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Ashley St Auto Centre</a> or by a business on the opposite side of the block on <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/17236956" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Handel Street</a>, so phoned the number on the business card that the lady at AST had given me on 17&nbsp;May. It was yesterday (4&nbsp;June) so I did not expect her to remember me but she did, and mentioned <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/alexkemp/diary/47653" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">the little leaflet</a> that I had given her.  <br>
  &nbsp;      <br>
  I quickly sorted the original reason for the call (AST occupies those buildings), but as soon as I mentioned OSM she immediately responded about the number of enquiries that the business gets via Google maps (I had never mentioned Google). I brightly informed her that the updated mapping should be available within the next hour.</li>
  </ol>

  <p><img src="https://images.mapillary.com/ilbhsv8gPlGgGgaNCuo-nQ/thumb-2048.jpg" alt="AST Auto Centre"></p>

  <p>In a former life as a website owner &amp; operator I spent my time fighting to keep spam out of my site forums + trying to keep the site firmly within Google’s gaze. Whilst many spammers are profoundly stupid, it was not lost on me that there is some fierce intelligence at play behind the entire spam business, else they would have long ago dissolved into the void. I was not too proud to learn from these experts where I could find it, at the same time as I did my best to kill them dead on my site. I attempt to put all the SEO intelligence that I have gathered into practical application with these diary posts, as one example, making them as attractive as possible firstly to the human readers but also to the bots operated by the SEs. If both find them attractive then OSM wins again.</p>

  <p>I was <em>very</em> interested in the response from the lady at AST. It was the first time that I had had such positive feedback on the idea of OSM, and it seemed a good endorsement of both the <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/alexkemp/diary/47345" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">promotional leaflets</a> and also of OSM.</p>

  <p>I’ve spent 30-odd years of my life as a professional salesman, and therefore it often colours my approach to things. With OSM it was immediately obvious that the map is a boon for every business — what a marketing opportunity! I therefore work tirelessly to promote <em>every</em> business that I meet during my surveys. (<em>For newer mappers:</em> in OSM-speak these businesses are called <em>‘PoI’</em>, which is to say <em>“Points of Interest”</em>) I collect <em>Business Cards/Compliment Slips/Brochures</em> whilst mapping so that back at home all of the business’s most important contact information can be put up on the map. If the OSM map is an easily-referenced source of information for most businesses, then it will become very interesting for the common customer, which is good for customers, good for businesses, and good for OSM. The kind of virtuous circle that we need.</p>

  <h3 id="public-service-information-business-cards-compliment-slips-brochures"><em>Public Service Information:–</em> Business Cards, Compliment Slips, Brochures</h3>
  <p>For the benefit of younger mappers, since I’ve often had folks telling me that they do not know what I’m talking about when I’ve asked for one of these items:–</p>

  <p><strong><em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_card" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Business Cards</a></em></strong>  <br>
  These are dead trees processed into stiff paper (ask your teachers if you are unfamiliar with the idea of <em>paper</em>) and then printed with the business, personal name of the business owners + address &amp; contact numbers. They are intended to be given to other people during personal meetings to facilitate marketing promotion of the business. Please approach your health professional if you have been <em>triggered</em> by the idea of a one-on-one <em>personal meeting</em>, but this is actually quite normal during business life.</p>

  <p><strong><em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compliments_slip" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Compliment Slips</a></em></strong>  <br>
  These are dead trees processed into (typically) a ⅓ of an A4 sheet of paper (ask your teachers if you are unfamiliar with the idea of <em>paper</em>) and then pre-printed — normally on just one side — with the name, address &amp; other contact details of the business. They are intended to be placed into the same envelope as a letter. Ask your teachers if you are unfamiliar with the idea of an envelope or a postal-letter.</p>

  <p><strong><em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brochure" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Brochures/Booklets</a></em></strong>  <br>
  These are dead trees processed into (typically) a series of A5 sheets of paper (ask your teachers if you are unfamiliar with the idea of <em>paper</em>) and <em>folded</em> (brochures) or <em>bound</em> (booklets) after pre-printing with information about the business &amp; it’s activities.</p>

  <p>I can hear you grumbling about the lack of SEO info on <em><a href="/osm.org" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">https://osm.org</a></em> so far, so let’s get to that.</p>

  <p>(removed material)</p>

  <p>The <code>-S</code> parameter to <code>wget</code> gives us a readout of the server headers sent together with the file. Thankfully static files like <em>robots.txt</em> get a <em>Last-Modified</em> header in addition to a strong <em>ETag</em> directly via the <em>Apache</em> web-server, which means that content-negotiation will work well. These Diary pages get neither on supply, which means that you may miss updated pages and/or have to re-download unchanged pages. I was <a href="https://www.phpclasses.org/package/3738-PHP-Negotiate-HTTP-Request-Response.html" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">fixing this in PHP</a> 15 years ago (update to <a href="http://etmg.altervista.org/files/Conteg.include-0.13.13.7z" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Conteg&nbsp;v0.13.13 here</a>), so there is little reason this far into the new millenium not to get this right.</p>

  <p>Here is the current file; there are some <s>odd</s> <em>Extreme SEO</em> decisions here (see code for <em>robots.txt</em> above)</p>

  <p>The OSM server setup is a work of genius, and the Admin &amp; Mods clearly know their business, and yet, and yet … too often I look at some of their decisions and think to myself <em>“have you lost your marbles?”</em>. The conclave that has set itself up under <a href="https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/commits" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">GitHub comments</a> too often sounds like an echo-chamber, in which the participants brook little argument and get hostile when questioned by outsiders. That is a sure sign of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">narcissism</a>, but what are we supposed to do? Shine a light on the issue &amp; write critical diaries is, I guess, all that we can do.</p>

  <p>The main problem comes with the sitemap, which has a whoopsie  <br>
  (a <code>404 Not Found</code> <a href="https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/commit/31e1204dfab9b81346a2881ac0943ba37a76a323" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">fixed today</a> not by fixing the dead-link, but by removing that link from <em>robots.txt</em>)</p>

  <p>That single mistake will have caused this entire site to have plunged in the Google rankings (been there, done that - it always takes twice as long to get back as it does to drop; Google is as unforgiving as the OSM admin).</p>

  <p>(removed material)</p>

  <h3 id="in-osm-we-have-an-inside-out-microsoft"><em>In OSM We have an Inside-Out Microsoft</em></h3>
  <p>I always thought that Micro$oft was a company with incredibly good programmers, but ruined by being led by the Marketing Department. Now sure, they made some truly stupid decisions — their Windows’ command-line is the best example of that — but on balance the company was excellent. It is just that they always deserved that <code>$</code> in their name.</p>

  <p>OSM can not be blamed for making the Micro$oft mistake, no sir. The OSM affair is led by geeks who have zero understanding of what their customers want &amp; need. Indeed, they do not WANT to know or ever have to give such a notion headspace.</p>

  <p>This all does my head in; it is difficult to carry on when involved with folks with such odd ideas. <em>“Hiding your light under a bushel”</em> is one thing, but burying it at the bottom of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abyssal_plain" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Abyssal Plain</a> is another notion altogether.</p>


guid: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/apm-wa/diary/368753
url: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/apm-wa/diary/368753
title: Imagery on the P-1 National Highway, and So On
updated: 2019-06-04 16:35:18
fetched: 2019-06-10 23:00:04.502188
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.250837
updated_at: 2019-06-10 23:00:04.680300
summary:
  <p>Not quite the last hurrah, but close.  With three weeks left in Turkmenistan, Ann and I went to Koneurgench to see the marvelous architectural monuments, to the Dashoguz American Corner to give presentations (mine was on the Apollo 11 moon landing and U.S. space program; Ann’s was on White House chinaware).  While moving around, we of course collected geodata and imagery.</p>

  <p>We had a couple of spare hours during the return, so we went north up the P-1 highway past Ruhubelent to cover a section never before imaged (I will upload the Mapillary imagery after returning to the United States this month, where the Internet is much faster).  The road was horrible!  It took an hour and a quarter to go 50 kilometers, and at times we drove on the sand because it was smoother than the broken asphalt.  Upon return to Ashgabat I logged into OSM and downgraded the P-1 north of Ruhubelent from trunk road to tertiary road.  We identified several villages and other POIs, corrected one mistagged object (it was not a residential area, it was a cotton yard), and so on.</p>

  <p>Here is a sight from Koneurgench:
  <img src="https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/61949608_10157455155492834_6760855080313815040_n.jpg?_nc_cat=101&amp;_nc_eui2=AeGBtDqSICFFquRDHGWtxWUCZuXfiX9J3rJuu0gRfBqQMh4HRsyRRPKb2gVAuuwp-4R7TSDvVuhcqwSy5_PaWDA5NnCNYNTGnBsRpsiyKNaibQ&amp;_nc_oc=AQmSZjkdiLTT-eiPGPtZ2RvRoi2P-bHgaGNkXq-7n4JkXvMqKwF_YqDTYW7i1jV-Ru4&amp;_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.xx&amp;oh=6e8aa006e08da26c472774ac681540e7&amp;oe=5D9CAFEA" alt="Mausoleum"></p>


guid: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/shaikh%20solaiman/diary/368751
url: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/shaikh%20solaiman/diary/368751
title: OpenStreetMap Bangladesh Community Iftar Party: A meeting for humanity, brotherhood and harmony.
updated: 2019-06-04 03:47:13
fetched: 2019-06-10 22:00:04.783337
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.253068
updated_at: 2019-06-10 22:00:04.949292
summary:
  <p>The month of Ramadan comes with mercy, Forgiveness and safety from the hell to the human beings by the almighty Allah. This month teaches us humanity, brotherhood and harmony. Every year in this month of holy Ramadan OSM Community Bangladesh arrange a Iftar Party  for a get together of the community volunteers.</p>

  <p><img src="https://i.ibb.co/9gyk1LK/Be-Funky-collage-6.jpg" alt="moments before ifter"></p>

  <p>Iftar is the evening meal with which Muslims break their fast at the sunset and is one of the religious observance of the month of holy Ramadan. Iftar is often celebrated as a community, with people gathering together to break their fast.</p>

  <p><img src="https://i.ibb.co/ZY2Qn2z/IMG-20190529-184110.jpg" alt="ifter party"></p>

  <p>After the formation of our OpenStreetMap Community in 2011, now a days it is our community’s tradition to hold an iftar celebration party every year attended by all community volunteers and community people of the community.</p>

  <p>On 29th May 2019, Wednesday, the 23rd day of holy Ramadan, we the OSM community volunteers attended in an iftar party at <a href="https://www.google.com.bd/maps/place/Bangladesh+Open+Innovation+Lab+(BOIL)/@23.7724733,90.3628342,17z/data=!4m12!1m6!3m5!1s0x3755c1bdce26ed41:0xba5d32c853f1b5ce!2sBangladesh+Open+Innovation+Lab+(BOIL)!8m2!3d23.7724684!4d90.3650229!3m4!1s0x3755c1bdce26ed41:0xba5d32c853f1b5ce!8m2!3d23.7724684!4d90.3650229?hl=en&amp;authuser=0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Shyamoli, Dhaka in the office of Bangladesh Open Innovation Lab (BOIL)</a>. The office was decorated beautifully for the community people and the location was at the middle point for the community people.</p>

  <p>At around 5 o’clock the community people started coming to the venue and before sunset all the community people joined together to celebrate their iftar observance. The members and volunteers of OpenstreetMap Bangladesh Foundation (OSMBDF), Bangladesh Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Operational Team (BHOOT), YouthMappers Dhaka College as well as the other community groups attended in this occasion.</p>

  <p><img src="https://i.ibb.co/68VpPjd/IMG-20190529-195037.jpg" alt="community people"></p>

  <p>Homemade and hygienic foods, fruits and juice were served at the iftar for the fasting persons. After having iftar and saying prayer a discussion program was held. During this session Ahsanul Haque, the reformer and pioneer of OpenStreetMap Bangladesh and GIS and Data Management Consultant of World Bank, Tasauf A Baki Billah (Ribin), director of OSMBDF, Atikuzzaman Limon, Arif Hossain of OSMBDF, Shafiq sir as well as other respective persons were present in the party.</p>

  <p><img src="https://i.ibb.co/RpbmYLn/Be-Funky-collage-2.jpg" alt="discussion"></p>

  <p>In the program various optimistic matters were discussed like how to grow new courses on GIS and open map data to enlarge OpenStreetMap as well as the community. In the session the community people were very excited hearing that around the top 30 mappers in the 1st 50 in MissingMaps leaderboard are from OSM Bangladesh community.</p>

  <p>In this discussion the past and present status of OpenStreetMap Bangladesh and the future activities of the community were discussed. The community members were known about the current ongoing and past GIS related projects of OpenStreetMap Bangladesh community. In this program the community people were known various information about State of the Map Germany and State of the Map Africa 2019.</p>

  <p>State of the Map Asia, Bangladesh 2019, was one of the main attraction of this program. Various steps, rules regulation, venue, duration and other important matters were discussed in this iftar party. The community people were very excited hearing the news of State of the Map Asia, Bangladesh. They took a determination to undertake the responsibility of the event.</p>

  <p><img src="https://i.ibb.co/g7Khc8v/IMG-20190529-194924.jpg" alt="photo"></p>

  <p>Finally at the end of the programme all the community people of OpenStreetMap Bangladesh Community joined in a photo session programme. And closed the programme wishing a safe journey as well as wishing a fabulous Eid observance.</p>


guid: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/alexkemp/diary/368750
url: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/alexkemp/diary/368750
title: The Vine, Nottingham
updated: 2019-06-03 22:59:25
fetched: 2019-06-10 21:56:02.544065
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.255278
updated_at: 2019-06-10 21:56:02.735741
summary:
  <h1 id="more-on-public-houses-insane-asylums--cholera"><em>More on Public Houses, Insane Asylums &amp; Cholera</em></h1>
  <p>Another Diary as part of mapping Nottingham’s <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/alexkemp/diary/48243" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Creative Quarter</a>.</p>

  <p>Continuing the joyful themes of my <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/alexkemp/diary/368674" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">last Diary</a>, which contemplated the <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/136632962" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Duke of Devonshire</a> (Public House), the <em>General Lunatic Asylum</em> (<a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/17230844" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Dakeyne Street</a> and now closed, the inmates having transferred in Victorian times to <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/216674163" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Nottingham Borough Lunatic Asylum</a>) and, finally, the <em>1832 Cholera outbreak</em> that lead to both <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/30596483" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">St. Mary’s Rest Garden</a> and the explosion of humanity as it flooded out of Nottingham Town and (initially) into <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/9523923" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">St. Ann’s</a>.</p>

  <p><img src="https://images.mapillary.com/05J7qGL9e9zJlJ-gVe0F6Q/thumb-2048.jpg" alt="The Vine public house"></p>

  <p>Above is <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/694358055" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">The Vine</a> <em>Public House</em>, and the first in recent times that we have met that is both historic and still trading.</p>

  <p><img src="https://images.mapillary.com/uP4ieLd2JEQkEaO5DJwncg/thumb-2048.jpg" alt="The Vine historic information board"></p>

  <p>Above is the Information Board fastened to the pub. The next picture is an outhouse at the rear of the pub, and possibly where the Smithy was located.</p>

  <p><img src="https://images.mapillary.com/lo4H58KFsquaVKDSrocB1w/thumb-2048.jpg" alt="The Smithy?"></p>

  <p>In the <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/alexkemp/diary/368674" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">previous diary</a> we discovered via the <a href="http://southwellchurches.nottingham.ac.uk/nottingham-st-luke/hhistory.php" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Southwell Church History</a> project that by 1861 the large open-field immediately outside of Nottingham City’s walls, known as <em>Clay Field</em>, had been enclosed &amp; laid out with a street-plan. A new Church Parish of <em>St. Lukes</em> was established with the parish-church foundation-stone laid on the corner of <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6305851" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Carlton Road</a> and <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/64044264" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">St. Lukes Street</a> in the same year. <em>The Vine</em> is positioned at the other end of <em>St. Lukes Street</em> where it meets <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/17236956" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Handel Street</a> and <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/17237044" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Liverpool Street</a>. It is likely, therefore, that the building was built much earlier than the 1876 date given by Home Breweries for it’s establishment as a pub.</p>

  <h2 id="the-mentally-ill-and-tea--alcohol"><em>The Mentally Ill and Tea &amp; Alcohol</em></h2>
  <p>Lunatics were treated pretty badly in the UK before the <a href="https://www.countyasylums.co.uk/history/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">1808 County Asylum Act</a>, largely being subject to mechanical restraint within the <em>Workhouse</em> system. That Act allowed Counties to levy a rate to fund the building of <em>County Asylums</em> such as the 1812 Dakeyne Street <em>General Lunatic Asylum</em>. However, many Counties ignored the law.</p>

  <p>The 1845 <em>Lunacy Act</em> fixed deficiencies in the earlier Act that allowed Counties to ignore the law. Counties were now legally obliged to provide Asylum for their Lunatics. 20 County Asylums were built between 1808 &amp; 1845, whilst more than 60 Asylums were built between 1845 &amp; 1890 (when yet another new <em>Lunacy Act</em> was passed, causing a further 40 Asylums to be built). The <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/216674163" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Nottingham Borough Lunatic Asylum</a> was built in 1880.</p>

  <p><em>Nottingham Borough Lunatic Asylum</em> was closed as an <em>Asylum</em> and as <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/334439047" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Duncan Macmillan House</a> in the latter part of the last millennium became the HQ for an NHS Trust that looked after Psychiatric institutions throughout Nottinghamshire &amp; surrounding counties. The wards were closed &amp; all hospital documents were transferred to other institutions. Some friends of mine got access to these docs before final transfer, and one aspect within them got reported to me:–</p>

  <ul>
    <li>Female patients each got 1 pint Tea each day</li>
    <li>Male patients each got 1 quart Ale each day</li>
  </ul>

  <p>Why?!</p>

  <p>Finally I was able to make sense of this information after considering the story of John Snow &amp; the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1854_Broad_Street_cholera_outbreak" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">1854 Cholera Outbreak</a> which featured a Water Pump handle. John Snow was a physician and widely considered to be the world’s first <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">epidemiologist</a>. Before John Snow, the Victorians broadly understood contagious diseases such as Cholera to be spread by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miasma_theory" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">foul air</a> (a polite way of saying <em>“the smell of sewage”</em>). Snow conclusively proved that it was spread by water. In the course of that search he discovered that folks that worked in Breweries, or drank ale or beer in preference to water, also did not catch the disease.</p>

  <p>Adding it all up, it is clear that these curious stipulations for Nottingham’s <em>Lunatics</em> was so that any water-borne contamination would be rendered inoperative and, considering the ravages that every town in the kingdom was suffering, it is clear that whoever made these stipulations had advanced medical training. It is also curious to consider that the English predilection for tea-drinking was a foundation for good health.</p>


guid: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/okechukwuezeh/diary/368747
url: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/okechukwuezeh/diary/368747
title: My First Day on OSM
updated: 2019-06-03 19:15:18
fetched: 2019-06-10 07:38:48.791479
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.259767
updated_at: 2019-06-10 07:38:48.941207
summary:
  <p>it was a bit challenging from the start up into the mapping world but at the end of the exercise i was able to pull through</p>


guid: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Silka123/diary/368740
url: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Silka123/diary/368740
title: Акция "Июньские этажи" (03.06.2019-10.06.2019)
updated: 2019-06-03 08:53:47
fetched: 2019-06-09 23:32:22.521417
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.264660
updated_at: 2019-06-09 23:32:22.652279
summary:
  <p>Предлагаю начиная с сегодняшнего дня до будущего понедельника (23:59 10.06.2019) провести в России акцию “Июньские этажи”.</p>

  <p>Что нужно делать?</p>

  <p>Указывать количество этажей тем объектам, у которых эта информация отсутствует.</p>

  <p>Больше деталей и информации по <a href="https://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?id=66423" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">ссылке</a>.</p>

  <p>Буду рад, если вы примите участие и сделаете карту России в OSM намного точнее и лучше.</p>


guid: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Silka123/diary/368739
url: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Silka123/diary/368739
title: Интервью с Ильей Зверевым
updated: 2019-06-03 08:51:50
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.172556
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.267453
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.267453
summary:
  <p>На прошлой недели на Хабре разместил <a href="https://habr.com/ru/post/454038/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">интервью</a> с Ильей Зверевым. Думаю, что почти все знают, что кто он и чем занимается. Но все же.</p>

  <p>Илья Зверев — неформальный лидер российского сообщества OpenStreetMap. Вот уже почти 10 лет он всячески продвигает OSM: создает новые приложения и пишет статьи, развивает сообщество и выступает на конференциях. Насколько дружелюбен OSM, что он делал два года в Совете OSMF и почему нужно регулярно проводить полевые картовстречи — обо всем этом Илья Зверев рассказал в интервью.</p>

  <p>Буду рад комментариям и отзывам.</p>


guid: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/BBloggsbott/diary/368738
url: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/BBloggsbott/diary/368738
title: Week 1 of Google Summer of Code building AutoBound
updated: 2019-06-03 08:30:09
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.172556
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.269668
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.269668
summary:
  <p>It has been almost one week since coding officially started with Google Summer of Code. As mentioned in my previous post, I have been selected to work as a Student Developer for OpenStreetMap through Google Summer of Code.</p>

  <p>I have been working on my project and the experience so far has been great. In this post, I’ll be explaining what I’ve done and you can find the code in the <a href="https://github.com/BBloggsbott/autobound/tree/development/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">development branch</a> of this <a href="https://github.com/BBloggsbott/autobound/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">repo</a>.</p>

  <h2 id="the-action-class">The Action Class</h2>
  <p>First, I had to create an Action class. The methods of this class will be called when an action occurs. For my plugin, I wanted the user to be able to select an area in the MapView and this area had to be processed. For this functionality, I had to extend the MapMode class (Makes the Action a MapMode and implement the SelectionEnded Interface (this provides the area selection functionality) and override the necessary functions.</p>

  <p>Once this was done, I had to add the action class to the MapMode menus in JOSM. I did this by overriding the mapFrameInitialized method of the Plugin class.</p>

  <h2 id="utilities">Utilities</h2>
  <p>Next, I created classes that can provide utilities for the working of the plugin. The following classes were created:
  * DataUtils
  * NetworkUtils
  * MapUtils
  These classes provide functions that can prepare data to send to the server, communicate with the server, add points from the DataSet on the MapView.</p>

  <h2 id="tests">Tests</h2>
  <p>Once all this was done, I started writing unit tests to make sure that the classes are doing what I expect them to do. For this, I used Junit and JOSM’s test utilities. For some tests that involved the methods that communicate with the server, I created a new endpoint in the server for the tests to communicate with. Right now, all the tests are passing.</p>

  <h2 id="what-ive-learned">What I’ve learned</h2>
  <p>Students rarely get a chance to build applications using just docs of dependencies. This project was my first time building something using docs alone and it is taught to be how to use docs efficiently and how to write good documentation.
  The main aim of writing this article was to show my progress and also help someone who might have an idea for a new plugin for JOSM get started. I think I’ve done that in this article.</p>

  <h2 id="up-next">Up Next</h2>
  <p>Now that the JOSM end of the plugin is almost done, I’m going to start working on the server side starting with data collection. I will describe how I collect data on next week’s post.</p>


guid: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Bence%20M%C3%A9lyk%C3%BAti/diary/368736
url: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Bence%20M%C3%A9lyk%C3%BAti/diary/368736
title: I am developing an Ocean Plastic Detector
updated: 2019-06-03 07:05:03
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.172556
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.272031
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.272031
summary:
  <p>I use an artificial intelligence approach to detect plastic in the sea in freely available Sentinel-2 satellite images. My work already won an award in mid-May 2019: my submission was awarded <em>second prize</em> in the <em>Marine environment</em> category at the <a href="https://sentinel-hub.com/contest" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">Sentinel Hub Custom Script Contest</a>!</p>

  <p>But I need much more time to perfect it until it is really useful.</p>

  <p>With this goal, I’m starting a campaign to raise funds to offset my cost of living. I promise to improve my algorithm and to make it freely available for all to use if the campaign succeeds. Depending on how much time I can devote to this, I plan to document the process and release the source code for the community to improve it.</p>

  <p><a href="https://www.gofundme.com/OceanPlasticDetector" rel="nofollow noopener noreferer">https://www.gofundme.com/OceanPlasticDetector</a></p>

  <p>Please share this link widely and add some personal comment to reach as many as possible with my request! Thank you,</p>

  <p>Bence Mélykúti, DPhil</p>


guid: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Moon666/diary/368733
url: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Moon666/diary/368733
title: 水棲タグ
updated: 2019-06-02 21:08:44
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.172556
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.277662
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:34.277662
summary:
  <p>貯水池　basin 
  調整池　reservoir
  海岸線　coastline
  泉　spring
  湖　water
  池　pond
  運河　canal
  川　river
  河川（旧タグ）　riverbank
  小川　stream
  排水溝　drain
  用水路　溝　ditchbank
  堀　moat
  貯水塔　water_tower
  塩田　salt_pond
  湾 入り江　bay
  ワジ 涸れ川　wadi
  ゴルフ　フェアウェイ　fairway
  造船所　ドック　dock
  ボートヤード　ボート修理　boatyard
  ダム　dam
  堰(せき)　weir
  滝　waterfall
  閘門の水門　lock_gate
  ラグーン　潟　lagoon
  リフレクティングプール　reflecting_pool
  魚道　fish_pass
  oxbow U字状の川　oxbow
  水門　lock
  下水　wastewater
  ストリームプール　stream_pool</p>


guid: https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/?p=1004
url: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ShaunMcdonaldsBlog/~3/f2Jfw6NypJc/
title: Roll out of flexi season rail tickets in the UK
published: 2019-02-01 23:06:39
fetched: 2019-10-19 01:00:04.541430
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:36.356406
updated_at: 2019-10-19 01:00:04.774905
summary:
  There has been much talk of a drop in rail season ticket sales in the UK, whilst overall journeys are increasing. Much of the commentary has been around the change in working patterns where people are working from home more often. Many shorter distances season tickets are only worthwhile buying if you are travelling 4 [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>There has been much talk of a drop in rail season ticket sales in the UK, whilst overall journeys are increasing. Much of the commentary has been around the change in working patterns where people are working from home more often. </p>



  <p>Many shorter distances season tickets are only worthwhile buying if you are travelling 4 or 5 times per week on the same route (or anywhere between those 2 stations). Any less and it can be cheaper to buy tickets on the day, especially if you are a shift worker and some tickets are off-peak, for example with late shifts. Some longer journeys can be worthwhile getting a season ticket if you are doing the journey only 2 days per week, as the working pattern has already been taken into account in the pricing.</p>



  <p>Many of the rail franchises have been required to roll out flexi season ticketing. Some operators have special business travel carnet tickets. Both of these can have restrictions meaning that they are only valid on one train operator, unlike the normal season tickets which are normally valid on any operator on the route. There&#8217;s some season tickets which are cheaper due to being operator specific where there is competition, partly due to the revenue not being split between operators when going through the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_Settlement_Plan">Rail Settlement Plan</a>.</p>



  <figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Screenshot-2019-01-28-at-07.55.14.png" alt="" class="wp-image-1010" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Screenshot-2019-01-28-at-07.55.14.png 900w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Screenshot-2019-01-28-at-07.55.14-300x158.png 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Screenshot-2019-01-28-at-07.55.14-768x404.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px" /><figcaption>Graphs showing change in UK train ticket sales. Source: <a href="http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/39983/passenger-rail-usage-2018-19-q2.pdf">Office of Rail and Road Passenger Rail Usage 2018-19 Q2 Statistical Release</a></figcaption></figure>



  <p>Is the recent drop in season tickets number in part due to the move to Flexi season tickets with people moving to part time commuting? Do the Flexi season and carnet tickets need to be included in the season ticket numbers or have their own category to show the trend of the switch of ticket type?</p>



  <p>I&#8217;m also of the view that the Flexi season tickets need to be standardised such that they are available across the whole country to and from any station, and have the same standard rules of validity as ordinary daily and season tickets. We are hopefully now at a turning point where there has been enough trials about how the Flexi season tickets should work, that a wider rollout could be done.</p>



  <p>On the pricing of the Flexi season, I&#8217;m thinking they should they be a standard multiplier from the standard anytime daily ticket prices meaning that you can easily buy the tickets from any station to any station, rather than them only being available on a limited number of routes.</p>



  <p>Another option to reduce the desire or need to Flexi season tickets, would be to reduce the cost or multiplier for season tickets by making season tickets cheaper, especially considering many people are no longer travelling to work 5 days per week, and longer route specific point to point season tickets in the UK are often more expensive than the whole country <a href="https://www.bahn.de/p/view/bahncard/ueberblick/bahncard100.shtml">Bahn Card 100 in Germany</a>. Is it time for a UK equivalent to the German Bahn Card 100 as a means to encourage more public transport use, and reduce private motor vehicle congestion and pollution?</p>



  <p>Being a part time commuter (rest of the week working from home), Flexi-tickets are of particular interest to me, including their interoperability across operators since my commute generally involves multiple operators.</p>


guid: https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/?p=980
url: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ShaunMcdonaldsBlog/~3/3MHYx6_-7eQ/
title: Rail fare anomaly between Ipswich and London
published: 2018-09-14 22:08:54
fetched: 2019-10-19 01:00:04.541430
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:36.359896
updated_at: 2019-10-19 01:00:04.777792
summary:
  I recently seen a at Cambridge station advertising cheap weekend returns to London so I thought I&#8217;d check the fare splitting via the longer route. This is looking at the super off-peak day returns or nearest equivalent. On the direct Ipswich to London Liverpool Street ticket there is only an off peak return valid for [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>I recently seen a at Cambridge station advertising cheap weekend returns to London so I thought I&#8217;d check the fare splitting via the longer route.</p>



  <p>This is looking at the super off-peak day returns or nearest equivalent.</p>



  <p>On the direct Ipswich to London Liverpool Street ticket there is only an off peak return valid for a month at £42.20 or the off peak travelcard for a single day at £47.50.</p>



  <p>The most common split is at Manningtree as some trains don&#8217;t stop at Colchester.</p>



  <table class="wp-block-table"><tbody><tr><td>IPS-MNG</td><td>Off peak day return</td><td>£6.60</td></tr><tr><td>MNG-LST</td><td>Super off peak day return</td><td>£29.20</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Total</td><td>£35.80</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Saving compared direct fare</td><td>£6.40</td></tr></tbody></table>



  <p>Splitting in Colchester is cheaper:</p>



  <table class="wp-block-table"><tbody><tr><td>IPS-COL</td><td>Super off peak day return</td><td>£8.30</td></tr><tr><td>COL-LST</td><td>Super off peak day return</td><td>£25.90</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Total</td><td>£34.20</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Saving compared to direct fare</td><td>£8.00</td></tr></tbody></table>



  <p>Weekend return via Cambridge turns out to a whopping £11 cheaper compared to the direct single ticket, or £3 compared to the cheapest split ticket, if returning the same day:</p>



  <table class="wp-block-table"><tbody><tr><td>IPS-CBG</td><td>Off peak day return</td><td>£18.20</td></tr><tr><td>CBG-LST</td><td>Weekend Super Off Peak Day Return</td><td>£13.00</td></tr><tr><td><br /></td><td>Total</td><td>£31.20</td></tr><tr><td><br /></td><td>Saving compared to direct fare</td><td>£11.00</td></tr><tr><td><br /></td><td>Saving compared to cheapest direct split</td><td>£3.00</td></tr></tbody></table>



  <p>However this involves a much longer journey time. Ipswich &#8211; Cambridge is around 1 hour 20 minutes. There&#8217;s one train per hour. Cambridge to Liverpool Street on direct trains takes around 1 hour 26 minutes to 1 hour 38 minutes with 2 trains per hour. Due to the timings, and long layover in Cambridge, particularly towards Ipswich, the total through journey time is around 2 hours 50 minutes towards London and 3 to 4 hours towards Ipswich.</p>



  <p>In comparison the typical journey times on the direct route from Ipswich to London on trains stopping at either Manningtree or Colchester is around 1 hour 07 mins to 1 hour 23 minutes. Thus it&#8217;s very much faster on the more direct route for a tiny saving. If planning far enough ahead advance fares would be cheaper than the above walk up fares.<br /></p>



  <p>Hopefully the current <a href="https://www.britainrunsonrail.co.uk/fares">UK rail fares review run by the Rail Delivery Group</a> (RDG).</p>


guid: https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/?p=962
url: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ShaunMcdonaldsBlog/~3/QB8Cc-ILS_U/
title: The horror of “cyclists dismount and use footway” signs at roadworks
published: 2018-02-06 18:55:22
fetched: 2019-10-19 01:00:04.541430
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:36.363416
updated_at: 2019-10-19 01:00:04.780922
summary:
  On the 13th January 2018 walking with my family from Ipswich town centre to the railway station I came across some roadworks on Princes Street including some dangerous signage around some roadworks First was the &#8220;cyclists dismount and use footpath&#8221; sign: I very much dislike the use of this sign for a number of reasons. [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>On the 13th January 2018 walking with my family from Ipswich town centre to the railway station I came across some roadworks on Princes Street including some dangerous signage around some roadworks</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_967" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DSC_1425.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-967" class="size-medium wp-image-967" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DSC_1425-300x226.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="226" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DSC_1425-300x226.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DSC_1425-768x578.jpg 768w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DSC_1425-1024x770.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-967" class="wp-caption-text">Roadworks in bus stop and cycle lane</p></div></p>
  <p>First was the &#8220;cyclists dismount and use footpath&#8221; sign:</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_965" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DSC_1424.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-965" class="size-medium wp-image-965" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DSC_1424-300x226.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="226" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DSC_1424-300x226.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DSC_1424-768x578.jpg 768w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DSC_1424-1024x770.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-965" class="wp-caption-text">Sign in cycle lane saying &#8220;cyclists dismount and use footpath&#8221;</p></div></p>
  <p>I very much dislike the use of this sign for a number of reasons. First it indirectly causes drivers to complain about cyclists not following the rules or signage.</p>
  <p>Second with some bikes (including the cargo trike I was pushing that day, as my daughter wanted to walk) its extremely hard to stop and lift it on to the pavement. I would probably be causing more delay to the traffic by doing that compared to taking the lane.</p>
  <p>Third some people with disabilities and other medical issues such as back pain, find it very difficult mount and dismount a pedal cycle, however find cycling alleviates the pain compared to walking.</p>
  <p>Fourth this section of pavement already allows cycling so why would people need to dismount to travel along it? Though it does add conflict with pedestrians.</p>
  <p>Fifth there was a sign after the roadworks to say that the cycle lane was closed. Surely by that point the cycle lane was open again to use.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_969" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DSC_1428.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-969" class="size-medium wp-image-969" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DSC_1428-300x226.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="226" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DSC_1428-300x226.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DSC_1428-768x578.jpg 768w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DSC_1428-1024x770.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-969" class="wp-caption-text">Cycle lane closed sign after the roadworks</p></div></p>
  <p>Finally, even back in November 2011, London had better signs saying &#8220;Narrow lanes do not overtake cyclists&#8221;, as shown below. Why can&#8217;t these signs be used here in Suffolk?</p>
  <p><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/smsm1/6401007825"><img src="https://live.staticflickr.com/7170/6401007825_c97449de0c_c.jpg" alt="A third sign on Tooley street telling drivers not to overtake cyclists near London Bridge station" width="600" height="800" /></a></p>
  <p>P.S. When will there be signs saying &#8220;Drivers get out and push&#8221;?</p>
  <p>
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  <p>Edit: Reworded item 3 to be more encompassing about other medical issues. Added map.</p>


guid: http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/?p=944
url: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ShaunMcdonaldsBlog/~3/Nr16nteAquc/
title: An unexpected filtered permeability trial in Ipswich
published: 2017-07-02 21:51:20
fetched: 2019-10-19 01:00:04.541430
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:36.366523
updated_at: 2019-10-19 01:00:04.783761
summary:
  On 12th May 2017 a sinkhole appeared in the street that I work on in Ipswich. The road was closed to motor vehicles for a few weeks until the repairs were completed. After the initial period while people got used to the road being closed, I noticed a significant change in the traffic patterns in [&#8230;]

content:
  <p><div id="attachment_949" style="width: 235px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_20170512_141845.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-949" class="wp-image-949 size-medium" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_20170512_141845-225x300.jpg" alt="" width="225" height="300" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_20170512_141845-225x300.jpg 225w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_20170512_141845-768x1024.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-949" class="wp-caption-text">Lower Brook Street Sinkhole</p></div></p>
  <p><div id="attachment_951" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_20170512_185748.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-951" class="size-medium wp-image-951" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_20170512_185748-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_20170512_185748-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_20170512_185748-768x576.jpg 768w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_20170512_185748-1024x768.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-951" class="wp-caption-text">Lower Brook Street Road Closure</p></div></p>
  <p>On <a href="http://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/sinkhole-opens-in-lower-brook-street-road-shut-and-drivers-urged-to-avoid-area-1-5015580">12th May 2017 a sinkhole appeared in the street that I work on in Ipswich</a>. The road was closed to motor vehicles for a few weeks until the repairs were completed. After the initial period while people got used to the road being closed, I noticed a significant change in the traffic patterns in the local area.</p>
  <p>The level of traffic on the closed road and several surrounding streets was significantly reduced. I&#8217;m wondering if the reduction was enough for the bus companies to notice an improvement in the running times on the core towns centre bus routes that run along Dogs Head Street, Upper Brook Street, Tacket Street, and the Cattlemarket bus station. See the map below.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_952" style="width: 535px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/OpenStreetMap-2017-08-30-23-22-02.png"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-952" class="size-large wp-image-952" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/OpenStreetMap-2017-08-30-23-22-02-1024x837.png" alt="" width="525" height="429" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/OpenStreetMap-2017-08-30-23-22-02-1024x837.png 1024w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/OpenStreetMap-2017-08-30-23-22-02-300x245.png 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/OpenStreetMap-2017-08-30-23-22-02-768x628.png 768w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/OpenStreetMap-2017-08-30-23-22-02.png 1031w" sizes="(max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-952" class="wp-caption-text">Map showing location of the incident and streets that were quieter.</p></div></p>
  <p>The ambient noise level was lower due to the lower level of motor traffic.  People were much more likely to walk on the road than the narrow pavements.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_953" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_20170526_125919.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-953" class="size-medium wp-image-953" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_20170526_125919-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_20170526_125919-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_20170526_125919-768x576.jpg 768w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_20170526_125919-1024x768.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-953" class="wp-caption-text">Repairs in progress</p></div></p>
  <p>After the road was repaired and quietly reopened the traffic levels stayed low initially, slowly rising over a few weeks as the rat running and evening parking returned.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_954" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_20170526_181915.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-954" class="size-medium wp-image-954" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_20170526_181915-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_20170526_181915-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_20170526_181915-768x576.jpg 768w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_20170526_181915-1024x768.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-954" class="wp-caption-text">Completed repairs to the sinkhole.</p></div></p>
  <p>The Lower Brook Street, Turret Lane, Rose Lane, and Cutler Street combination seems to be used as a rat run to avoid the Star Lane gyratory, particularly when there&#8217;s problems on the A14 meaning that it&#8217;s very slow moving. I&#8217;ve seen several trucks getting stuck on the narrow Turret Lane. There&#8217;s also been several buildings around the junction of Lower Brook Street and Turret Lane damaged by vehicles. I&#8217;m of the opinion that Turret Lane should be closed to through traffic to stop the rat running.</p>
  <p>Around the time of the incident traffic speeds or counts were being collected, (based on the various black bands across various streets), so I&#8217;m also curious if Suffolk County Council have stats correlating the change in traffic levels.</p>
  <p>
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guid: http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/?p=940
url: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ShaunMcdonaldsBlog/~3/_PBRwMYCtlg/
title: The dilemma of highway rules vs friendly drivers
published: 2017-06-30 22:35:36
fetched: 2019-10-19 01:00:04.541430
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:36.369164
updated_at: 2019-10-19 01:00:04.786481
summary:
  I&#8217;m currently teaching my 1½ year old daughter how to cross the road on various trips out, including the 5 minute walk along the road to or from our childminder. She is very good at staying on the pavement, and when it come to crossing the road will wait and look for vehicles that are [&#8230;]

content:
  <p><div id="attachment_941" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/IMG_20170506_135957.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-941" class="size-medium wp-image-941" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/IMG_20170506_135957-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/IMG_20170506_135957-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/IMG_20170506_135957-768x576.jpg 768w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/IMG_20170506_135957-1024x768.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-941" class="wp-caption-text">Fiona on Infento trike.</p></div></p>
  <p>I&#8217;m currently teaching my 1½ year old daughter how to cross the road on various trips out, including the 5 minute walk along the road to or from our childminder.</p>
  <p>She is very good at staying on the pavement, and when it come to crossing the road will wait and look for vehicles that are coming. Then when there is a gap we will cross together. She&#8217;s very good at following the verbal instructions. Of course I don&#8217;t let her do it on her own yet, though it&#8217;s important when time permits to talk through all of the steps involved.</p>
  <p>The <a href="http://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/rules-for-pedestrians-crossing-the-road.html">highway </a><a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/rules-for-pedestrians-1-to-35">code</a> rule 7 is the <a href="http://think.direct.gov.uk/education/early-years-and-primary/parents/7-to-11s/the-green-cross-code/">Green Cross Code</a>. In summary the steps are:</p>
  <ol>
  <li>Find a safe place to cross</li>
  <li>Stop just before you get to the kerb</li>
  <li>Look all around for traffic and listen</li>
  <li>If traffic is coming, let it pass</li>
  <li>When it is safe, go straight across the road &#8211; do not run</li>
  </ol>
  <p>The dilemma comes when friendly drivers are being nice waiting and waving us across the road. However I&#8217;ve come across several occasions over the years where drivers have done that, without realising that there is another vehicle coming where the driver won&#8217;t give way. This can be exceptionally dangerous.</p>
  <p>The Green Cross Code does not mention anything about drivers waving you across the road, likely due to the above complexity of having to be extra careful about other drivers who haven&#8217;t seen you.</p>
  <p>It would be much quicker for all concerned if we followed the priorities set out in the highway code, as I will just wave people on to wait for a gap in the traffic. The gaps appear fairly frequently, especially on quieter residential roads. It&#8217;s common for a dozen vehicles to appear at the same time, and then there to be a big gap when there are no vehicles coming.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>I&#8217;ve had a similar situation recently when cycling home at a set of traffic signals when the driver in front of myself and another cyclist decided to slow down and wave across another oncoming driver. The oncoming driver was waving to point out that we were cycling close behind. The small uphill just after the traffic lights means that cyclists try to keep up momentum to get up the small hill easier, and avoiding stopping at the bottom of the hill at the traffic lights.</p>


guid: http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/?p=932
url: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ShaunMcdonaldsBlog/~3/pBbmh7952kk/
title: The Ipswich grass verge debate
published: 2017-04-04 06:41:50
fetched: 2019-10-19 01:00:04.541430
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:36.371707
updated_at: 2019-10-19 01:00:04.788900
summary:
  On Monday 3rd April 2017 BBC radio Suffolk had picked up on the story about grass verges being torn up by car parking, and there will be a crack down on people parking in the verges and pavements in some areas in Ipswich. The Ipswich Star covered the story at the end of the previous week, highlighting [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>On Monday 3rd April 2017 BBC radio Suffolk had picked up on the story about grass verges being torn up by car parking, and there will be a crack down on people parking in the verges and pavements in some areas in Ipswich.</p>
  <p>The <a href="http://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/see_pictures_of_some_of_the_worst_places_for_pavement_parking_in_ipswich_as_council_bosses_say_they_are_taking_action_1_4955070">Ipswich Star covered the story</a> at the end of the previous week, highlighting the various problems with pavement parking.</p>
  <p>As someone who doesn&#8217;t have a motor vehicle in the household and has a toddler who is walking about,  sometimes in a buggy, pushing her buggy, walking beside me while I&#8217;m pushing my bike before or after my commute; or now starting to use her trike; I find pavement and grass verge parking particularly inconsiderate as it can be difficult to get past.</p>
  <p>One of the comments by Mark Murphy was &#8220;there&#8217;s no chance that we&#8217;ll ditch our car any time soon&#8221;. I found this highly ironic when Ipswich Star on the very same day launched their excellent <a href="http://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/can_you_ditch_the_car_to_help_ease_traffic_congestion_in_ipswich_town_centre_1_4958845">Ditch the Car campaign</a>.</p>
  <p>It also prompted me to check the stats on the car or van availability from the last census in 2011 to see what proportion of people in Ipswich and Suffolk don&#8217;t have access to a car. The results table &#8220;KS404EW &#8211; Car or van availability&#8221; has the information and is available on the <a href="http://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks404ew">Nomis part of the Office for National Statistics</a> site.</p>
  <p>Within Ipswich 27.8% of households have no access to a car or van, which is a rather significant proportion likely due to the closeness of various amenities such as schools, shops, and work to where people live, and the frequent local bus service.</p>
  <table class="cDat">
  <thead class="cTh">
  <tr class="cCd">
  <td class="cIl cIll"></td>
  <td class="cIl cIll">value</td>
  <td class="cIl cIll">percent</td>
  </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody class="cTb">
  <tr class="cDr">
  <td class="cDi cDil idt0">All categories: Car or van availability</td>
  <td class="cDc">57,298</td>
  <td class="cDc">100.0</td>
  </tr>
  <tr class="cDr cDro">
  <td class="cDi cDil idt1">No cars or vans in household</td>
  <td class="cDc">15,906</td>
  <td class="cDc">27.8</td>
  </tr>
  <tr class="cDr">
  <td class="cDi cDil idt1">1 car or van in household</td>
  <td class="cDc">26,112</td>
  <td class="cDc">45.6</td>
  </tr>
  <tr class="cDr cDro">
  <td class="cDi cDil idt1">2 cars or vans in household</td>
  <td class="cDc">12,254</td>
  <td class="cDc">21.4</td>
  </tr>
  <tr class="cDr">
  <td class="cDi cDil idt1">3 cars or vans in household</td>
  <td class="cDc">2,340</td>
  <td class="cDc">4.1</td>
  </tr>
  <tr class="cDr cDro">
  <td class="cDi cDil idt1">4 or more cars or vans in household</td>
  <td class="cDc">686</td>
  <td class="cDc">1.2</td>
  </tr>
  <tr class="cDr">
  <td class="cDi cDil idt0 line-above-solid">sum of all cars or vans in the area</td>
  <td class="cDc line-above-solid">60,701</td>
  <td class="cDc line-above-solid">&#8211;</td>
  </tr>
  </tbody>
  </table>
  <p>For Suffolk the percentage of households without a car is lower at 17.9%.</p>
  <p>I very much look forward to the success of the Ipswich Star&#8217;s Ditch the Car campaign and seeing the number of households without a car increasing in the next census.</p>


guid: http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/?p=923
url: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ShaunMcdonaldsBlog/~3/e4IS9cj9sDU/
title: Football matches at Portman Road banned due to congestion
published: 2016-04-01 00:00:56
fetched: 2019-10-19 01:00:04.541430
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:36.374288
updated_at: 2019-10-19 01:00:04.791304
summary:
  Every match day or evening match at Portman Road there is significant congestion and air pollution increases in Ipswich. There have also been reports of parents getting stuck in the traffic and having to pull over to comfort their young baby until the traffic calmed down, with the town now being a no-go area on [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>Every match day or evening match at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portman_Road">Portman Road</a> there is significant congestion and air pollution increases in Ipswich. There have also been reports of parents getting stuck in the traffic and having to pull over to comfort their young baby until the traffic calmed down, with the town now being a no-go area on match days.</p>
  <p>Suffolk County Council as part of their <a href="http://www.greensuffolk.org/about">greenest county </a><span style="color: #21759b;"><u>strategy</u></span>, have decided that football matches at Portman Road are to be banned until such time that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipswich_Town_F.C.">Ipswich Town</a> produce and implement a <a href="http://www.greensuffolk.org/travel/travel-plan-support/">travel plan</a> to cut the amount of motor traffic coming into the centre of Ipswich on match days/evenings.</p>
  <p>Suggestions for the travel plan include:</p>
  <ul>
  <li>subsidising the <a href="http://www.ipswichbuses.co.uk/park-ride/">Park and Ride bus</a>, which already pretty much goes past the stadium, including extending it&#8217;s running times to cover evening matches;</li>
  <li>banning the use of car parks surrounding the stadium by cars and using them for <a href="http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/07/bicycles-football-in-copenhagen.html">cycle parking</a> instead; and</li>
  <li><a href="http://www.greenrailtravel.co.uk/acatalog/Ipswich-Town-Supporters-Season-Tickets.html">chartering special trains</a> so that there is enough capacity to cope with demand.</li>
  </ul>


guid: http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/?p=907
url: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ShaunMcdonaldsBlog/~3/oa_x9JudyCk/
title: Cycle theft advice that could hinder cycle use
published: 2015-08-02 21:28:33
fetched: 2019-10-19 01:00:04.541430
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:36.376911
updated_at: 2019-10-19 01:00:04.793854
summary:
  Last week I noticed a couple of tweets from Edinburgh South Police suggesting that you should remove the seat or a wheel when you store it in a shed on the grounds that many bikes are cycled away. You may not be up to yellow jersey standard but if you have a bike in your [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>Last week I noticed a couple of tweets from Edinburgh South Police suggesting that you should remove the seat or a wheel when you store it in a shed on the grounds that many bikes are cycled away.</p>
  <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" width="550">
  <p lang="en" dir="ltr">You may not be up to yellow jersey standard but if you have a bike in your shed: consider alarm &amp; remove the seat or single wheel (1/2)</p>
  <p>&mdash; EdinburghSouthPolice (@EdinSouthPolice) <a href="https://twitter.com/EdinSouthPolice/status/625278742932389888">July 26, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
  <p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
  <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" width="550">
  <p lang="en" dir="ltr">(2/2) most our stolen cycles are cycled away. More difficult to do without a seat or wheel!</p>
  <p>&mdash; EdinburghSouthPolice (@EdinSouthPolice) <a href="https://twitter.com/EdinSouthPolice/status/625278972838944768">July 26, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
  <p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
  <p>I can see why the advice would help to reduce the probability of a theft as it would make it harder to cycle away, however I was rather annoyed with this advice. On my bicycle it&#8217;s not easy to take the saddle or wheels off. It would likely add an extra 10 to 20 minutes each day, with the additional risk of the front wheel not being connected on correctly, or the electrical connector to the hub dynamo for the lights and USB charging wearing out.</p>
  <p>Where I live, I have to go through 5 auto closing doors, and find it extremely annoying, especially when you can&#8217;t get the bike through the door unless you hold the door open. It&#8217;s something small which has discouraged me from using the bike as often as I have in the past, especially for the more spontaneous journeys, and taking the wheel off would make it even less likely.</p>
  <p>Knowing the above I fear that the advice would discourage people from choosing the bicycle for many journeys, particularly the shorter journeys.</p>
  <p>For people who have quick release wheels and/or saddles, the advice may work, however for others this is likely to discourage the owner from cycling instead.</p>
  <p>On my Dutch bike, and my wife&#8217;s Pashley, we have frame locks which stops the back wheel from moving when locked, and you must have the key in the lock to use the bike. I&#8217;d really like to see more bikes in Britain with practical wheel locks as they are a useful and discrete security device that is always there. Ideally frame locks should be supplemented with another lock to attach the cycle to an immovable object, some frame locks allow you to insert a cable lock, so you don&#8217;t need to carry a separate lock.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_909" style="width: 286px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/RS-450_gross.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-909" class="size-medium wp-image-909" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/RS-450_gross-276x300.jpg" alt="© Trelock: RS450 frame lock" width="276" height="300" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/RS-450_gross-276x300.jpg 276w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/RS-450_gross-624x679.jpg 624w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/RS-450_gross.jpg 800w" sizes="(max-width: 276px) 100vw, 276px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-909" class="wp-caption-text">© Trelock: RS450 frame lock</p></div></p>
  <p>I wonder what the root causes of cycle theft are? I wonder if there&#8217;s any link to the benefit sanctions and other cuts the government are making&#8230; Hopefully some day we can revert to the good old days where you don&#8217;t need to worry about things being stolen, as is currently the case in some rural areas.</p>


guid: http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/?p=861
url: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ShaunMcdonaldsBlog/~3/2BVq0xExM-U/
title: Cycle Ipswich Infrastructure Tour May 2015
published: 2015-07-05 17:08:34
fetched: 2019-10-19 01:00:04.541430
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:36.380726
updated_at: 2019-10-19 01:00:04.797479
summary:
  On 30th May 2015, I led a Cycle Infrastructure Tour around Ipswich. It was an excellent day where we had people from Cambridge, London, and Edinburgh, along with locals including Andrea McMillan who is writing the Cycling Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) for Ipswich Borough Council. There&#8217;s a route map shown at the bottom, and photos [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>On 30th May 2015, I led a <a href="http://cycleipswich.org.uk/events/ipswich-cycle-infrastructure-safari/">Cycle Infrastructure Tour around Ipswich</a>. It was an excellent day where we had people from Cambridge, London, and Edinburgh, along with locals including Andrea McMillan who is writing the Cycling Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) for Ipswich Borough Council.</p>
  <p>There&#8217;s a route map shown at the bottom, and photos are clickable to either a larger version, or through to the Mapillary page so you have the location and nearby photos too.</p>
  <p>We started at Ipswich Railway Station and had a discussion regarding the future plans, including the change to the layout inside Ipswich Station, and some of the current issues, such as the cycle parking being tucked away around the back, and not sign posted, which should hopefully be improved as part of the station redevelopment.</p>
  <p>On departing the station, a couple of police officers noted that it was the first occasion that they had seen the <a href="http://www.bikeandgo.co.uk">Bike and Go bikes</a> out in use. This isn&#8217;t surprising considering you can&#8217;t rock up at the station and hire a bike, instead you need to plan at least a week in advance to sign up online. There is no automated process at the station either, so you have to wait in the queue for a member of staff to get the key for you.</p>
  <p>On departing the station we crossed the road and headed along to the cycle path on the pavement, to the side of the Encore hotel. It was noted there is a lot of cycle parking, however it&#8217;s not sign posted, sheltered, nor in an optimal configuration as some of the stands wouldn&#8217;t be able to be used when there were bikes in some of the stands. It&#8217;s almost as though the developer was required to include some cycle parking for the site (which includes residential and shops), so placed in one corner, rather than spread around the site.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_874" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-05-30-10.41.18.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-874" class="size-medium wp-image-874" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-05-30-10.41.18-300x225.jpg" alt="Suboptimal cycle parking layout" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-05-30-10.41.18-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-05-30-10.41.18-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-05-30-10.41.18-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-874" class="wp-caption-text">Suboptimal cycle parking layout</p></div></p>
  <p>We then headed over the Sir Bobbie Robson Bridge, which is a cycle and pedestrian bridge which was put in as part of the developer to the south of the river. At times it can be a bit on the narrow side thus significantly slowing down cyclists. A wider bridge would reduce the level of cycle/pedestrian conflict. After the bridge we turned left to join NCN51 westbound.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_875" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/nEEv8BBVUIy_-bMS-ERXIA"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-875" class="wp-image-875 size-medium" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/sir-bobby-robson-bridge-300x225.jpg" alt="Sir Bobby Robson bridge" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/sir-bobby-robson-bridge-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/sir-bobby-robson-bridge-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/sir-bobby-robson-bridge-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-875" class="wp-caption-text">Sir Bobby Robson bridge</p></div></p>
  <p>At the 2 large London Road junctions we had a short discussion highlighting that the junctions are designed for large amounts of motor vehicular traffic, with pedestrians and cyclists significantly inconvenienced by having to way 2 or 3 times to cross the road. On some of the lights it was difficult to see the red and green man when standing close to the signal due to the angle they were looked at. Due to the time that pedestrians have to wait they often cross in a gap in the traffic instead of waiting.</p>
  <p>On heading up London Road, the visitors from London noted that there were already bus stop bypasses in existence as you were cycling along the pavement legally. However few people recognise them as such.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_876" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/CiLt-w3s6AZ2ngPFZaBOLw"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-876" class="wp-image-876 size-medium" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/London-Road-bus-stop-bypass-300x225.jpg" alt="London Road bus stop bypass" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/London-Road-bus-stop-bypass-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/London-Road-bus-stop-bypass-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/London-Road-bus-stop-bypass-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-876" class="wp-caption-text">London Road bus stop bypass</p></div></p>
  <p>Just past the London Road allotments there is an pedestrian access route into the residential areas, however there are some significant barriers in the way, which make it difficult to use. Enabling this for cycle use and sign posting the route would mean that people have a mostly traffic free route from Chantry via London Road and NCN51 into Ipswich town centre.</p>
  <p>At the junction of London Road and Robin Drive there was a discussion regarding the double dog leg crossing which makes it difficult for pedestrians and cyclists to cross as they have to wait 3 times to cross London Road. Also if you are on a bike with a long wheelbase or have a trailer, extreme care is required to get the corners right for the dog legs.</p>
  <p>The parallel residential part of London Road is generally nice to cycle along due to the low levels of motor traffic, and the hedge between you and the main road. This separation is a common design element that is used in The Netherlands. However the road could do with being resurfaced as it&#8217;s getting uneven, so can be tough to cycle on.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_877" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/8_P6ztL5TzhJDsg21_DSGA"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-877" class="size-medium wp-image-877" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/London-Road-300x225.jpg" alt="London Road parallel residential road" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/London-Road-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/London-Road-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/London-Road-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-877" class="wp-caption-text">London Road parallel residential road</p></div></p>
  <p>At the next junction it was noted that the cycle path (on the pavement) that leads from Suffolk One just stops at the traffic lights, rather than there being a toucan crossing to allow people to cross the road safely. There is a significant issue where the students at Suffolk One drive there and there is no car parking for students. This was a deliberate decision to discourage driving, however due to the distances that students need to travel and little alternative transport, they just park in the local to the annoyance of the neighbours. Small things like a missing toucan crossing at the end of a cycle path contribute towards people not walking and cycling.</p>
  <p>Cycling along Scrivener Drive, Shepherd Drive, and the start of Hawthorn Drive was rather intimidating due to the narrow road width and heavy traffic, particularly coming from the A12 and A14. Something needs to be done to make friendlier alternative routes in the area for people on bikes.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_878" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/rN2YESFZ5_1nozMQyftFVg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-878" class="size-medium wp-image-878" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Sheppard-Drive-300x225.jpg" alt="Shepherd Drive" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Sheppard-Drive-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Sheppard-Drive-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Sheppard-Drive-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-878" class="wp-caption-text">Shepherd Drive</p></div></p>
  <p>The rest of Hawthorn Drive has a significant issue which is resolvable with minimal impact on motor traffic. The road is wide with a houses on both sides, and occasionally shops, amenities, etc, with grass verges which are often parked on, even so there is space in most front gardens. There is also a problem of traffic islands, where drivers will try to squeeze past you. It&#8217;s a rather intimidating experience, especially if you are not able to cycle fast.</p>
  <p>It would be possible to remodel the road such that there is the pavement, separate cycle path, parking, traffic lanes, parking, separate cycle path, and finally the pavement on the other side of the road. There would be some points where there would only be cycle parking on one side of the road only, or not at all near junctions. This design would be typical of a Dutch distributer road, and would mean that the local school children have a safe route to walk and cycle to school. There are many schools within a small area, so this would be a big impact, especially with the current significant complaints about the school run problem.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_879" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/Iz-_iXyAROaTUfywwFhV3A"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-879" class="size-medium wp-image-879" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Hawthorn-Drive-300x225.jpg" alt="Hawthorn Drive" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Hawthorn-Drive-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Hawthorn-Drive-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Hawthorn-Drive-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-879" class="wp-caption-text">Hawthorn Drive</p></div></p>
  <p><div id="attachment_887" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-05-30-11.49.27.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-887" class="size-medium wp-image-887" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-05-30-11.49.27-300x225.jpg" alt="Hawthorn Drive" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-05-30-11.49.27-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-05-30-11.49.27-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-05-30-11.49.27-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-887" class="wp-caption-text">Hawthorn Drive</p></div></p>
  <p>At the Hawthorn Drive/Mallard Way roundabout we had a discussion regarding the roundabout, as it&#8217;s significantly larger than many other busier roundabouts in the town, yet has very low traffic volumes, and has very wide corners so drivers can go round it with only small reduction of speed, and could easily injure a pedestrian or cyclist. Someone pointed out that the roads were probably originally designed so that the grass verges could be changed into an additional car lane instead at a later stage. Mallard Way could get a similar treatment to the suggestion for Hawthorn Drive.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_880" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/UauW5afG_VjoFzY60CPZoQ"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-880" class="size-medium wp-image-880" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Hawthorn-Drive-Roundabout-300x225.jpg" alt="Hawthorn Drive Roundabout" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Hawthorn-Drive-Roundabout-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Hawthorn-Drive-Roundabout-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Hawthorn-Drive-Roundabout-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-880" class="wp-caption-text">Hawthorn Drive Roundabout</p></div></p>
  <p>We then heading along Stone Lodge Lane West, Birkfield Drive (which has the space for similar treat meant to Hawthorn Drive and Birkfield Drive), and into Carolbrook Road, where we followed a cycle path through Ellenbrook Open Space to reach National cycle network route 1 to head back into town. This section of NCN 1 is off road, and one of the better sections through Ipswich, however it&#8217;s very short before you are back on the road again.</p>
  <p>Heading along NCN1 on Stoke Park Drive can be rather scary, and isn&#8217;t somewhere I would be keen on taking young children due to the cycle lanes stopping for traffic islands where motor vehicle drivers regularly try to squeeze past you. I&#8217;ve seen occasions where car drivers accelerate past on the other side of the road on the wrong side of the island, or cut in just before the island. The cycle lane is less than the 1.5 metres wide, and it&#8217;s hard to fit a bike in never mind  including some passing distance. Towards the end there is a right turn into Bourne Park, which wouldn&#8217;t be easy for less experienced cyclists.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_881" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/ZMrKLfZhe572y-i015wXhQ"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-881" class="size-medium wp-image-881" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Stoke-Park-Drive-300x225.jpg" alt="Stoke Park Drive" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Stoke-Park-Drive-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Stoke-Park-Drive-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Stoke-Park-Drive-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-881" class="wp-caption-text">Stoke Park Drive</p></div></p>
  <p>The cycle path through Bourne Park is pretty rough gravel, and is tough going for adults, and extremely difficult for young children to learn to ride a bike. If there was a smooth surface through the park, and around it to make a circuit, there would be an ideal environment for children to learn to ride a bicycle, and play in the park. This is something that is really needed in this part of town, as there are few places which are safe traffic free environments for children to learn.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_883" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/lLFZR5hMzltBQyeaj1Ldpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-883" class="size-medium wp-image-883" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Bourne-Park-300x225.jpg" alt="Bourne Park" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Bourne-Park-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Bourne-Park-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Bourne-Park-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-883" class="wp-caption-text">Bourne Park</p></div></p>
  <p>On heading out of Bourne Park the NCN route swings north just to run parallel to the rail line along a narrow path which is overgrown with vegetation, and sometimes has flytipping at the north end. It&#8217;s not a pretty sight considering it&#8217;s the flagship national cycle route 1, and non standard bikes would struggle to get along the route.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_884" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/mEpqFppb6_yKJkWcbPnrMw"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-884" class="size-medium wp-image-884" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/NCN1-by-railway-near-Bourne-Park-300x225.jpg" alt="NCN1 by railway near Bourne Park" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/NCN1-by-railway-near-Bourne-Park-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/NCN1-by-railway-near-Bourne-Park-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/NCN1-by-railway-near-Bourne-Park-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-884" class="wp-caption-text">NCN1 by railway near Bourne Park</p></div></p>
  <p>To save us going up and down a hill, and to also see another bit of cycle infrastructure, we headed off the NCN1 temporarily and headed along Wherstead Road. This is one of the main routes into town from the south, and connects with the A14. The road starts wide and gets narrower, particularly at the point where it goes under a rail bridge (for goods trains to get into the Port of Ipswich). Shortly after the rail bridge, there is a cycle access off on to the quieter residential streets and a toucan crossing. The cycle slip road requires you to come off the road at an angle which means that you either have to slow down and/or swing out in the middle of the road. Alternatively you can follow the route many in the group choose and head on to the pavement early which was a more natural route to follow. It would be a fairly cheap change to remove the railing and increase the dropped kerb, which would make it safer. The point where the cycle path joins the road is rather tight and there would be problems for people with cargo bikes or trailers.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_885" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/5pDTSOAAyuZS93asFOu14A"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-885" class="size-medium wp-image-885" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Wherstead-Road-1-300x225.jpg" alt="Wherstead Road 1" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Wherstead-Road-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Wherstead-Road-1-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Wherstead-Road-1-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-885" class="wp-caption-text">Wherstead Road 1</p></div></p>
  <p><div id="attachment_888" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-05-30-13.12.31.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-888" class="size-medium wp-image-888" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-05-30-13.12.31-300x225.jpg" alt="Wherstead Road 2" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-05-30-13.12.31-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-05-30-13.12.31-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-05-30-13.12.31-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-888" class="wp-caption-text">Wherstead Road 2</p></div></p>
  <p><div id="attachment_886" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/RwoGcqsN8WC8oupKdclLjg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-886" class="size-medium wp-image-886" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Wherstead-Road-2-300x225.jpg" alt="Wherstead Road 2" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Wherstead-Road-2-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Wherstead-Road-2-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Wherstead-Road-2-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-886" class="wp-caption-text">Wherstead Road 3</p></div></p>
  <p>Onwards we rejoined NCN1 again briefly and headed quickly to <a href="http://thebrewerytap.org">The Brewery Tap</a> via the waterfront as we were running a little behind schedule at this point. The waterfront has some traffic free sections, and has some heavy pedestrian use. This makes is problematic at weekends and in the evenings when there are heavy pedestrian flows. I have come across a regular local cyclist who didn&#8217;t realise that it is two way for cyclists, whilst only one way for motor vehicles.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>After lunch we headed up Cliff Lane and followed National Cycle Route 51 out to Ravenswood. At the junction of Cliff Lane and the entrance to Holywells Park we stopped for a chat. There&#8217;s a significant school run problem in the area (which has been on BBC Radio Suffolk in the past). There is also a similar issue with people driving to visit the park often with children.</p>
  <p>During the cycle along NCN51 to Ravenswood, the Londoners on the ride noted how quiet the residential streets were. This is in part due to the route being filtered, and the residential roads being the furthest possible from the main access routes to the residential area. It is a much longer route, and many locals will choose shorter routes, such as Clapgate Land and Nacton Road instead, especially into town downhill, as it&#8217;s much faster and more direct. The NCN51 route is quieter, safer, and sign posted.</p>
  <p>At the point the Morland Road joins to the cycle path through to Raeburn Road there is currently a confusing NCN51 sign for people coming from the east, which suggests the route is into town only. Either that sign should be taken down, or it should be updated to show the route goes in both directions. Turning right takes you into town, and left towards Ravenswood and Felixstowe.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_889" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/lpVv1RfUYptRZ400QTma9w"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-889" class="size-medium wp-image-889" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Morland-Road-300x225.jpg" alt="Morland Road" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Morland-Road-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Morland-Road-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Morland-Road-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-889" class="wp-caption-text">Morland Road</p></div></p>
  <p>Ravenswood is a fairly new build housing estate, built on the old Ipswich Airport (final flight January 1998). The estate was designed to be environmentally friendly with many cycle and foot paths, limited car space, traffic calming measures and a frequent bus link into the town centre.</p>
  <p>Through Ravenswood the NCN51 cycle path is very good if you are passing through the area, as there is minimal interaction with motor vehicles. However if you are trying to get from the main cycle paths on to the residential streets, it is very difficult to do so, and the cycle paths are around half the width they need to be. Often you have to cycle on the road where drivers can be rather intimidating. Ravenswood has one of the highest cycle to school rates in the county.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_890" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/V9SrNQTuge4Z8d33jOhrbg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-890" class="size-medium wp-image-890" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Ravenswood-300x225.jpg" alt="Ravenswood" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Ravenswood-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Ravenswood-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Ravenswood-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-890" class="wp-caption-text">Ravenswood</p></div></p>
  <p>On the edge of the Ravenswood estate there have been 4 new major chain restaurants built in the past year. Sheltered cycle parking has been provided, however little consideration has been given to how you get from the cycle paths of the car park to the cycle parking. It&#8217;s as though it&#8217;s been stuck in some unused corner as a requirement of the planning permission, rather than properly planning the cycle parking in so that it is easy to get to.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_891" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/5ZlqrLV-dTvlSTiJ5kkbAA"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-891" class="size-medium wp-image-891" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Ravenswood-restaurant-cycle-parking-300x225.jpg" alt="Ravenswood restaurant cycle parking" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Ravenswood-restaurant-cycle-parking-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Ravenswood-restaurant-cycle-parking-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Ravenswood-restaurant-cycle-parking-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-891" class="wp-caption-text">Ravenswood restaurant cycle parking</p></div></p>
  <p>The staggered toucan crossing on Ravenswood Avenue by The Thrasher roundabout is quite tough to use on a bike, especially if you are in a group of people on bikes, have a trailer on the bike, or a cargo bike, the crossing becomes very difficult. Some of the tight corners at junctions within the estate are also very difficult with non-standard bikes.</p>
  <p>We then headed through Futura Park which is a new retail area built in November 2012. There were <a href="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/2013/02/more-cycle-parking-installed-at-ipswich-waitrosejohn-lewis/">some additional racks added by Waitrose and John Lewis shortly after they opened</a> as they were fully utilised in the first week of opening. There is legalised pavement cycling for people to get to and from the shops, however once you get to the main road, Ransomes Way, the pavements get rather narrow. Also the <a href="http://www.suffolk.gov.uk/roads-and-transport/roadworks/nacton-road/">plans for the junction outside the Sainsburys and Homebase</a> will require people to plan ahead if they want to cross with the toucan crossing. Ransoms Way is also having the 2 lanes (1 each way) turned into 3 lanes (2 towards roundabouts, and one leaving roundabouts). I&#8217;d rather a cycle track or possibly a wider pavement to be implemented instead to reduce the conflict with pedestrians, and encourage more people to cycle to the shops.</p>
  <p>Heading along Felixstowe Road back into town, cyclists start on the pavement, and around the borough boundary cyclists are taken on to the road in a cycle lane with heavy and fast (40 mph speed limit) traffic and no protection between cyclists and the motor vehicles. Just after the roundabout we stopped on Bixley Road for a quick discussion. I have seen families walking their bikes around the roundabout and then getting back on to cycle on the pavement afterwards. This roundabout is a stumbling point for encouraging more people to cycling due to the crucial link it provides with various parts of the town, including being on the main ring road route of the town.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_892" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/9eMNK1MJndDwoAi0am0U-A"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-892" class="size-medium wp-image-892" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Felixstowe-Road-300x225.jpg" alt="Felixstowe Road" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Felixstowe-Road-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Felixstowe-Road-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Felixstowe-Road-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-892" class="wp-caption-text">Felixstowe Road</p></div></p>
  <p>Due to the heavy motor traffic on Bixley Road, I chose a route that took us on to quieter back roads pretty quickly along Princethorpe Road, Temple Road, Chilton Road, Foxhole Road, and Heath Lane where you get to a cycle path, which is a back entrance to Copleston High School, and the end of the back access road to the hospital. However it looks from the signage that you can&#8217;t cycle in this direction to get to the hospital, even so it would be a useful link to the hospital avoiding the main roads.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_893" style="width: 235px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-05-30-16.09.58.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-893" class="size-medium wp-image-893" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-05-30-16.09.58-225x300.jpg" alt="Hospital back entrance oddity" width="225" height="300" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-05-30-16.09.58-225x300.jpg 225w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-05-30-16.09.58-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-05-30-16.09.58-624x832.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-893" class="wp-caption-text">Hospital back entrance oddity</p></div></p>
  <p>We stopped within the hospital grounds on NCN1 to discuss the hospital cycle access. The main A&amp;E has some good quality sheltered cycle parking, however cyclists are expected to share the road with motor vehicles. Other departments have large cycle parks near their entrances, however it&#8217;s generally of the wheel bender designs, so people will try to lock their bike in a similar manner to a Sheffield stand, such that the bike is supported. Some of the cycle parking could be better sign posted for example similar to a bus stop flag post to encourage usage, and so that people can see the cycle parking from a distance. The north cycle path on to Woodbridge Road doesn&#8217;t connect with other cycle routes well, nor gives a nice transition back on to the road.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_894" style="width: 160px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-07-03-18.15.48.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-894" class="size-thumbnail wp-image-894" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-07-03-18.15.48-150x150.jpg" alt="Hospital cycle parking 1" width="150" height="150" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-894" class="wp-caption-text">Hospital cycle parking 1</p></div></p>
  <p><div id="attachment_895" style="width: 160px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-07-03-18.15.55.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-895" class="size-thumbnail wp-image-895" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-07-03-18.15.55-150x150.jpg" alt="Hospital Cycle parking 2" width="150" height="150" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-895" class="wp-caption-text">Hospital Cycle parking 2</p></div></p>
  <p><div id="attachment_896" style="width: 160px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-07-03-19.09.17.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-896" class="size-thumbnail wp-image-896" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-07-03-19.09.17-150x150.jpg" alt="Hospital Cycle parking 3" width="150" height="150" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-896" class="wp-caption-text">Hospital Cycle parking 3</p></div></p>
  <p>From the hospital we followed National Cycle route 1 back into town, on the way we stopped off on Rope Walk, which is seen to be one of the best cycling facilities in the town as through motor traffic stopped on this section of road, and it means there is a safe reasonably quiet route from here into town. Just beforehand, Kings Avenue and Milner Street are a significant rat run in the morning peak, and need to have the rat run closed to through traffic to make the route more pleasant and also reduce motor vehicle congestion since drivers on St Helens Street are letting drivers out which then reduces the flow of vehicles from entering the traffic lights at the bottom of Grove Lane, Spring Road, and Warwick Road.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_897" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/MTIphc2R0UotgMxmVL1PCA"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-897" class="size-medium wp-image-897" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Rope-Walk-300x225.jpg" alt="Rope Walk" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Rope-Walk-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Rope-Walk-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Rope-Walk-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-897" class="wp-caption-text">Rope Walk</p></div></p>
  <p>At the junction of Rope Walk, Waterworks Street and Bond Street, there is an interesting arrangement whereby cyclists just have to give way to traffic from the left and don&#8217;t need to wait for the green light. It can be a bit narrow to get through if you are on a wide cargo bike or have a bike trailer.</p>
  <p><div id="attachment_898" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://www.mapillary.com/map/im/eeHVmJETtSCpC1rIi7HMzQ"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-898" class="size-medium wp-image-898" src="http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Rope-Walk-Waterworks-Street-Junction-300x225.jpg" alt="Rope Walk and Waterworks Street Junction" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Rope-Walk-Waterworks-Street-Junction-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Rope-Walk-Waterworks-Street-Junction-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Rope-Walk-Waterworks-Street-Junction-624x468.jpg 624w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-898" class="wp-caption-text">Rope Walk and Waterworks Street Junction</p></div></p>
  <p>We headed through the town centre which was quite quiet with it being the end of the day. We stopped off in Arlingtons Cafe to have a final discussion and review of the day.</p>
  <p>The was a lot to look at, and several other places I&#8217;d have liked to have gone to discuss too. I&#8217;m planning to run some more rides at a slower pace so that there can be more discussion at the stops.</p>
  <p>
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guid: http://blog.shaunmcdonald.me.uk/?p=841
url: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ShaunMcdonaldsBlog/~3/ra-ZrHz-YHQ/
title: Videos of the Pedal on Parliament 2015 Speeches
published: 2015-04-26 23:36:19
fetched: 2019-07-06 12:30:05.326556
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:36.383838
updated_at: 2019-07-06 12:30:05.587040
summary:
  This year I have created a series of videos of the speeches at the Pedal on Parliament rally, and I have made them available on YouTube. A full YouTube playlist is available. Introductions by David Brennan Briana Pegado, President of Edinburgh Students Union Derek Mackay Scotland Transport Minister Cameron Buchanan, Conservative Party Sarah Boyack, Labour [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>This year I have created a series of videos of the speeches at the Pedal on Parliament rally, and I have made them available on YouTube. A <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs6nUsjNniC5OQOswKAfmwC18srHgD_SQ">full YouTube playlist is available</a>.</p>
  <p>Introductions by David Brennan</p>
  <p><iframe class='youtube-player' type='text/html' width='625' height='352' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/VQomN6vAySY?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></p>
  <p>Briana Pegado, President of Edinburgh Students Union</p>
  <p><iframe class='youtube-player' type='text/html' width='625' height='352' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/avDXugBH4YQ?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></p>
  <p>Derek Mackay Scotland Transport Minister</p>
  <p><iframe class='youtube-player' type='text/html' width='625' height='352' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/v8nj7M6oPXU?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></p>
  <p>Cameron Buchanan, Conservative Party</p>
  <p><iframe class='youtube-player' type='text/html' width='625' height='352' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ef2c-tfG-o4?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></p>
  <p>Sarah Boyack, Labour Party</p>
  <p><iframe class='youtube-player' type='text/html' width='625' height='352' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/0cqDf5A4Gro?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></p>
  <p>Willie Rennie, Liberal Democrats Party</p>
  <p><iframe class='youtube-player' type='text/html' width='625' height='352' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/1Bx1pj14YpQ?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></p>
  <p>Emilia Hanna, Friends of the Earth</p>
  <p><iframe class='youtube-player' type='text/html' width='625' height='352' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/ea-RZvR8VtY?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></p>
  <p>Allison Johnstone, Green Party</p>
  <p><iframe class='youtube-player' type='text/html' width='625' height='352' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Mi6Oen6lz9k?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></p>
  <p>Bruce Whitehead, Left Unity Party</p>
  <p><iframe class='youtube-player' type='text/html' width='625' height='352' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/cCs06BGTmSs?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></p>
  <p>Caroline Barr spoken by Sally Hinchcliffe</p>
  <p><iframe class='youtube-player' type='text/html' width='625' height='352' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/lhDccVlVtFk?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></p>
  <p>Closing Thank Yous by David Brennan</p>
  <p><iframe class='youtube-player' type='text/html' width='625' height='352' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/qChc0U8CjJU?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></p>
  <p>Live performance of the Cowboy Builder Song. (<a href="https://youtu.be/jKDPoU50cGY">Original</a>)</p>
  <p><iframe class='youtube-player' type='text/html' width='625' height='352' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/j3cYpkX0JVA?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'></iframe></p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>


guid: https://medium.com/p/32551ed1b30
url: https://blog.mapbox.com/open-data-day-2019-32551ed1b30?source=rss----c5e029442--openstreetmap
title: Open Data Day 2019
published: 2019-03-02 13:46:01
fetched: 2019-10-27 00:00:05.668850
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.576245
updated_at: 2019-10-27 00:00:05.767734
content:
  <h4>Celebrating the benefits of open data around the world</h4><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*NP7Wj5lhxY598YM04ouM_g.png" /></figure><p><em>By: </em><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/mikel-maron/"><em>Mikel Maron</em></a></p><p>Happy Open Data Day! Thousands of people at <a href="https://opendataday.org/#map">over 250 events around the globe</a> are gathering to create, build with, and promote open data in government, civil society, and business. Mapbox partnered with the Open Knowledge Foundation for a second year to sponsor mini-grants for <a href="https://blog.okfn.org/2019/02/21/these-are-the-grantees-of-the-open-data-day-2019-mini-grant-scheme/">projects and events in the Open Mapping theme</a> and we can’t wait to see what everyone builds.</p><p>Last year we saw <a href="https://blog.okfn.org/2018/04/16/open-mapping-in-cote-divoire-mongolia-and-the-usa/">activists in Côte d’Ivoire</a> work on geographic data for transparency mining and oil exploration, the <a href="https://blog.okfn.org/2018/04/10/local-open-mapping-initiatives-in-rwanda-and-nicaragua/">students at National University of Engineering in Managua</a> mapped an inventory of informal housing construction types in OpenStreetMap, and <a href="https://blog.mapbox.com/empowering-portugals-bombeiros-with-open-data-1a282e29f44f">Fogos.pt used public datasets</a> and Mapbox to build the most popular website to track fires in Portugal. And there were more amazing efforts in Tanzania, Namibia, Denver, Rwanda, Helsinki, Poland, and Washington DC.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*TgLVomHAX0Jlg1kM.jpg" /><figcaption><em>Last year, 406 events took place in </em><a href="https://blog.okfn.org/2018/05/09/open-data-day-in-mwanza-tanzania/"><em>Tanzania</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://blog.okfn.org/2018/05/10/creativity-and-mobile-solutions-can-help-combat-road-accidents/"><em>Namibia</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://blog.okfn.org/2018/04/16/open-mapping-in-cote-divoire-mongolia-and-the-usa/"><em>Abidjan</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://blog.okfn.org/2018/04/16/open-mapping-in-cote-divoire-mongolia-and-the-usa/"><em>Denver</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://blog.okfn.org/2018/04/10/local-open-mapping-initiatives-in-rwanda-and-nicaragua/"><em>Rwanda</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://blog.okfn.org/2018/04/10/local-open-mapping-initiatives-in-rwanda-and-nicaragua/"><em>Nicaragua</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://blog.okfn.org/2018/03/28/open-data-day-2018-getting-the-local-communities-in-porto-and-helsinki-to-talk-about-open-mapping/"><em>Portugal</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://blog.okfn.org/2018/03/28/open-data-day-2018-getting-the-local-communities-in-porto-and-helsinki-to-talk-about-open-mapping/"><em>Helsinki</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://blog.okfn.org/2018/04/04/engaging-people-around-open-data-and-open-mapping-from-usa-to-poland/"><em>Poland,</em></a><em> </em><a href="https://blog.okfn.org/2018/04/04/engaging-people-around-open-data-and-open-mapping-from-usa-to-poland/"><em>Washington D.C</em></a><em>., and beyond. Find more about them </em><a href="http://opendataday.org/"><em>here</em></a><em>.</em></figcaption></figure><p>Here are some projects that we’re excited to follow this year:</p><ul><li>Open Knowledge Brasil will build a database of existing dams in Brasil following Brumadinho dam disaster.</li><li>OpenStreetMap Kenya will share how open data can be created and used for urban planning and architecture.</li><li>OpenStreetMap Taiwan and Wikimedia Taiwan are hosting events to improve the geographic data for hospitals, educational institutions, and infrastructure important to women.</li><li>Code for Columbus will use the city’s new open data portal and open data from the regional planning commission to investigate social problems in the city.</li></ul><p>Check out <a href="https://opendataday.org/#map">opendataday.org</a> for a full listing of events.</p><p>Close to home for us, Mapping DC is <a href="https://www.meetup.com/MappingDC/events/259020273/">hosting a mapathon</a> today to improve open data on bike lanes across Washington D.C. And Code for San Francisco is hosting a <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/code-for-san-francisco-open-data-day-2019-tickets-56291530483">full-day event on Sunday</a> with projects and workshops from <a href="https://data.sfgov.org">DataSF</a>, MUNI Challenge, <a href="https://www.lanebreach.org/">SF Bike Lane Breach</a>, and <a href="https://www.sheltertech.org/">ShelterTech</a> to tackle challenges of homelessness, transit, and bicycle infrastructure using open data. We hope to see you there!</p><p>Share your projects with #OpenDataDay and #odd19, and <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/community/">reach out to the Community team</a> for support on your open data projects.</p><p><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/mikel-maron/">Mikel Maron</a></p><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=32551ed1b30" width="1" height="1"><hr><p><a href="https://blog.mapbox.com/open-data-day-2019-32551ed1b30">Open Data Day 2019</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.mapbox.com">Points of interest</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.</p>


guid: https://medium.com/p/696765f3720a
title: How I built it: mapping every road in Washington state
published: 2018-08-06 21:01:11
fetched: 2019-10-27 00:00:05.668850
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.578965
updated_at: 2019-10-27 00:00:05.770752
url:
  https://blog.mapbox.com/how-i-built-it-mapping-every-road-in-washington-state-696765f3720a?source=rss----c5e029442--openstreetmap

content:
  <p><em>By: </em><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/jinal-foflia/"><em>Jinal Foflia</em></a></p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/764/1*NUpOhudk9UdQqwrU0yZDYQ.png" /></figure><p><em>Clifford Snow is on a mission to personally add the most up-to-date road data (including rural logging roads) of Washington state to OpenStreetMap. Clifford started contributing to OpenStreetMap in 2011 after seeing a presentation by Hurricane Coast at LinuxfestNW in Bellingham, Washington. I wanted to learn more about the project’s origins and the map’s technical framework, so I sat down with him to chat about his work.</em></p><h4><strong>What inspired you to develop the project?</strong></h4><p>Heavily trafficked roads in major US metropolitan areas are usually maintained regularly and in good shape in OpenStreetMap. The conditions of rural roads in the US are a different story. In Washington state, for example, some of them are still in the same condition as when they were imported into maps from <a href="https://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/data/tiger.html">TIGER</a> data. With this project I wanted to provide the OSM mapping community with more up-to-date, comprehensive, basemaps for tracing road data.</p><h4><strong>What datasets did you use to build the map?</strong></h4><p>A majority of counties in Washington State like Island County, Whatcom County, and my own Skagit County opened up their road data. This allowed me to trace roads and capture street names. As I expanded to more and more counties I ran into a roadblock: not all Washington Counties make open data available. I created a <a href="https://glassman.carto.com/viz/68d4aa30-97f0-11e5-92ce-0e3a376473ab/public_map">webmap</a> showing which counties in Washington State have open data.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*iqsvko3JmtQSwcBx.png" /><figcaption>A CARTO map shows the status of open road data across counties in Washington State.</figcaption></figure><p>At times, providing open data is cost prohibitive for a small county, while other counties choose to monetize their data. Thankfully, I found a workaround using the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) open datasets of local and state roads.</p><p>Washington State is home to thousands of miles of logging roads. I relied on <a href="https://www.fs.fed.us/">USFS</a> data to record logging roads, and it was a massive dataset. Before this project, I never used Mapbox but I knew many Mapbox-ers from my work on previous OpenStreetMap projects and thought it may be a good solution.</p><p>Mapbox made it easy for me to get the road network maps online and could scale to handle a larger load than I could from my home Geoserver.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/895/0*zQ93C7dyiLeYlouh" /></figure><h4><strong>Can you walk us through how you built the map?</strong></h4><p>I started by plotting out how to upload the large datasets onto the Mapbox server. The data I had resided in my PostGIS server. I needed to convert it to an MBTile and upload it to Mapbox. Getting it into an MBTile wasn’t hard. Uploading it because of the size was much more difficult for me. Fortunately, Mapboxer <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/sam-matthews/">Sam Mathews</a> helped out, pointing me to a script to help with the process. I built a shell script wrapper to help out.</p><iframe src="" width="0" height="0" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"><a href="https://medium.com/media/99d4d08aa2582b5f140cb683e87c41d0/href">https://medium.com/media/99d4d08aa2582b5f140cb683e87c41d0/href</a></iframe><p>Once I figured that out, I plowed ahead and began to build the basemap layer. Here’s how I did it:</p><ol><li>First I loaded the shapefile into PostGIS, using PostGIS to filter and simplify the data. The state’s data contained many fields that were not needed since I was only looking for street and highway names.</li><li>I used QGIS to load the PostGIS data to save the data as a geojson. Loading into QGIS gave me a nice visual of the data to make sure it looks correct.</li><li><a href="https://github.com/mapbox/tippecanoe">Tippecanoe</a> helped me convert the geojson into an MBTile file for the upload to Mapbox.</li><li>The <a href="https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-upload">Mapbox-upload script</a> was used to send the data up to Mapbox.</li><li>Once the MBTiles were accepted, which takes a while with a large file size, I used the <a href="http://utm.io/ub7P2">Mapbox Studio</a> editor to create the <a href="https://api.mapbox.com/styles/v1/glassman/cjgigy2r6001l2rq0ozn7xp8d.html?fresh=true&amp;title=true&amp;access_token=pk.eyJ1IjoiZ2xhc3NtYW4iLCJhIjoiRjk3dWdwYyJ9.Tg_fMJWxygeKBgVTrZHmGA#13.47/47.46459/-122.25322">road style</a>.</li><li>Then, I published the style in Studio. Mapbox Studio made it easy to create styles at different zoom levels.</li><li>Finally, I add the newly published basemap layer to the <a href="https://josm.openstreetmap.de/wiki/Mapshttps://josm.openstreetmap.de/wiki/Maps">OpenStreetMap Wiki</a>. JOSM adds entries directly into the list of images available. This step involves creating (or copying in my case) the boundary of the area the data covers, adding the URL and icon to displayed in JOSM. I’m optimistic that the iD editor will allow adding custom overlays in the near-future.</li></ol><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*x2WxtH6miWZuX1Fc.png" /></figure><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*WLeE_i_0Pytzepgk.png" /></figure><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*o7XHqcxUximJePN_yNxozg.png" /><figcaption>Road custom style was built in Studio</figcaption></figure><h4><strong>What’s next for the project? Are there other Mapbox features you plan to explore?</strong></h4><p>I’d really like to see open road data from the states displayed as a basemap in our editors. That is going to require scripting to grab the data, normalizing it, convert it to MBTiles and then uploading to Mapbox. One obstacle I envision is getting updates at different times.</p><p>I plan to start working on this project this fall.</p><p><em>Learn more about how we’re supporting projects like this one on our </em><a href="http://bit.ly/2KwtuAY"><em>Community page</em></a><em>.</em> <em>Explore the full basemap layer, and start adding OSM data to your own mapping project — </em><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/help/overpass-turbo/?utm_campaign=community18&amp;utm_medium=Blog&amp;utm_source=medium&amp;utm_content=osm-data-documentation"><em>read our guide</em></a><em>.</em></p><p><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/jinal-foflia/">Jinal Foflia</a></p><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=696765f3720a" width="1" height="1"><hr><p><a href="https://blog.mapbox.com/how-i-built-it-mapping-every-road-in-washington-state-696765f3720a">How I built it: mapping every road in Washington state</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.mapbox.com">Points of interest</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.</p>


guid: https://medium.com/p/61dd45a7fdb7
url: https://blog.mapbox.com/ruby-for-good-2018-61dd45a7fdb7?source=rss----c5e029442--openstreetmap
title: Ruby for Good 2018
published: 2018-06-28 18:24:50
fetched: 2019-10-27 00:00:05.668850
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.581360
updated_at: 2019-10-27 00:00:05.773085
content:
  <h4>4 days. 9 open source projects. 80 Rubyists.</h4><p><em>By: </em><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/dom-brassey/"><em>Dom Brassey</em></a></p><blockquote><em>Participating in an event like Ruby for Good, especially if you’re new and don’t know where to begin, helps usher you into the world of open source in a friendly, non-threatening way. People are around to help you, you’re part of a team, and you can choose a cause that you believe in so all the time you spend working on a project, you’re actually working toward the greater good. — Ruby for Good Organizer, </em><a href="https://twitter.com/teresa_finn"><em>Teresa Finn</em></a></blockquote><p>The 5th Annual Ruby for Good event just wrapped. 80 Ruby developers participated in this 4-day “not-a-hackathon” in Washington, D.C. After a welcome from founder <a href="https://twitter.com/seanmarcia">Sean Marcia</a> and the team, leaders took the stage to pitch the weekend sprints they planned with nonprofit stakeholders like <a href="https://twitter.com/GlobalNamati">Namati</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/PDX_Diaper_Bank">PDX Diaper Bank</a>, <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=3/42.49/-72.86">OpenStreetMap</a>, and more.</p><p>Events like Ruby For Good help developers grow as leaders and collaborators, offer non-profits access to technology built to their custom needs, and give sponsors an opportunity to develop deep relationships with tech professionals. A huge thank you to our own <a href="https://github.com/kalimar">Kalimar</a> on the organizing team, and all the individuals who came together to build collaborative and open technology.</p><p>Here’s a deeper look at some of the projects we worked on:</p><h4>Amazon Terrastories</h4><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*DuojMtYZq5F0TPUD.jpg" /><figcaption>Read ACT’s <a href="http://www.amazonteam.org/act-partakes-in-ruby-for-good-2018-to-develop-offline-geostorytelling-app-terrastories">full post</a> on building Terrastories with Mapbox during Ruby for Good.</figcaption></figure><p>Our friends at the Amazon Conservation Team asked developers to build a geo-storytelling app that features video recordings of the<a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2017/11/storytelling-empowers-indigenous-people-to-conserve-their-environments/"><strong> oral histories that these communities share about their territory</strong></a>. The teams built Terrastories as a Dockerized Rails App to help users locate content geographically on an interactive, offline-compatible map.</p><p>The <a href="https://github.com/rubyforgood/terrastories">Terrastories</a> team took the stage to demo their project:</p><style>body[data-twttr-rendered="true"] {background-color: transparent;}.twitter-tweet {margin: auto !important;}</style><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-align="center" data-dnt="true"><p>We knew the <a href="http://twitter.com/Mapbox" target="_blank" title="Twitter profile for @Mapbox">@Mapbox</a> API was going to be awesome, but also that we didn&#39;t know how to use it...&quot; team Terrastories #RubyforGood2018 <a href="http://twitter.com/RubyforGood" target="_blank" title="Twitter profile for @RubyforGood">@RubyforGood</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="https://t.co/t2OyYTulw7">https://t.co/t2OyYTulw7</a></p><p>&#x200a;&mdash;&#x200a;<a href="https://twitter.com/EqMapbox/status/1005865896731082752">@EqMapbox</a></p></blockquote><script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><script>function notifyResize(height) {height = height ? height : document.documentElement.offsetHeight; var resized = false; if (window.donkey && donkey.resize) {donkey.resize(height);resized = true;}if (parent && parent._resizeIframe) {var obj = {iframe: window.frameElement, height: height}; parent._resizeIframe(obj); resized = true;}if (window.location && window.location.hash === "#amp=1" && window.parent && window.parent.postMessage) {window.parent.postMessage({sentinel: "amp", type: "embed-size", height: height}, "*");}if (window.webkit && window.webkit.messageHandlers && window.webkit.messageHandlers.resize) {window.webkit.messageHandlers.resize.postMessage(height); resized = true;}return resized;}twttr.events.bind('rendered', function (event) {notifyResize();}); twttr.events.bind('resize', function (event) {notifyResize();});</script><script>if (parent && parent._resizeIframe) {var maxWidth = parseInt(window.frameElement.getAttribute("width")); if ( 500  < maxWidth) {window.frameElement.setAttribute("width", "500");}}</script><h4>OpenStreetMap</h4><p>OpenStreetMap convened a team of volunteers to improve the <a href="http://openstreetmap.org">http://openstreetmap.org</a> website. Led by <a href="https://github.com/cflipse">Chris Flipse</a> and <a href="https://github.com/benreyn">Ben Reynolds</a>, the team refactored routes to make them more resourceful and moved towards a replacement authentication system with the CanCanCan framework.</p><p>These improvements to the OpenStreetMap infrastructure will ultimately benefit the hundreds of millions of people who use OpenStreetMap data daily, including NGOs like MSF and the Red Cross, companies like Mapbox, Facebook, and Apple, and governments, educators, researchers, and mapmakers around the globe.</p><p>This is only a glimpse at the work accomplished during Ruby for Good 2018. We can’t wait to do it again next year. In the meantime, if you’re working on a project for social good our Community team wants to know about it! <a href="https://goo.gl/5F5jbU">Drop us a line</a> so we can connect.</p><p><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/dom-brassey/">Dom Brassey</a></p><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=61dd45a7fdb7" width="1" height="1"><hr><p><a href="https://blog.mapbox.com/ruby-for-good-2018-61dd45a7fdb7">Ruby for Good 2018</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.mapbox.com">Points of interest</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.</p>


guid: https://medium.com/p/8f0f2fd187d3
title: A mapathon for the environment with OSM Earth
published: 2018-04-24 21:41:19
fetched: 2019-10-27 00:00:05.668850
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.583618
updated_at: 2019-10-27 00:00:05.775401
url:
  https://blog.mapbox.com/a-mapathon-for-the-environment-with-osm-earth-8f0f2fd187d3?source=rss----c5e029442--openstreetmap

content:
  <p><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/marena-brinkhurst/"><em>By: Marena Brinkhurst</em></a></p><blockquote><em>I am the Lorax! I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.” - Dr. Seuss</em></blockquote><p>This Earth Day, a group of volunteers from the OSM community participated in a mapathon to “speak for the trees” as the Lorax would say — to map ecosystems and environments they care about. Together, our team, <a href="https://www.maphubs.com/">MapHubs</a>, and <a href="http://www.vulcan.com">Vulcan</a> used the event to test <a href="https://osm.earth/">OSM Earth</a>, the new public tasking manager that helps you coordinate groups of digital mappers during environmental mapping projects (built by MapHubs). <em>A note: OSM Earth is a direct fork of the open-source </em><a href="https://www.hotosm.org/"><em>Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team</em></a><em> (HOT) </em><a href="https://tasks.hotosm.org/"><em>Tasking Manager</em></a><em> (made possible by the leadership and contributions of HOT and OSM communities.)</em></p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*iVjPn_rwtxvczfWNJyywOQ.png" /><figcaption>A look at OSM Earth. Logo by Angel Kittiyachavalit.</figcaption></figure><blockquote><em>We were inspired by the incredibly active and motivated community of disaster-response mappers and humanitarian mappers that the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team and partners have cultivated. We thought, let’s see if there could be a similar community that loves to map for environmental causes. — Leo Bottrill, MapHubs</em></blockquote><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*7bxe8APSBLWX5CT5." /></figure><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*yuOtDPwILWVLuB1l." /></figure><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*E924omigRENTSeRq." /></figure><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*D5QgLP8IyUkrDQ-k." /><figcaption>Team volunteers in San Francisco, Washington DC and Bangalore test out OSM Earth during the Earth Day mapathon.</figcaption></figure><blockquote><em>There hasn’t yet been a rallying point for people who are most interested in mapping land-use, landscape features, or infrastructure that is significant for environmental protection projects, like logging roads or unplanned development near protected areas. I’m excited to see OSM Earth grow as a place where OSM mappers can develop their skills for this kind of mapping, and for environmental mappers to recruit help from the wider OSM community. — Joel Masselink, Vulcan</em></blockquote><h3>Mapathon Tasks</h3><p>Volunteers from our team, MapHubs, and Vulcan worked in OSM Earth on a variety of tasks including:</p><ul><li><strong>Spotting signs of encroachment near protected areas in the DRC:</strong> OSM contributors can map signs of encroachment (new roads, new settlements, etc) near Virunga National Park in the DRC. This project supports the <a href="https://virunga.org/virunga-alliance/">Virunga Alliance</a>, which works in collaboration with local communities to prevent encroachment, poaching, and other environmental damage to this refuge of mountain gorillas.</li><li><strong>Mapping</strong> <strong>sea level rise in island communities:</strong> Volunteers can map island communities most at risk of sea level rise — from Alaska to the Maldives to Papua New Guinea. Some of these islands are very small, and some have not been mapped in OSM at all, but people live there. Up-to-date maps help local populations better understand what infrastructure is at risk as sea levels rise.</li><li><strong>Understanding indigenous land use in Kenya<em>: </em></strong>participants can contribute to<em> </em>the mapping efforts of the<em> </em><a href="http://www.nrt-kenya.org/">Northern Rangelands Trust</a>, <a href="http://www.kenyalandalliance.or.ke/">Kenya Land Alliance</a>, and the <a href="http://www.ogiekpeoples.org/">Ogiek Peoples Development Program</a>. These organizations work to help indigenous communities map their traditional lands; and have a greater say in how they are used.</li><li><strong>Mapping Himalayan glaciers<em>:</em></strong> Our Bangalore team contributed a task that was close to home, helping community members map glaciers as they change in the Himalayas.</li><li><strong>Tracking</strong> <strong>tourism infrastructure in the Philippines</strong>: Inspired by <a href="https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/04/04/asia/philippines-duterte-boracay-shutdown-intl/index.html">reports of unsustainable development and pollution</a> on the island of Boracay in the Philippines, the team challenged mapathon volunteers to add missing buildings and infrastructure to the Boracay map. With an updated map, local leaders can better understand the speed of development on the island.</li></ul><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/524/0*4B4hiAtjPuEE6bFd." /><figcaption>Locations of the mapathon’s tasks spanned the globe.</figcaption></figure><p>In all, our team’s mapathon volunteers made 1,800 road/buildings edits and 395 glacier edits.</p><h3>Help the planet — contribute to OSM</h3><blockquote><em>It was really easy to get started mapping on OSM — a 10-minute guided online tutorial, and you’re good to go. I loved the meditative nature of studying satellite imagery and identifying buildings and roads. It’s satisfying to think I can maybe help people somewhere across the world do better work to improve lives — all without having to leave my desk!” — Sofia Heisler, Mapbox</em></blockquote><p>Join the thousands mapping in <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetMap</a> every day and support organizations and communities working for environmental protection and sustainable development—contribute to the coordinated mapping projects in <a href="https://osm.earth/">osm.earth</a>. For resources on learning how to map in OSM, visit <a href="http://learnosm.org/en/">learnosm.org</a>.</p><p><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/marena-brinkhurst/">Marena Brinkhurst</a></p><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=8f0f2fd187d3" width="1" height="1"><hr><p><a href="https://blog.mapbox.com/a-mapathon-for-the-environment-with-osm-earth-8f0f2fd187d3">A mapathon for the environment with OSM Earth</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.mapbox.com">Points of interest</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.</p>


guid: https://medium.com/p/e7872d979122
title: New imagery for Caribe Wave 2018 available
published: 2018-03-15 17:33:57
fetched: 2019-10-27 00:00:05.668850
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.585933
updated_at: 2019-10-27 00:00:05.777816
url:
  https://blog.mapbox.com/https-blog-mapbox-com-new-satellite-imagery-for-caribe-wave-2018-e7872d979122?source=rss----c5e029442--openstreetmap

content:
  <p><em>By: </em><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/vincent-sarago/"><em>Vincent Sarago</em></a></p><p><a href="https://www.tsunamizone.org/caribewave/">Caribe Wave 2018</a> is a yearly international exercise, organized by UNESCO, to increase tsunami preparedness in the Caribbean Sea…and it’s happening today. As we’ve seen over the last few decades, earthquakes and their subsequent tsunamis pose a huge risk to populated areas and it pays to be prepared. For this year’s exercise, we’ve updated our satellite imagery of some Caribbean islands to help stakeholders create better risk assessments, plan evacuation routes, and more.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*dnqgA1lX7YX_Ume6PfBWwg.png" /><figcaption>In one of the three scenarios for the Caribe Wave 2018 exercise, a magnitude 8.6 earthquake will occur at 14:00UTC near Barbados island. One hour after, a &gt;3 m wave will hit the southeast coast of Marie-Galante near the quiet village of Capesterre. (<a href="https://www.weather.gov/media/ctwp/Webinars/Webinar%201%2C2018/CW18_Web1_Eng_Jan23.pdf">source</a>)</figcaption></figure><p>About 45 million people live on islands in the Caribbean Sea, with many more along its Central and South American coastlines. Geologically, the region centers on a small tectonic plate that’s active on every side. There are frequent small earthquakes and occasional large ones, like the magnitude 7.0 near Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in 2010 — the volunteer response to that earthquake led to the formalization of the <a href="https://www.hotosm.org">Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team</a>.</p><p>Recent location data is critical for disaster preparedness and response. With up-to-date imagery and elevation data, coastal communities can monitor infrastructure, map efficient escape routes, designate staging areas, and flag new at-risk developments. Proactive efforts like these help create geo-infrastructure that could save lives during a crisis.</p><p>The data we’ve added today is beautiful open aerial imagery from IGN, the French National Geographic Institute, under their <a href="https://www.etalab.gouv.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/ETALAB-Licence-Ouverte-v2.0.pdf">Licence Ouverte</a>. (Guadeloupe and Martinique are <em>départments</em> of France, which incidentally makes them the largest outposts of the European Union in the Americas!)</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*D9FnGbX1TAiU8YUK.jpg" /></figure><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*eMTTqH9cgk8qi3QU.jpg" /><figcaption>Left: Grande-Anse beach, Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe. Right: La Grande Soufrière volcano, Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe. With a summit reaching 1,467 m, La Soufrière is the highest volcano of the Lesser Antilles chain. Its last major event happened around 1580. Click images to enlarge.</figcaption></figure><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*QW1rirGeu68lYu9l.jpg" /></figure><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*CRV2yvHg5Xl_8Zci.jpg" /><figcaption>Left: Fort Napoléon, Iles des Saintes (“Islands of the Saints”), Guadeloupe. First named Fort Louis, it’s now a museum and rumored to be haunted the spirit of a young girl. Right: Les Trois-Îlets, Martinique Island. Click images to enlarge.</figcaption></figure><p>The data is now in mapbox.satellite, available for tracing in OpenStreetMap, and ready for everyday basemap use. Check out our <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/mapping/mapping-with-josm/">guides</a> to learn more about using imagery to add data to OpenStreetMap to contribute to disaster preparedness projects like Caribe Wave.</p><p><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/vincent-sarago/">Vincent Sarago</a></p><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=e7872d979122" width="1" height="1"><hr><p><a href="https://blog.mapbox.com/https-blog-mapbox-com-new-satellite-imagery-for-caribe-wave-2018-e7872d979122">New imagery for Caribe Wave 2018 available</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.mapbox.com">Points of interest</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.</p>


guid: https://medium.com/p/b7dce3ad2d53
title: Apply for an Open Data Day mini-grant
published: 2018-01-29 21:02:38
fetched: 2019-10-27 00:00:05.668850
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.588179
updated_at: 2019-10-27 00:00:05.780218
url:
  https://blog.mapbox.com/apply-for-an-open-data-day-mini-grant-b7dce3ad2d53?source=rss----c5e029442--openstreetmap

content:
  <h4>Host a mapping event in your community</h4><p>By: <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/mikel-maron/"><em>Mikel Maron</em></a></p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*aaNuSBrrDK-sbUI_xYc3-Q.png" /></figure><p>Celebrate Open Data Day on March 3rd, and join or organize one of the dozens of <a href="http://opendataday.org/#map">events around the world</a>. We’re proud to support the <a href="https://blog.okfn.org/2018/01/22/announcing-the-open-data-day-2018-mini-grants-scheme/">mini-grants program</a> to help local communities share the benefits of open data, particularly in <a href="http://www.data4sdgs.org/resources/open-mapping-sdgs">Open Mapping</a>.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*LWAHBwWW6r_vLiHs." /></figure><p>Open Mapping mini-grants can cover events engaging local OpenStreetMap communities, as well as events in partnership with government and nonprofit organizations. The events can be hands-on like mapping parties, workshops, and mapathons that share tools and teach techniques. They can also be more inspirational, generating new ideas to apply Open Mapping to civic engagement, public health, disaster response, urban issues, environment, or any other social impact.</p><p><a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeUhwNzG_naLEwJpN0AayJRnzOIuajIPn0EtMPqP_LlgF7MZQ/viewform">Apply for a mini-grant here</a>, and share updates on your events with the <a href="https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&amp;vertical=default&amp;q=%23OpenDataDay&amp;src=typd">#OpenDataDay</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&amp;q=%23OpenMapping&amp;src=typd">#OpenMapping</a> hashtags. We’re excited to see the events come together on Open Data Day.</p><p><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/mikel-maron/">Mikel Maron</a></p><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=b7dce3ad2d53" width="1" height="1"><hr><p><a href="https://blog.mapbox.com/apply-for-an-open-data-day-mini-grant-b7dce3ad2d53">Apply for an Open Data Day mini-grant</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.mapbox.com">Points of interest</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.</p>


guid: https://medium.com/p/891a2c1565c4
title: Open mapping for disasters and development
published: 2017-09-13 17:42:38
fetched: 2019-10-27 00:00:05.668850
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.590496
updated_at: 2019-10-27 00:00:05.782395
url:
  https://blog.mapbox.com/open-mapping-for-disasters-and-development-891a2c1565c4?source=rss----c5e029442--openstreetmap

content:
  <p><em>By: </em><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/marena-brinkhurst/"><em>Marena Brinkhurst</em></a></p><p>This week, the 2017 <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/events/hot-summit-2017/">Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) Summit</a>, co-hosted by <a href="https://blog.mapbox.com/government-and-citizens-collaborate-to-map-canada-4d24d30d477c">Statistics Canada</a> in Ottawa, comes at an incredibly timely moment. We gather to take stock of the contributions of the HOT community, look to the future, and strengthen partnerships across the open mapping community.</p><p>Maps help residents and relief workers navigate the path to recovery after a disaster and anticipate future needs. In just the last two weeks, the need for up-to-date maps after a disaster has never been more apparent. After Hurricane <a href="https://blog.mapbox.com/hurricane-harvey-recovery-and-relief-maps-e0688ef3a075">Harvey</a><a href="https://www.hotosm.org/updates/2017-09-09_hot_activates_for_three_disasters_hurricane_irma_mexico_earthquake_bangladesh">, Irma, the Bangladesh floods, and the earthquake in Mexico</a>, HOT and other collaborative spaces have been working together to provide critical data and maps for first responders and affected populations. They are creating real-time updates on what has changed on the ground. This includes U-flood tracking <a href="https://map.u-flood.com/houston/#11.15/29.7741/-95.5295">inundated roads in Houston</a>, and <a href="https://ccusa.github.io/Disaster_Vulnerability_Map/#8.96/29.5523/-95.0359">Catholic Charities USA</a> using their map to identify especially vulnerable populations. Our team also dove in and built a map <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/bites/00368/#9.38/29.7616/-95.2139">pin pointing hazards</a> in hurricane affected areas (<a href="https://www.mapbox.com/bites/00371/#7/26.314/-80.112">twice</a>) — chemical plants, refineries, landfills, and other locations that pose an environmental risk in flood conditions.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1000/0*zYf36LfVejw1bJhl.gif" /></figure><p>What are the next complex global challenges for the open mapping community? HOT is already engaging with social crises beyond disaster response, such as <a href="https://www.hotosm.org/updates/2017-07-20_from_the_map_to_the_field_hot_trains_msf_and_refugees_in_field_data_collection">training refugees to contribute to maps</a>. This is a way for refugees to connect to their new communities and support their communities back home. HOT and other open communities can help people caught in conflict and poverty, locally and globally. Ottawa is a perfect setting for this year’s Summit, given the leadership of the Canadian government’s humane and progressive response to refugee crises, and efforts by Statistics Canada to build a <a href="https://blog.mapbox.com/government-and-citizens-collaborate-to-map-canada-4d24d30d477c">national, crowd-sourced buildings inventory in OSM</a>.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*kNOGBsUEjwH7t3Eg.jpg" /></figure><p>We remain <a href="https://blog.mapbox.com/our-commitment-to-the-humanitarian-openstreetmap-team-46d1dce1b2ad">committed to HOT</a> and the amazing collaborations that grow from it — from companies like <a href="https://www.digitalglobe.com/opendata/all-events">DigitalGlobe sharing open imagery</a> for disaster mapping, to government agencies like <a href="https://storms.ngs.noaa.gov/storms/harvey/index.html">NOAA publishing detailed imagery</a>, to MSF and the Red Cross enabling humanitarian mapping everywhere with <a href="https://www.fastcodesign.com/90138077/a-mapping-interface-that-saves-lives">MapSwipe</a>. For Mapbox, partnering with open mapping communities let us quickly plug in, sync with first responders and volunteers, and focus on the concrete ways that we can effectively contribute, such as technical support to builders and subsidized accounts for <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/humanitarian/">humanitarian organizations</a>.</p><p>Let’s talk and figure out what’s next at the <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/events/hot-summit-2017/">HOT Summit</a>! Don’t miss Mikel’s presentation on ‘How a Company Collaborates with HOT’ on Thursday at 11:45am EST.</p><p><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/marena-brinkhurst/">Marena Brinkhurst</a></p><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=891a2c1565c4" width="1" height="1"><hr><p><a href="https://blog.mapbox.com/open-mapping-for-disasters-and-development-891a2c1565c4">Open mapping for disasters and development</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.mapbox.com">Points of interest</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.</p>


guid: https://medium.com/p/30f1bfe954d3
title: Exploring the world with Wikidata and OpenStreetMap
published: 2017-08-10 17:32:04
fetched: 2019-10-27 00:00:05.668850
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.592739
updated_at: 2019-10-27 00:00:05.784633
url:
  https://blog.mapbox.com/exploring-the-world-with-wikidata-and-openstreetmap-30f1bfe954d3?source=rss----c5e029442--openstreetmap

content:
  <p><em>By: </em><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/bharata-srinivasa/"><em>Bharata Srinivasa</em></a></p><p>We are excited to be at <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/events/wikimania-2017/">Wikimania 2017</a> to meet this incredible community, and exchange ideas on bringing together two amazing open data projects — Wikidata and OpenStreetMap.</p><p>Currently, there are more than 750,000 map features linked to Wikidata — twice the amount of what it was in December 2016 — and 926,000 features linked to Wikipedia in the OpenStreetMap database. That number continues to grow every minute.</p><iframe src="https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?url=https%3A%2F%2Fjsfiddle.net%2Fveber1bu%2Fshow%2F&amp;src=https%3A%2F%2Fjsfiddle.net%2Fveber1bu%2Fshow%2Fembedded%2F&amp;type=text%2Fhtml&amp;key=a19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07&amp;schema=jsfiddle" width="600" height="400" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"><a href="https://medium.com/media/c9b46951793558eaae47f35942c8fd04/href">https://medium.com/media/c9b46951793558eaae47f35942c8fd04/href</a></iframe><p>When <a href="https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page">Wikidata</a> and <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org">OpenStreetMap</a> work together, they create a powerful wealth of knowledge. This integration can <a href="https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:Kartographer#External_data">power interactive maps on Wikipedia</a> and unlock a wide range of possibilities like <a href="https://mapbox.github.io/mapbox-gl-language/">translated world maps</a> or thematic maps using information crowdsourced from Wikidata.</p><p>In the map above, <a href="https://twitter.com/planemad">Arun</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/rasagy">Rasagy</a> demonstrate the power of this collaboration with an exploration of country names in various languages of the world.</p><p>The geographic shapes of countries are rendered from crowdsourced map data in OpenStreetMap and the corresponding language translations come from live querying the Wikidata entity. This is possible because the country feature on OpenStreetMap is linked to its matching Wikidata entity as an additional property. The lookup is done dynamically and the results improve over time as more Wikidata volunteers contribute country translations.</p><h4>Start contributing open data</h4><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*xLSMP3mfuwhyYP14jBegXg.png" /><figcaption>OpenStreetMap cities with linked Wikidata entries, and without (in red). View the <a href="https://bsrinivasa.github.io/city-wiki-in-osm-coverage/">full screen demo</a> here.</figcaption></figure><p>Take a look at this mapping guide to start linking more <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/PlaneMad/diary/40537">OpenStreetMap features to Wikidata</a> or <a href="https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjZuqb5oMrVAhXIto8KHVJdCQ8QFgglMAA&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wikidata.org%2Fwiki%2FWikidata%3ATours&amp;usg=AFQjCNErbn7WlpzaI-TG6laDvOz-RMrfyw">contribute a missing Wikidata translation</a>.</p><p>If you are attending <a href="https://wikimania2017.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania">Wikimania 2017</a>, join <a href="https://twitter.com/mikel">Mikel Maron</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/1ec5">Minh Nguyễn</a> for the hands on <a href="https://wikimania2017.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Mapathon!_Contribute_and_connect_OpenStreetMap_and_Wikipedia_using_Wikidata">mapathon</a> to connect OpenStreetMap and Wikidata, and interact with us during our lightning talk and poster presentations.</p><p>To learn more, read about our efforts to <a href="https://blog.mapbox.com/scaling-openstreetmap-with-wikidata-knowledge-675d4495815f">scale OpenStreetMap with Wikidata knowledge</a> that brings the two amazing knowledge projects together and how Mapbox is using Wikidata to power various products and tools. Feel free to get in touch with me on <a href="https://twitter.com/bharatahs">Twitter</a> if you have ideas and suggestions for improving this process.</p><p><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/bharata-srinivasa/">Bharata Srinivasa</a></p><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=30f1bfe954d3" width="1" height="1"><hr><p><a href="https://blog.mapbox.com/exploring-the-world-with-wikidata-and-openstreetmap-30f1bfe954d3">Exploring the world with Wikidata and OpenStreetMap</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.mapbox.com">Points of interest</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.</p>


guid: https://medium.com/p/9914943460fc
title: Fast traffic sign mapping with OpenStreetMap and Mapillary
published: 2017-07-31 13:16:00
fetched: 2019-10-27 00:00:05.668850
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.595194
updated_at: 2019-10-27 00:00:05.786896
url:
  https://blog.mapbox.com/fast-traffic-sign-mapping-with-openstreetmap-and-mapillary-9914943460fc?source=rss----c5e029442--openstreetmap

content:
  <p><em>By: </em><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/bryan-housel/"><em>Bryan Housel</em></a></p><p>Mapping traffic signs on OpenStreetMap just got a lot faster. The latest version of OpenStreetMap’s iD map editor highlights features detected in Mapillary imagery directly in the map view, vastly speeding up the mapping process. This work is courtesy of my colleague <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/kushan-joshi/">Kushan Joshi</a> and leverages <a href="http://blog.mapillary.com/update/2016/09/27/semantic-segmentation-object-recognition.html">Mapillary’s machine learning based sign detection</a>.</p><p>This new functionality particularly aids mapping traffic signs like stop signs, turn restrictions, exit numbers, and destination signs — all data that means more accurate ETAs, better instructions, and ultimately less time waiting in traffic.</p><p>To get started, open the Map Data panel and click the checkboxes to show the “Photo Overlay” and “Traffic Sign” layers in iD.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/976/0*4GCQ0lBzU-DVRT_J.gif" /><figcaption>Mapillary detects more traffic signs in images now than ever before.</figcaption></figure><p>The latest version of iD released last week includes a feature built by my colleague <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/kushan-joshi/">Kushan Joshi</a>. Traffic sign “detections” are now highlighted on the image in the Mapillary viewer.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/976/0*GFnFD0RUdBclMU_I.gif" /><figcaption>New! Traffic signs are now highlighted in the Mapillary viewer.</figcaption></figure><h3>Stop Signs</h3><p>To add a stop sign, place a point along the road at the stop position, then choose the Stop Sign feature type. You should also check the direction of the road, as indicated by small triangles that are drawn along the road. Fill in the “Direction” field — “Forward” if the sign is for traffic driving in the same direction that the road is drawn, or “Backward” if the sign is for traffic driving in the opposite direction.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/976/0*7OYgfDe2qk5Wd84m.gif" /><figcaption>Add a point along a road and choose the “Stop Sign” feature type.</figcaption></figure><h3>Turn Restrictions</h3><p>To map a turn restriction, click on the junction point between the two roads. A turn restriction editor will appear in the sidebar. Select the road entering the intersection and then choose which turns are allowed or restricted.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/976/0*EyvNMBc6Ebk47ue9.gif" /><figcaption>iD’s built in turn restrictions editor makes adding this “No Left Turn” easy.</figcaption></figure><h3>Highway Exits</h3><p>To map a highway exit, select the junction node where the “link road” splits off from the main highway. Make sure the node is tagged as a “Motorway Junction / Exit” and add the exit number to the “Junction Number” field.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/976/0*E8lACDwNHBEuYhgC.gif" /><figcaption>Adding exit numbers to OpenStreetMap is important for navigation apps.</figcaption></figure><h3>Highway Destinations</h3><p>To map highway destinations, select the “link road” that splits off from the main highway. You will need to open the “All Tags” section in the sidebar and add the tags that describe the destinations that this link road leads to. When multiple destinations appear on a sign, you can separate them with a semicolon.</p><p>In the example below:<br>destination=Morristown;Sommervile— Destinations as they appear on the highway sign.<br>destination:ref=I 287 — Route numbers or shields that appear on the highway sign.<br>destination:ref:to=US 202;US 206— Use the :to suffix for routes where the sign says “To”. These routes are secondary destinations for the highway exit.</p><p>Check out the <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/mapping/mapping-for-navigation/adding-exit-and-destination-signs/">Mapbox mapping guide</a> to learn more about the tags used in highway exit and destination mapping.</p><figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/976/0*OyJf7RGDazDFTj6I.gif" /></figure><p>Try editing OpenStreetMap in your town, and see how many traffic signs you can find. <a href="https://twitter.com/bhousel">Follow me on Twitter</a> for more tips on using street level imagery to improve OpenStreetMap.</p><p><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/bryan-housel/">Bryan Housel</a></p><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=9914943460fc" width="1" height="1"><hr><p><a href="https://blog.mapbox.com/fast-traffic-sign-mapping-with-openstreetmap-and-mapillary-9914943460fc">Fast traffic sign mapping with OpenStreetMap and Mapillary</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.mapbox.com">Points of interest</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.</p>


guid: https://medium.com/p/7e7a6f196962
title: Maps, Mapbox, and State of the Map!
published: 2017-07-07 21:36:02
fetched: 2019-10-27 00:00:05.668850
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.597433
updated_at: 2019-10-27 00:00:05.789237
url:
  https://blog.mapbox.com/maps-mapbox-and-state-of-the-map-7e7a6f196962?source=rss----c5e029442--openstreetmap

content:
  <p><em>By: </em><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/jinal-foflia/"><em>Jinal Foflia</em></a></p><p>The strength of OpenStreetMap is in the relationships — both online and in person. State of the Map conferences celebrate the essence of these communities that are so integral to OpenStreetMap. We love being a part of this community and cannot wait to connect with new and familiar friends around the globe at the many OpenStreetMap events happening this year.</p><iframe src="https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?url=https%3A%2F%2Fjsfiddle.net%2Fdsd1wg2v%2Fshow%2F&amp;src=https%3A%2F%2Fjsfiddle.net%2Fdsd1wg2v%2Fshow%2Fembedded%2F&amp;type=text%2Fhtml&amp;key=a19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07&amp;schema=jsfiddle" width="600" height="400" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"><a href="https://medium.com/media/ea22ea929a81f6209ced1c2b5864bee1/href">https://medium.com/media/ea22ea929a81f6209ced1c2b5864bee1/href</a></iframe><p><strong>Take a look at the very full calendar for this year:</strong></p><ul><li><strong>State of the Map France</strong>, happened in Avignon, France from <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/State_of_the_Map_France_2017">June 2nd — June 4th</a>. The <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/OSMFrance">videos</a> from the conference are online!</li><li><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/events/sotm-africa-2017/"><strong>State of the Map, Africa</strong></a><strong>,</strong> the first event for all African mappers and OpenStreetMap users, happens in Kampala, Uganda from <a href="https://sotmafrica.org/">July 8th — July 10th</a></li><li><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/events/sotm-2017/"><strong>State of the Map</strong></a>, the global OpenStreetMap gathering in Fukushima, Japan from <a href="http://2017.stateofthemap.org/">August 18th — August 20th</a></li><li><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/events/hot-summit-2017/"><strong>Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team Summit</strong></a> takes place in Ottawa, Canada on <a href="http://summit.hotosm.org/">September 14 &amp; 15</a>. Proposals for talks are accepted until <a href="https://humanitarian-openstreetmap-team.forms.fm/hot-summit-2017">July 14</a></li><li><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/events/sotm-asia-2017/"><strong>State of the Map Asia</strong></a> is in Kathmandu, Nepal from <a href="http://stateofthemap.asia/">September 23rd — September 24th</a></li><li><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/events/sotm-us-2017/"><strong>State of the Map US</strong></a>, the annual US community conference in Boulder, Colorado from <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.us/2017/01/sotmus-2017-announcement/">October 19th — October 22nd</a>. Get your talk proposals in before <a href="https://2017.stateofthemap.us/">July 31</a>!</li><li><strong>FOSS4G and State of the Map Argentina</strong>, in Buenos Aires, Argentina from <a href="http://www.osgeo.org/node/1747">October 23rd — October 28th</a></li><li><strong>State of the Map Latin America</strong>, regional conference in Lima, Peru from <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/State_Of_The_Map_Latam_2017">November 29th to December 2nd</a></li></ul><p>Follow us on <a href="https://twitter.com/mapbox">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/mapbox">Facebook</a>, or keep an eye out on our <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/events/">events page</a> to connect with our team at these conferences. Happy mapping!</p><p><a href="https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/jinal-foflia/">Jinal Foflia</a></p><img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&referrerSource=full_rss&postId=7e7a6f196962" width="1" height="1"><hr><p><a href="https://blog.mapbox.com/maps-mapbox-and-state-of-the-map-7e7a6f196962">Maps, Mapbox, and State of the Map!</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.mapbox.com">Points of interest</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.</p>


guid: http://blog.systemeD.net//post/15
url: http://blog.systemeD.net//post/15
title: What OpenStreetMap can be.
updated: 2018-07-27 06:00:00
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.819164
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.865776
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.865776
summary:
  <p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Over the past two years, the biggest buzz among the geo chatterati has been Justin O’Beirne’s meticulously argued (albeit bizarrely formatted) feature-by-feature comparisons of Google and Apple Maps: their design choices, their data, their production processes.</span></p><p>What fascinates me is how the comparison is implicitly phrased. Apple Maps is fighting on Google Maps’ turf, and Justin O’Beirne never questions that. He asks “<a href="https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-moat/">How far ahead of Apple Maps is Google Maps?</a>”. It implies the same direction of travel. They’re going the same place, but Google is getting there quicker.</p><p>Meanwhile, OpenStreetMap goes its own way.</p><p>Most OSM commentary focuses on unimportant minutiae (<a href="https://blog.emacsen.net/blog/2018/02/16/osm-is-in-trouble/">layers, for goodness’ sake</a>, as if it’s still 2004) without seeking to examine what makes OSM unique—and whether that’s still relevant in a rapidly changing market. Could OSM become a dead-end curio while Google, Apple, and an increasingly self-sufficient Mapbox hare off in another, common direction?</p><p>OSM’s continuing differentiation from Google/Apple boils down to two points.</p><p>First, <strong>a non-commercial imperative</strong>. Google and Apple (and Mapbox, TomTom, HERE) are beholden to their shareholders and investors. They do what makes them money, which means car navigation. (Once human-controlled, now, increasingly, self-guided. When people ask “How far ahead of Apple is Google Maps?”, what they usually mean is “Who will get to self-driving cars first?”)</p><p>OSM, however, isn’t ruled by shareholder value, but by the preoccupations of its contributor base. (We’ll come onto that demographic later.) Whether that’s a good thing depends on what you want from a map. But it’s clearly a point of differentation.</p><p>Second, <strong>ground truthed local knowledge</strong>. Surveying by locals is the gold standard of OSM, building a rich, intricate compilation of contributors’ preoccupations. The painstaking human curation of areas and topics remains unique to OSM.</p><p>Neither of these are under threat from Google/Apple. Outsourced quick-fire digitisation of Street View-type imagery in cheap labour countries doesn’t give you this. Nor does image recognition. OSM’s points of differentation remain clear. In OSM’s early days, commentators used the phrase “democratising mapmaking”, and it remains true. You choose what to map; and you choose how to use the map. You <em>participate</em>. Other maps are a one-way street: sure, you can contribute (actively through map corrections, or passively through using a mobile app that phones home), but the provider chooses what you get back.</p><p>So OSM becomes <strong>a fractal of local maps</strong>. The closer you look, the more hidden detail unfolds.</p><h3>Rethink the map on openstreetmap.org</h3><p>We always say OSM is about the data, not the map. But that’s because we already <em>get it</em>.</p><p>Any pro-OSM thread on Reddit, Hacker News or elsewhere quickly descends into “but openstreetmap.org looks pig-ugly” / “but when I type my street address into openstreetmap.org it’s not found” / “but openstreetmap.org doesn’t have live traffic”. We know that’s missing the point, that osm.org is just a testbed for OpenStreetMap proper, the data that lets you solve these problems. We understand OSM’s direction of travel. Neophytes don’t. They see a single eccentric-looking (albeit lovely), purplish map they can edit. (That’s why everyone’s first edit is adding a footpath with  <em>name=Footpath</em> or somesuch, thinking only about how it appears on osm.org.)</p><p>Look back to the inflection points for OSM’s growth. Sometimes they come when it gets easier to contribute to OSM: Potlatch 1, Potlatch 2, iD, maps.me.</p><p>But, more often, they come when contributors’ work becomes more immediately visible. The first was when we went from weekly Mapnik updates to near-instant changes. Later, getting OSM on your handheld Garmin, or after that on your smartphone. Increasingly, it’s high-profile sites switching to OSM; both Strava and Pokemon Go resulted in massive bumps in contributor numbers.</p><p>The feedback loop is important. Visualisation is important.</p><p>Enter vector tiles.</p><p>Vector tiles are <strong>the ‘fractal of local maps’ made flesh</strong>. One dataset, a thousand visualisations. The server sends the rich, raw data; the client slices and dices and presents it any way you choose. Bike map, walking map, skiing map? Kids’ map, salesman’s map, retired globe-trotter’s map? Art deco map, pop art map, antique map? All those; and a thousand you and I have never imagined.</p><p>Moving to restylable vector tiles on openstreetmap.org would explain OSM’s direction of travel more than a year of Reddit and HN comments could ever do. In the words of <a href="https://wiki.osm.org/">OSM’s mission statement since 2004</a>, “maps you can use in creative, productive or unexpected ways”.</p><p>What might this look like? Think of a ‘style explorer’. Think of a new Design tab. Think of designing a style by starting with a bare-bones template then adding ‘playground’ and ‘park’ and ‘zoo’ and ‘railway’ and ‘dinosaur museum’ (to enumerate my two year old’s current obsessions). Think of storing styles against your user account and forking others’. By exposing OSM’s local, human data, we create a thousand new inflection points for the project to grow.</p><p>Let’s explore this a bit more.</p><h3>Meeting people where they are</h3><p>People contribute to OpenStreetMap when it’s relevant to them. Outside pure geekdom, cyclists were the first group to embrace OSM. It started with two speculative punts on creating maps relevant to cyclists (OpenCycleMap, of course, and mkgmap which makes Garmin maps), plus a small amount of seed data: I still grin recalling OpenCycleMap’s creator, Andy Allan, <a href="https://vimeo.com/6623643">commentating</a> (at the second OSM conference) on an animation of OpenCycleMap’s first year “and here you can see where Richard Fairhurst decided to cycle across Wales”. Now, in 2018, every cyclist uses OSM: Strava, Garmin themselves (...and may I mention <a href="https://cycle.travel/map">cycle.travel</a>?).</p><p>The humanitarian cause is the other stand-out. Thousands of people have attended mapathons or slaved over remotely assigned ‘tasks’ in the cause of humanitarian mapping. Most of them will never visit Haiti or Kibera. But they believe in the cause, and they gain intrinsic reward from helping. Again, it’s relevant to them.</p><p>You can do all the outreach you want and agonise over conduct and tone. It’s all good, necessary even, and it’s all worthwhile. But if the map isn’t relevant, no-one will stay. The path to diversity in OSM is by building more OpenCycleMaps.</p><p>Which is exactly what vector tiles give us.</p><p>You know what I’d like as the father of a toddler? A map of playgrounds. Every family would. The answer is already there, hidden in OSM’s data. Maybe one day someone will build a Playground Finder app. But we can shortcut the “maybe” by baking that into openstreetmap.org.</p><p>And then families start adding missing playgrounds; and OSM’s contributor base becomes that little bit more diverse. I started by describing OSM’s fractal of local maps as “an intricate compilation of contributors’ preoccupations”. A restylable vector map makes space for more preoccupations, not just those sanctioned by the maintainers of one stylesheet; and by welcoming more preoccupations, we welcome more, diverse contributors.</p><h3>Eliminating the drudge work</h3><p>There is no glory in clicking a mouse. OSM’s strength is ground-truthed local knowledge. It’s not magically better because each point has been positioned by hand. </p><p>Technology moves on. In 2004 we didn’t have high-res global imagery nor anything but the most rudimentary handheld surveying devices. Now we do, and no-one would seek to go back.</p><p>In five years’ time, iD (or its successor) will trace the geometry for you. Mobile apps which recognise shapes from the camera will see a sign and suggest that a speed limit should be tagged at this point. Sensor data or imagery diffing will suggest you might want to go and survey the new road a mile from your house.</p><p>This isn’t the boring old “survey vs import” argument. This is about using technology to make contributing local knowledge easier and faster. And, again, by doing that we encourage a more diverse contributor base—broadening beyond people with lots of spare time and computer skills.</p><p>All of this circles back to the same vision. A fractal of local maps; a map for every human, not just those who drive cars; a map that anyone can contribute to, and then visualise in the way they choose.</p><h3>Getting underway</h3><p>This vision, and this article, have been brewing for a year now. I’ve jotted down disconnected paragraphs in spare moments on trains, in cafes and pubs, occasionally dropping comments on Github issues, forums, Twitter. But now is the time to move forward.</p><p>There’s a wide understanding that vector rendering is the next challenge for openstreetmap.org. I’m anxious we should get it right, just as Steve Coast got the concept of OpenStreetMap right, I got the UI of Potlatch (mostly) right, Tom Hughes and Grant Slater have consistently got OSM’s scalability right. This will be another of those decisions which will determine OSM’s direction of travel.</p><p>Treating it as simply a back-end change for the existing (lovely, eccentric, purplish) <a href="https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto">openstreetmap-carto style</a> would be a business-as-usual solution. The maps would be a bit sharper, a bit faster to load. We might manage a few worthy side-wins around internationalised placenames. But it won’t move the needle for OSM. This will.</p><p><em>This weekend (28-30 July 2018) is the State of the Map conference in Milan. I’ll be hosting an informal Birds of a Feather session on moving openstreetmap.org towards vector tiles at 16.00 on Sunday afternoon in room S.1.6 - come along!</em></p>


guid: http://blog.systemeD.net//post/14
url: http://blog.systemeD.net//post/14
title: Adventures with the LG 360 Cam.
updated: 2016-08-02 07:00:00
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.819164
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.869159
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.869159
summary:
  <p>I’ve recently purchased an <a href="http://www.lg.com/uk/lg-friends/lg-LGR105">LG 360 Cam</a>, a cute little 360° camera that fits in your pocket and takes serviceable spherical panoramas. I’m hoping to use it for occasional&#160;<a href="http://openstreetview.org/map/">OpenStreetView</a> surveying, <a href="http://cycle.travel/">cycle.travel</a> photography, and a couple of other projects. This post is a placeholder for notes and observations.</p><h3>Using the LG 360 Cam with an iPhone 5C</h3><p>In a display of WTFery that will only be a surprise to those who have never tried to use an Apple product with the output of any major consumer electronics manufacturer, the 360 Cam has one little gotcha that they don’t tell you about.</p><p>Since the camera has no internal display, GPS, or really anything other than two lenses and a trigger button, it’s really only useful in conjunction with the accompanying LG app. In theory this is available for iOS and Android. In practice… it’s only available for <em>64-bit</em>&#160;iOS. The app won’t install on an iPhone 5C or 5. Because downloading and viewing photos requires 64-bit <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_55">Monster Power</a>, obviously.</p><p>Happily, there is a solution, even though it sticks in my open craw a little.</p><p>First, you need to tell the camera to turn the Wi-Fi on. You can do this (when the device is already on) by double-clicking the shutter and power buttons <em>at the same time</em>. A little blue light will flash. (The LG app does this by connecting through Bluetooth Low Energy, and you can simulate this using the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&#160;</span><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lightblue-bluetooth-low-energy/id557428110?mt=8">LightBlue Explorer</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&#160;iPhone app.)</span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Second, connect to the camera via Settings &gt; Wi-Fi. The wifi network name ends ‘.OSC’ (for Open Spherical Camera) and the password is ‘00’ followed by the last 6 digits of the network name… which are also the last 6 digits of the serial number. This, obviously, disconnects your usual Internet connection.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Then use the <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/google-street-view/id904418768?mt=8">Google Street View</a> iOS app. Yeah, I know, I know. But you don’t have to upload your photos to Google.</span></p>


guid: http://blog.systemeD.net//post/13
url: http://blog.systemeD.net//post/13
title: Introducing Tilemaker: vector tiles without the stack
updated: 2015-06-29 12:00:00
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.819164
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.871829
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.871829
summary:
  <p>Vector tiles are the breakthrough technology for OpenStreetMap right now – enabling in-device rendering, fast style prototyping, full interactivity, and <a href="https://mapzen.com/projects/tangram">really</a>&#160;<a href="https://www.mapbox.com/blog/mapbox-gl-js/">awesome</a> <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/blog/mapbox-gl/">tech</a> <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/blog/mapbox-gl-js-0-8-1/">demos</a>.</p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The manifesto was set out compellingly <a href="http://mike.teczno.com/notes/postgreslessness-mapnik-vectiles.html">by Michal Migurski in 2013</a>, who wrote of “the liberty of postgreslessness”:</span></p><blockquote>“Data is one of OpenStreetMap’s biggest pain points. The latest planet file is 27GB, and getting OSM into the Postgres database can be a long and winding road… [vector tiles] offer a compelling way to use Mapnik or TileMill with no local datastore.”</blockquote><p>Two years down the line, and <a href="http://mike.teczno.com/notes/sotmus-2015-new-york.html">he reviews the state of the art</a>:</p><blockquote>“It feels a bit like OSM raster rendering in 2006/07, when Mapnik was still impossible to install but a growing group of people like Dane were nudging it forward into general accessibility. I give vector tiles and vector rendering another 1-2 years before it tips from weird research and supervised, commercial deployment into wide use and hacking.”</blockquote><p>Can we fast forward those “1-2 years”?</p><p>Today, most vector tile implementations are backed up by a Postgres database, because the vector tiles have to get their source data from somewhere. They are typically connected via a maze of twisty little NodeJS modules, all alike, and it's fair to say that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoLJHgqDCzc&amp;t=10m18s">NodeJS isn’t everyone's cup of tea</a>. Between them, they conspire to make vector tiles less hackable for the independent cartographer or developer.</p><p>So I've written <a href="http://github.com/systemed/tilemaker">Tilemaker</a>.</p><p>Tilemaker aims to make creating vector tiles as easy as “<a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/push-button-receive-bacon">push button, receive bacon</a>”. It's a command-line tool which takes a <a href="http://download.geofabrik.de/">.pbf planet extract</a> and makes vector tiles from it. There's no database, no stack.</p><p>You write your tile recipe in Lua, the same scripting language used by OSRM and osm2pgsql. For each OSM node or way, your script <a href="https://github.com/systemed/tilemaker/blob/master/process.lua">looks at its tags</a> and says "put it in the railway layer" or "put it in the cycleway layer". Add a short <a href="https://github.com/systemed/tilemaker/blob/master/config.json">JSON config file</a>, and you're done:</p><pre>tilemaker --output=test.mbtiles liechtenstein.osm.pbf</pre><p>That’s all there is to it. One command line, instant vector tiles.</p><p>For Liechtenstein, OpenStreetMap's canonical small country, tiles are generated in around three seconds using the default recipe on a 2010 Mac mini. For London, it takes around two minutes, for Switzerland, 10 minutes (so I’m told!). RAM requirements mean it won't scale to whole continents or the full planet, but that's not the aim – for continually-updated worldwide data in production, you should choose a friendly <a href="http://thunderforest.com/lightning/">vector tiles provider</a>. Tilemaker simply allows you to create tiles to your own recipe, to hack and build community projects on.</p><p>You can <a href="https://github.com/systemed/tilemaker">download Tilemaker from GitHub</a>. It'll build on OS X, Ubuntu and Fedora. </p>


guid: http://blog.systemeD.net//post/12
url: http://blog.systemeD.net//post/12
title: Realpolitik and the OpenStreetMap licence.
updated: 2015-04-28 08:30:00
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.819164
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.874372
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.874372
summary:
  <ol><li><strong>The licence will stay as ODbL.</strong> Moving to a different licence requires a two-thirds majority of active OSM contributors. Active OSM contributors do not want to change the licence. Even a cursory reading of any comments section shows this.</li><li><strong>To achieve change, you need skin in the game.</strong> For 10 years the “geo industry” has been telling OSM that what it does is impossible/misguided/wrong. For 10 years OSM has been disproving them. OSM contributors are consequently very sceptical when others tell them what’s best for them. Change comes from within. If you want people to listen, burnish your OSM credentials first.</li><li><strong>Don’t hyperbolise.</strong> “Drop ODbL” is not achievable, see 1. “Make ODbL work for geocoding” may be achievable. If you mean the latter but say the former, you’ll get nowhere. (Incidentally, if you really mean “drop share-alike” not “drop ODbL”, say so. You’ll still get nowhere.)</li><li><strong>ODbL is a young licence.</strong> ODbL is on version 1.0. Creative Commons are on 4.0 right now. No-one expected 1.0 to be perfectly future-proofed, but an ODbL 1.1 or 1.5 or 2.0 might fix your issue. Propose good legalese and a rationale that applies beyond OSM, and work openly. It’s very doable.</li><li><strong>“Make it so” doesn’t work for licences.</strong> Your “good legalese” needs to be more sophisticated than “we declare that geocoding is magically not subject to share-alike”. I mean, come on.</li><li><strong>OSM might just not be for you.</strong> OSM has always intended to reshape the geo industry. It expects the industry to fit around it, not the other way round. There are plenty of businesses, from one-woman cartography shops up to Apple, who are making money from OSM. If you can’t, maybe you need to change your business model rather than expecting OSM to change for you.</li></ol><p><strong>Further reading.</strong> Gary Gale <a href="http://geohipster.com/2015/04/27/gary-gale-dear-osm-its-time-to-get-your-finger-out/">marvellously introduces British slang</a> to the Americans. Alex Barth on “<a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/lxbarth/diary/21221">let’s drop share-alike</a>”.</p><p><strong>Footnote.</strong> As is reasonably well attested I’m a supporter of permissive, non-share-alike licences, and have been consistently so throughout the lifetime of OSM. This posting isn’t about my personal opinion: it’s intended as factual observations on what’s required to achieve change. It’s not intended as a direct response to Gary or Alex’s posts (and indeed not all the points are applicable to them), or any other posts in particular, but to the wider conversation.</p>


guid: http://blog.systemeD.net//post/11
url: http://blog.systemeD.net//post/11
title: OpenStreetMap ten years on, and why it's time for a fresh slate.
updated: 2014-10-24 07:43:00
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.819164
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.876878
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.876878
summary:
  <p>I've been involved in OpenStreetMap for almost ten years now. <a href="https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2004-November/000111.html">22nd November is my OSM birthday</a>.</p><p>Message 000111. Right now talk@ is up to 71235, never mind the other lists. I should have a birthday (mapping) party with <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Cake">cake</a> and we can all go to the Rose &amp; Crown, get drunk, come back and write intemperate mailing list postings. Maybe not.</p><p>OSM has changed my life, and my outlook, in several ways. One is realising that a small number of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, without any hope of a fast buck - which is a noble idea we all have in our 20s but this was the first real-life proof, to me, that it really does work.</p><p>The other, perhaps more important, is: it's down to you. If you want change, change things. In 2005 we expressed this by demanding action, not words, from anyone who said 'OSM should do it like this' on the lists. The word 'should' was a red rag to us back then.</p><p>In time the word 'do-ocracy' was coined. But the other half of the do-ocracy equation has never received enough credit. It's not just that "actions speak louder than words"; it's that "we trust you to carry out the actions". OSM doesn't have a <a href="https://www.google.com/mapmaker/intl/en_ALL/mapfiles/s/guidelines.html">moderation system</a> for edits. Site improvements don't have to go through five board committees. It's OSM. You're a contributor. You've given us your time. We trust you. Do great things.</p><p>That, more than anything, is why OSM works. We value, and trust, our contributors. Every one of them. OSM is 'do great things' multiplied by ten thousand.</p><p>The slight wrinkle is that this only gets you 95% of the way there.</p><p>The 95% is astonishing. The 95% is mapping large parts of the world to ridiculous levels of detail. We are by most metrics the best available map of Germany, the UK, increasingly France, Russia and the urban US, and a hundred places I don't even know about. (I made this comment elsewhere. I was immediately picked up by a Belgian mapper, Marc, saying "hey, what about us?". He was right. I didn't know. That's how far we have come.)</p><p>The 95% is running the most crazily lean, efficient hardware setup, constantly reinventing: our API went from plain-old-Ruby to Rails to C++, our tile servers from monolithic to distributed, our database from MySQL to Postgres, our UI from entirely serverside to largely clientside. The 95% is an ecosystem of renderers and routers and, dare I admit it, the <a href="http://josm.openstreetmap.de/">sleekest desktop map data editor</a> there is and its universe of amazing plugins. (It begins with J. Don't make me say the name.)</p><p>So if I talk about the 5% that do-ocracy doesn't accomplish, that's no slur on the OSM community. Our 5% is Wikipedia's 30% and Google's 95%. We do more, ourselves, better, than anyone else. </p><p>Rewind to 2012. It was pretty clear we needed a new default editor on osm.org. Potlatch 2 still worked, but Flash Player was already (rightly) on the way out, and the six-year-old Potlatch user interface - initially designed for moderately clued-up users working on a blank canvas back in 2006 - was confusing for the newbies attracted by the explosion of public interest in OSM.</p><p>This was a 5% problem. We needed a new beginners' editor, but no-one was clamouring to write it. The 95% of experienced OSMers, understandably, wanted to work on JOSM plugins for experienced OSMers. I <a href="https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/dev/2012-July/025230.html">tentatively started work</a> on a newbie-friendly JavaScript editor called iD (I'm terrible at naming software) but I was pretty burned out on OSM development at the time and only got so far.</p><p>Happily, in this case, there was a Fairy Godmother in the shape of the Knight Foundation and Mapbox. The <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/blog/knight-invests-openstreetmap/">Knight Foundation funded Mapbox</a> to, among others, rebuild and complete iD. As part of this some incredibly skilled JavaScript developers and designers got to work on it. I don't think the outcome could have been any better, and it continues to delight me right now: while we're pointlessly beating seven shades out of each other on the mailing lists, "osmbot: [osm-website|master|John Firebaugh] Update to iD v1.6.1" has just flashed up on IRC.</p><p>iD is how it ought to work. iD isn't telling the 95% how to map or what to map. It isn't saying "Mapbox want turn restrictions, therefore the osm.org default will be devoted to mapping turn restrictions". It's simply a 5% intervention, a new tool which no-one else was writing, to increase the 95% of do-ers, to bring us more contributors. The effort in building it will benefit us many times over.</p><p>But we can't always expect a Fairy Godmother to appear. We struck lucky in this one case. There are plenty of places where we haven't.</p><p>I can recite a few of them. We have <a href="https://fnd.io/#/us/search?mediaType=all&amp;term=official%20openstreetmap">very little mobile presence</a>, even though smartphones are ideal surveying devices; a 5% intervention here would bring so many more people to our 95%. Diversity is almost becoming a hackneyed word in OSM but let's restate the truth of it; a 5% intervention would make sure that our 95% of do-ers grows to include people from poorer, less white, less educated backgrounds, with a real, practical effect for OSM. As well as having the best map of the beautiful <a href="http://opencyclemap.org/?zoom=13&amp;lat=51.87973&amp;lon=-3.44302&amp;layers=00B00">Brecon Beacons</a>, we can have the best map of the deprived <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/51.7599/-3.3746&amp;layers=Q">Gurnos Estate</a> 10 miles to the south. </p><p>This is what the OpenStreetMap Foundation is here for: to do the 5% that contributors can't, the 5% that magnifies all our efforts. To be the Fairy Godmother.</p><p>This was once described as "supporting but not controlling the project". Sometimes that gets interpreted as "doing the minimum", just providing the legal and financial framework. It's much more than that. OSMF's job is to grow and help our amazing community so it can do more amazing things... things that it couldn't otherwise do. OSMF is here to facilitate what isn't happening, and get the hell out of the way of the community for everything else.</p><h3>Never go back</h3><p>With my 10th OSM birthday coming up, I've been involved in OSM almost as long as the founder Steve Coast. Like Steve, I've messed up countless times over those 10 years and have learned a lot.</p><p>One of the things I've learned is: never go back.</p><p>There is no point in me writing Potlatch 3. Nor in scanning a second set of historic maps. Nor in incessantly arguing for another licence change, nor returning to the board, nor running the Communications Working Group again. Was I the best placed person to do those things then? Maybe yes; more likely I was the one who just happened to have that bee in my bonnet at the time. Does that make me better qualified to do them today than all the new contributors? Absolutely not.</p><p>"Never revisit the past, that's dangerous. You know, move on."</p><p>OSMF is currently going through one of its periodic bouts of blood-letting. To Steve, Henk, Frederik, all still involved in one way or another, I would say: our time on the Foundation is past. We have been there, seen it, done it. We think we know what needs to happen; we might be right in our own little ways; but that doesn't matter. We are repeating our old wisdoms rather than trusting in the next generation. We are bed-blockers when Martijn and Christian and Kathleen and Ilya and Alex - and many others I don't know about - should be given the chance to take OSM forward rather than simply slaving away on local chapters.</p><p>Let's have a fresh slate in three months, with every vacancy up for election. Give people the time to properly articulate their vision for OSM rather than this frenzied, melodramatic shouting match. Give people a chance to commit to being part of the Foundation that takes OSM on to still greater things.</p><h3>Postscript</h3><p>Finally, I'd like to say a word in praise of Simon Poole and Frederik Ramm. There have been a lot of words spilled on keyboards in recent days. It's easy to get hung up on tone or perception and, conversely, it's easy to speak our minds without thinking how it'll be perceived. But over the past few years, what Simon and Frederik have done, in a time of great change for OSM, is kept us anchored to the 95%. I really hope the next board will do a better job of providing the 5% than previous boards have done. But I also hope it has people like Simon and Frederik on it to ensure we recognise and support the 95%, the contributors who make OSM amazing.</p>


guid: http://blog.systemeD.net//post/10
url: http://blog.systemeD.net//post/10
title: An ingenious vintage German cycle map.
updated: 2014-08-05 19:37:00
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.819164
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.879299
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.879299
summary:
  <p>We cycled the Swiss part of the Rhine Cycleway last week, with our <a href="https://www.bikefriday.com/bicycles/touring/1248">folding</a> <a href="http://airnimal.eu/products/chameleon/performance-sport/">bikes</a> neatly stowed in suitcases for the flight. A combination of <em><a href="http://cycle.travel/">cycle.travel</a></em> (natch), the Cicerone guide, and the excellent <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/mapout/id477094081?l=en&amp;mt=8">MapOut</a> app guided us safely along the way: a very modern combination of mapping styles.</p><p>Wandering around Zürich, waiting for our flight home, I was intrigued by this cycle map in the window of a (closed) antiquarian bookstore:</p><p><img src="/images/original/strassenprofilkarte_1.jpg" /></p><p>And if that isn’t clear enough from the pic snatched through a window, here’s a better excerpt from <a href="http://www.ak-ansichtskarten.de/shop/ak/46/back4684588/Rueckseite-Deutsche-Strassenprofilkarte-fuer-Radfahrer-Strassburg-und-Umgebung-Naumann-s-Fahrraeder-Seidel-Naumann-Dresden.jpg">an example</a> I found online:</p><p><img src="/images/original/strassenprofilkarte_2.jpg" /></p><p>On major climbs, rather than strictly following the two-dimensional curves of the route as a conventional map would do, the map shows a miniature gradient profile for that particular hill.</p><p>Bending geometry to show a subjective view of space is nothing unusual. The Tube map (and its many imitators) famously do it, as do the one-dimensional strip maps that Laurence Penney has <a href="http://www.youshouldliketypetoo.com/blog/misc/one-dimensional-maps/">lovingly curated</a>&#160;(and, indeed, one of Laurence’s maps has a <a href="http://www.youshouldliketypetoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/one-dimensional-maps-14.jpg">passing resemblance</a> to these German sheets). But I’ve never seen quite this approach taken before. It’s a recognition that – just as distance is immaterial to the Tube passenger – to the cyclist, hills are as much part of the ‘distance travelled’ as are the ticking miles on the cycle computer.</p><p>Not that the Radfahrer in question would have had cycle computers, of course. There appear to have been 80 of these sheets, published by&#160;Mittelbach's Verlag of Leipzig with the co-operation and support of the national German cycling organisations <em>(unter Mitwirkung der Gauverbände des Deutschen Radfahrerbundes und der Konsulate der Allgemeinen Radfahrer-Union)</em>. They seem to date from the beginning of the 20th century, and are not yet collectable, if the <a href="http://www.abebooks.co.uk/Deutsche-Strassenprofilkarte-Radfahrer-Mitwirkung-Gauverb%C3%A4nde-Deutschen/6461038791/bd">prices on Abebooks</a> are anything to go by.</p><p>And in one of those curious coincidences…</p><p>I originally finished this post with “<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I don’t expect to see a revival any day soon”, but the day after I posted this, Sustrans Midlands retweeted a link to <a href="https://twitter.com/Lunto_Sustrans/status/496934542880833536">exactly such a map</a>. This ‘Accessible Map’ of Queenstown, New Zealand, was particularly intended for wheelchair users and other people who find steep slopes challenging:</span></p><p><img src="/images/original/modern_elevation_map.jpg" /></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">You can download the full map as a PDF from drcqueenstown.co.nz. The cartographer, Toby Eglesfield, has also written an <a href="http://www.tobyeglesfield.com/a-map-showing-the-steepness-of-streets/">extensive, well-illustrated blog post</a> explaining the design choices he made – and&#160;in the comments, two people raise the idea of generating such a map from OpenStreetMap data. Now wouldn’t that be an interesting challenge…</span></p>


guid: http://blog.systemeD.net//post/9
url: http://blog.systemeD.net//post/9
title: Normalising OpenStreetMap tag ambiguities by location.
updated: 2014-06-14 14:40:00
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.819164
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.882054
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.882054
summary:
  <p>One of the most interesting questions posed by a talk at today’s State of the Map EU was <a href="http://www.sotm-eu.org/en/slots/26">“Is OpenStreetMap a world map or a set of regional maps?”</a></p><p>Regional (and sub-regional) differences in tagging are one of the challenges I’ve faced while building out <em><a href="http://cycle.travel/">cycle.travel</a></em>’s coverage to Western Europe. As a simple example, <em>highway=track</em> (on its own) on the European mainland generally means somewhere you can cycle; in Britain, it’s usually a private farm track.</p><p>To fix this, I use a two-stage approach. First, while importing with osm2pgsql, I use a <a href="https://github.com/openstreetmap/osm2pgsql/blob/master/README_lua.md">Lua tag transform script</a> to mark that this is an ambiguous tag. For example, if <em>highway=track</em> and there’s no conclusive bike access tags, the Lua script sets a special <em>bicycle=unsure</em> tag.</p><p>Then, after import is complete, I run a series of PostGIS UPDATEs to resolve these tags by location:</p><pre>UPDATE planet_osm_line SET highway='footway'<br />   WHERE bicycle='unsure'<br />     AND ST_Contains(ST_Transform(ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON((2.7905 51.7542, 
           -0.0659 50.1768, -11.4697 48.8213, -10.9204 61.1432, 2.3950 61.2596, 
           2.7905 51.7542))',4326),900913),way)</pre><p>In other words, resolve ‘unsure’ tags within the UK as ‘footway, no bike access’. Strictly speaking the Lua step isn’t necessary: you could just run a PostGIS query for a particular combination of tags, especially if you’ve imported the full tag set with hstore. However, Lua gives us a convenient way to unify equivalent values (for example, <em>bicycle=yes/permissive/true/1/designated</em>), and in practice it’s easier to parse the many possibilities here than in a WHERE clause.</p><p>(Country polygons, as with so much OSM-based goodness, are available from the <a href="http://download.geofabrik.de/">Geofabrik download site</a>.)</p><p>This can also be used to make a best guess for ambiguous tag values. For example, if a cycleway is tagged <em>highway=path, bicycle=yes</em> and nothing else, what surface might it have?</p><p>As a rule of thumb, I say “if it’s in a town, it’s probably asphalt; if it’s in the countryside, it’s probably unsurfaced”. This, again, can be resolved with a post-import PostGIS update, by comparing against a set of built-up area polygons. First of all, because I’ll be using this information to resolve several ambiguities, I set an “in town?” boolean for any ways within these polygons:</p><pre>UPDATE planet_osm_line SET in_town=true FROM dlua 
   WHERE ST_Contains(built_up.the_geom,way) AND built_up.large=true</pre><p>(where <em>built_up.large</em> is a boolean for built-up areas of a certain size)</p><p>Then an update for any ambiguous ways based on this:</p><pre>UPDATE planet_osm_line SET highway='cycleway' WHERE highway='cycle_unsure' AND in_town</pre><p>Of course, you can’t fix every single ambiguity in three queries. For every ambiguity and every regional difference, you need a new query, a few new lines of Lua. But it’s a reasonably fast and efficient method of moving 95% of the way from chaotic source data towards a understandable, normalised map.</p><p>(Doing this with a diff-updated database is, of course, left as an exercise for the reader.)</p><p><em>I’m available for OpenStreetMap consulting and development; <a href="http://systemed.net/openstreetmap/">find out more and contact me</a>.</em></p>


guid: http://blog.systemeD.net//post/8
url: http://blog.systemeD.net//post/8
title: Building cycle.travel’s bike directions with OSRM.
updated: 2014-04-22 20:00:00
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.819164
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.884881
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.884881
summary:
  <p>Last month, I took the wraps off <em><a href="http://cycle.travel/">cycle.travel</a></em>, the everyday cycling website I’ve been working on since leaving <em>Waterways World</em>.</p><p><img src="/images/original/cycle_travel.png" /></p><p>One of the major features is a <a href="http://cycle.travel/map">bike-friendly journey planner</a>. That’s not a new thing, of course: <a href="http://www.cyclestreets.net/">CycleStreets</a> has blazed a trail for many years and does a superb job of finding good, reliable routes from OpenStreetMap data.</p><p><em>cycle.travel</em> takes a different approach. Rather than CycleStreets’ three journey options, it provides only one, but allows you to drag the route (Google-style) until it meets your needs. In that way, it offers a mix between a detailed bike-friendly journey planner and a route drawing tool like <a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/">MapMyRide</a>. And this is all good: just as there are many different types of cyclist, so should there be many journey planners.</p><p>The alchemy behind this is <a href="http://project-osrm.org/">OSRM</a> – the Open Source Routing Machine. Largely written by Dennis Luxen, it’s been proven for heavy-duty bike use by <a href="http://www.ibikecph.dk/">IBikeCPH</a>. But finding bike directions in Copenhagen, with its abundance of high-quality infrastructure, is a very different challenge to finding directions in Britain, with its abundance of cycle-wats.</p><p><img src="/images/original/cyclewat_rachel_coleman_finch_ccbysa_2.jpg" /></p><p><em>Cycle-wat, noun: a cycleway that merits only one response, ‘<a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/wat">WAT</a>’. Like ‘farcility’ but without the sneery taint of vehicular cycling. (Picture by Rachel Coleman-Finch, CC-BY-SA.)</em></p><h3>Parsing OSM data</h3><p>The first challenge is to make sense of OSM cycle data, which is an unholy mess.</p><p>Shortcomings in OSM coverage, by region (e.g. rural North America) or topic (e.g. addresses), are well known. Shortcomings in data standards, less so. Broadly, OSM only has sensible, commonly agreed tagging for a few base concepts, principally roads and addresses. Anything else? It’s <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features">like the Wild West, but with more bureaucracy</a>.</p><p><img src="/images/original/bicycle_values.png" /></p><p>This makes extracting meaningful information about cycle routes much harder than it need be. There are two competing standards for mapping paths, one with a forest of trivial differences (<em>bicycle=yes</em> vs <em>bicycle=designated</em> – no, me neither). There are three competing standards for mapping surface quality, one descriptive, one generalised, one...&#160;<a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:smoothness%3Dvery_horrible">wat</a>. And so on.</p><p>OSRM’s stroke of genius is to embed the Lua scripting engine. Rather than a simple lookup table (“give highway=cycleway a score of 10, highway=tertiary a score of 5, etc.”), you can write code in Lua to parse tags programmatically, unifying all these different standards. In <em>cycle.travel</em>’s case, the logic for scoring way types is over 300 lines of code, backed with five separate lookup tables. It’s not pretty, but it’s very effective.</p><p>As yet, OSRM doesn’t support route relations off the shelf. Cycle route relations are important, not just for instructions (“follow cycle route 5 for two miles”), but also as an indicator of quality. No, not all cycle routes are good, but on average, inclusion in the National Cycle Network demonstrates (for example) that traffic levels are more likely to be low. Fortunately, Emil Tin from IBikeCPH has patched route relation support into OSRM, and I’m using his fork as the basis for cycle.travel’s instance.</p><h3>Turn-by-turn directions</h3><p>OSRM provides a simple API: send start/end points (and any via points along the way), get route back as JSON. As standard, the turn-by-turn directions simply list the names or road numbers – ‘Market Street’ or ‘A44’ – of the route chosen.</p><p>But we can do much more than that. Is the road part of a numbered cycle route? What’s the surface? Is it a road, a cycleway, a footpath or a ferry?</p><p>Once again, the name of each ‘segment’ is chosen by the Lua profile, based on the tags of the underlying OSM way. We can use this to pack more information into the name field. For example, Park Street in Charlbury is stored as <em>“ncn 442|||u|Park Street||CHARLBURY”:</em> not just the name, but also the cycle route (NCN 442), the type of road (u=unclassified), and the village it’s in.</p><p><img src="/images/original/directions.png" /></p><p><em>cycle.travel</em>’s clientside JavaScript takes this and presents clear turn-by-turn directions from it. The village name is particularly useful for rural cycle route planning. For a countryside ride, you’d rarely say “turn left onto Forest Road, then right onto Catsham Lane, continue on Horseshoe Lane, then left onto Chapel Road”. Instead, you’d name the villages you cycle through.</p><h3>Elevation and external data</h3><p>Elevation is crucial to cycle route-planning. A quiet ten-mile country lane is no fun at all if those ten miles finish at the summit of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/good-to-share/10522881/Why-ride-a-Boris-bike-up-the-Mont-Ventoux.html">Mont Ventoux</a>. OSRM doesn’t have explicit elevation support built in, but there are ways to add it.</p><p>There are <a href="https://github.com/DennisOSRM/Project-OSRM/issues/271">long</a> <a href="https://github.com/DennisOSRM/Project-OSRM/issues/546">discussions</a> on the OSRM Github issue tracker about the best approach. I chose to load compressed tiles of SRTM data (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, the most frequently used elevation source) into a Redis data store, which gives an elevation grid for the whole of Britain. Then, when OSRM calculates the weighting for each segment, it looks up the start and end elevation, and computes a penalty.</p><p><img src="/images/original/elevation.png" /></p><p>This isn’t the fastest approach. The overhead of communicating with Redis, and the SRTM lookup code (which is, once again, in Lua), make it slower than a pure C++ mmaped solution.</p><p>On the other hand, it’s achievable within my limited C++ skills, and can be applied to other external data sources loaded into Redis. So as well as getting elevation data this way, I use this in the Lua profile’s <em>way_function</em> (which scores and names each way) to find what village each road is in.</p><p>Dennis Luxen explained a similar way of accessing external data in a <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/blog/osrm-using-external-data/">Mapbox blog post</a>, and the feature powers Mapbox’s new <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/blog/launching-smart-directions/">Smart Directions product</a>. PostGIS queries have an even greater overhead than Redis commands, so should be used sparingly. Nonetheless, if you’re working at city scale (as IBikeCPH does), it’s a very practical solution.</p><h3>Circular routes</h3><p><em>cycle.travel</em> has a fun circular route function: ask it for a route from Charlbury to Oxford and click ‘Circular route’, and you’ll get a route that’s different on the outbound and return journeys.</p><p>This is very simple, a hack in true <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_D">Systeme D</a> fashion. It just asks OSRM for an alternative route, and uses this as the return journey. There are two disadvantages: the route is no longer draggable (because any via point would be applied to both legs), and one-way directions will be wrong. Both of these are surmountable at some future point, but for now it’s a fun feature.</p><h3>Why routing?</h3><p>For OpenStreetMap, there’s a pressing reason to popularise high-quality routing software such as OSRM, CycleStreets and <a href="http://graphhopper.com/">GraphHopper</a>. It’s only by using these route planners that mappers discover ‘routing bugs’: broken connections, missing surface or speed limit information, and so on. And conversely, end-users who find routing bugs are more likely to sign up as mappers to fix them.</p><p>As a mapper, I’ve been driven to fix dozens of routing bugs by encountering them while testing <em>cycle.travel</em>. That’s why I’ve coded up <a href="https://github.com/systemed/openstreetmap-website/commits/routing">a routing interface for openstreetmap.org</a> which will hopefully go live shortly.</p><h3>An OSRM wishlist</h3><p>OSRM is a superb piece of software, and one which I greatly enjoy working with. There’s so much it does right, but the Lua profiles are the clincher. Mapbox have done a lot of smart things: hiring Dennis Luxen and adding OSRM to their product offering is one of the smartest yet.</p><p>Its development is going in the right direction, too: for example, although it’s undeniable that OSRM has heavy memory requirements, recent work should see that reduced by ~30%.</p><p>So what else would I like to see it do? In approximate order:</p><ul><li><strong>Route relation support in trunk.</strong> As yet I’ve not been able to take advantage of the latest and greatest OSRM improvements because I’m using Emil’s (fairly old) route relations fork, and route relation support is essential for <em>cycle.travel</em>.</li><li><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong>Multiple datasets, one host</strong>. There are many reasons that you might want to generate more than one OSRM routing graph. You could have different styles, for example, like CycleStreets (fastest/quietest/balanced). Or you could provide directions for several unconnected cities or countries: after all, you can’t actually cycle from England to France. At present, you need to run several instances of osrm-routed and set up an arcane Apache config. It would be much better if osrm-routed could handle several datasets/profiles.</span></li><li><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong>Circular routes by length, not destination.</strong> <a href="http://i11www.iti.uni-karlsruhe.de/extra/publications/gpwz-ecjr-13.pdf">This paper</a> considers how to calculate circular routes from a given start point, with length specified but not destination: for example, “give me a 10-mile circuit from home”. Similar features are offered by <a href="http://walks.io/">walks.io</a> and <a href="http://www.plotaroute.com/">plotaroute.com</a>. OSRM already has most of the logic to do this: it would make a natural addition.</span></li><li><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong>Node tags in turn-by-turn directions.</strong> The use case described in <a href="https://github.com/DennisOSRM/Project-OSRM/issues/228">this OSRM issue</a> is motorway junctions: “turn off at junction 8”. For cyclists, this is, of course, “turn left at the Rose &amp; Crown”. (After a judiciously chosen break.)</span></li><li><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong>Improve processing times for external data.</strong> It takes three hours for my well-specced Hetzner box to generate <em>cycle.travel</em>’s routing graph, largely due to the elevation overhead. Native (C++) mmapped elevation support would be wonderful, but addresses one use case only. Providing Redis support via a Unix socket may be more generally useful.</span></li></ul><p>There’s lots more I’m planning to add to the <em>cycle.travel</em>&#160;route planner, with two big new features set to land in the next few months. I’ve been delighted with the feedback received so far – comments such as “best routing I've seen so far”, “what a great route planner”, and “I&#160;put in a circular route for an area I know well and it came up with a lovely route, part of which would never have occurred to me”. All this, of course, is thanks to OpenStreetMap’s armies of mappers and to OSRM. Cycling on the shoulders of giants, perhaps?</p><p><em>If you’d like to talk cycle routing, or you’re interested in working with cycle.travel’s technology, I’m both available for freelance work and am interested in expanding cycle.travel’s scope:&#160;<a href="mailto:richard@systemeD.net">drop me a line</a>.</em></p>


guid: http://blog.systemeD.net//post/7
url: http://blog.systemeD.net//post/7
title: Why you should credit OpenStreetMap.
updated: 2014-01-16 07:06:16
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.819164
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.887624
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.887624
summary:
  <p>OpenStreetMap attribution has bubbled to the surface lately – the matter of if, and how, you credit OSM in a map that uses its data. OSM itself is <a href="http://openstreetmap.org/copyright">clear about how it wants to be credited</a>, but it doesn’t always happen.</p><p>Often this is simply because map users don’t know how to, or their chosen library doesn’t make it obvious. Sometimes it’s deliberate. Whichever, it’s guaranteed to exercise the community, such that there are now at least two community-run Twitter accounts dedicated to the topic: <a href="http://twitter.com/osm_attribution">one friendly</a> (“Thanks for using OpenStreetMap! Please add a credit”), <a href="http://twitter.com/mapviolations">another not so much</a> (“Cracking down on license abusers”). And behind the scenes, there have been many furrowed-brow conversations on how we fix this.</p><p>Amid all this drama, Serge Wroclawski’s excellent article on “<a href="http://blog.emacsen.net/blog/2014/01/04/why-the-world-needs-openstreetmap/">Why the world needs OpenStreetMap</a>” has unwittingly provided the best demonstration of why you should attribute OpenStreetMap.</p><p>Serge’s article was picked up by <a href="http://gizmodo.com/why-the-world-needs-openstreetmap-1495412839">Gizmodo</a> and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/14/why-the-world-needs-openstreetmap">the Guardian</a>, and in turn by <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1v6tv6/why_the_world_needs_openstreetmap_as_more_private/">Reddit</a>. At which point it became painfully obvious that Redditors – and, by extension, the population at large – simply don’t get that <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/about">OSM is more than openstreetmap.org</a>.</p><blockquote>“The world doesn't need yet another mapping provider. What's OSM got? Some raw mapping data, which quite frankly is useless without a top notch front end to put it to use.” “It really needs a travel route feature, or if there is one it needs to be more obvious. Most of my Google Maps use is looking at times and distances between cities using various routes.” “Google Maps is incredibly easy to use and is useful. I'd love to use OSM if it was as nice of an experience.” “So basically if I want directions from point A to point B, I should continue using Google Maps, and there's no reason for me to be interested in either using or helping OSM.”&#160;“I just noticed Google Map Maker is finally available in my area. I don't see changing stuff in OSM to be any useful to me.”  </blockquote><p>And so on for 905 comments. </p><p><strong>People genuinely don’t see that editing OpenStreetMap has any value beyond openstreetmap.org. </strong>Since osm.org is intentionally not a consumer-facing site in the way that Google Maps is, they’re not going to use it; so they won’t edit OSM.</p><p>There are two ways out of this. Make osm.org a consumer-facing site, with an aerial layer, multi-modal routing, mass-market cartography, a paid-for API, and a staff of 100… thereby squashing the businesses and motivation of everyone who provides <a href="http://thunderforest.com/">cartography</a>, <a href="https://www.mapbox.com/blog/osrm-shared-memory/">routing</a>, and <a href="http://www.geofabrik.de/">paid-for APIs</a> on OSM.</p><p><strong>Or attribute.</strong></p><p>Reddit demonstrates that people will only contribute to OSM if they see a reason. For the majority who aren’t cartographers (like me) or Free Software evangelists (like Serge), that reason will be: it’s used in the sites, apps and devices that make their life better.</p><p>But the feedback loop is only complete if these sites, apps and devices make it immediately obvious that they’re using OpenStreetMap data. That’s why clear, prominent attribution is so important to OSM. Right now, Reddit shows we’re failing at this.</p><p>Attribute. Do it creatively. Do it generously. Explain why. A link to <a href="http://openstreetmap.org/copyright">osm.org/copyright</a> is the mandated minimum, but you can do much more. Sell OSM. Tell your users why contributing to OSM benefits them. Because if it benefits your users, it benefits your business. If OSM withers because people see a better reason to contribute to Google Map Maker, so does your OSM-based site, app or business.</p><p>Here’s what I’ve done at <a href="http://cycle.travel/map">cycle.travel</a>. The click-through from the attribution <a href="http://cycle.travel/about/maps">goes to a page</a> which does the legal bit (describing the licences) but then goes on to explain why and how. I’m sure smarter minds than me can do better still. Go to it.</p>


guid: http://blog.systemeD.net//post/6
url: http://blog.systemeD.net//post/6
title: Starting renderd with upstart.
updated: 2013-08-26 22:00:00
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.819164
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.890588
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:37.890588
summary:
  <p>The <a href="http://switch2osm.org/serving-tiles/manually-building-a-tile-server-12-04/">canonical instructions for setting up an OpenStreetMap tileserver</a> suggest that you use init.d to start renderd on boot.</p>

  <p>init.d is a bit gnarly and antiquated, however. <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a> is much more pleasant; the config files are simpler and it's easier to chain one event off another. Which, as it happens, is what we want to do here; we want renderd to fire up once Postgres is running. Except that Postgres is started by an init.d script, not an upstart one. Gah.</p>

  <p>So here's how to get it running:</p>

  <p>Firstly, edit the Postgres startup script to emit init events on starting. You do this by adding <code>initctl emit</code> lines to <code>/usr/share/postgresql-common/init.d-functions</code>. For our purposes we only need to add</p>

  <pre><code>initctl emit postgresql-started
  </code></pre>

  <p>immediately after</p>

  <pre><code>do_ctl_all start "$1" "Starting PostgreSQL $1 database server"
  </code></pre>

  <p>But if you want to add the whole suite, <a href="http://atorian.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/automating-phusion-passenger-with.html">this posting</a> shows how to do it.</p>

  <p>Next, we create <code>/etc/init/renderd.conf</code> as an upstart job:</p>

  <pre><code># renderd

  description "renderd"

  start on postgresql-started
  stop on runlevel [016]
  respawn

  setuid osm
  setgid staff

  script
    renderd -f -c /usr/local/etc/renderd.conf 1&gt;&gt;/var/log/renderd.log 2&gt;&gt;/var/log/renderd.log
  end script
  </code></pre>

  <p>This will start renderd only after Postgres has started.</p>

  <p>However, renderd needs to have a socket sitting within <code>/var/run/renderd</code>. We could in theory create that in renderd.conf, but I prefer that to run as the osm user, and not to allow the latter to create directories. So we add a second upstart job as <code>/etc/init/renderd_socket.conf</code>:</p>

  <pre><code># renderd socket

  description "Create renderd socket folder"

  start on starting renderd

  script
    mkdir /var/run/renderd
    chown osm /var/run/renderd
  end script
  </code></pre>

  <p>Obviously, change <code>osm</code> if your user is called something else.</p>

  <p>Reboot, and renderd should be up and running using upstart.</p>


guid: http://brainoff.com/weblog/?p=1790
url: http://brainoff.com/weblog/2012/12/05/1790
title: Kenyan Election Open Data
published: 2012-12-05 00:22:42
fetched: 2019-10-25 13:00:08.124280
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:39.813193
updated_at: 2019-10-25 13:00:08.207905
summary:
  Election boundary and polling station geo data for Kenya can now be downloaded. Kenyans are gearing up for the presidential election in March, including the tech community projects like Uchaguzi and Map Kibera. One limiting factor is availability of data. The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) finalized new constituency boundaries earlier this year, but &#8230; <a href="http://brainoff.com/weblog/2012/12/05/1790" class="more-link">Continue reading<span class="screen-reader-text"> "Kenyan Election Open Data"</span></a>

content:
  <p><a href="https://github.com/mikelmaron/kenya-election-data">Election boundary and polling station geo data for Kenya can now be downloaded.</a></p>
  <p>Kenyans are gearing up for the presidential election in March, including the tech community projects like <a href="http://uchaguzi.co.ke/">Uchaguzi</a> and <a href="http://www.mapkibera.org/blog/2012/11/23/opinion-leaders-nominated-to-lead-election-monitoring/">Map Kibera</a>. One limiting factor is availability of data. The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) finalized new constituency boundaries earlier this year, but have only <a href="http://iebc.or.ke/index.php/resources/downloads/category/bou-ndaries">released non-machine readable pdf maps</a>. That&#8217;s led Map Kibera to resurvey on the ground the new boundaries and polling places, in Kibera, Mathare and Mukuru. But outside that excellent work, open data on the most primary geographies of democracy are not available for Kenya. Election boundaries should be the number one data available on <a href="https://opendata.go.ke/">OpenDataKE</a>.</p>
  <p>The IEBC released a nice site to <a href="http://vote.iebc.or.ke/">look up Kenyan polling places</a>. It doesn&#8217;t directly offer download, but quickly looking at network requests for the app revealed simple endpoints to request json versions of constituency and county boundaries, and the locations of polling places. I wrote a script which iterates through every ward in Kenya, caches the data, and produces outputs. There are <a href="https://github.com/mikelmaron/kenya-election-data/tree/master/output">shapefiles for download here</a>. If you need something tweaked, let me know, and I&#8217;ll see what I can do.</p>
  <p><iframe width='500' height='300' frameBorder='0' src='http://a.tiles.mapbox.com/v3/groundtruth.map-t5fddslr.html#6/0.05320294496605108/37.47436523437501'></iframe></p>
  <p>This map displays approximately 16000 polling places across Kenya. In total, there are 26447, but a significant number are not mapped. Also, there are no ward boundaries available. This is a big opportunity for Kenyans to contribute back to their government&#8217;s data. For instance, Lindi Mosque has no location in the government data set, but is <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/612007074">present in OpenStreetMap</a>. Would be possible to repurpose some OpenStreetMap microtasking tools to quickly map these places (<a href="http://tasks.hotosm.org/">HOT Tasking Server</a>, <a href="http://sandy.hotosm.org/">MapMill</a> or <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/MapRoulette">MapRoulette</a>).</p>
  <p>Why make this data open? So we can build things like<br />
  * Send an SMS to get a list of polling places in your ward<br />
  * Geocoder and custom base maps to make it easier to locate reports to Uchaguzi<br />
  * Print map services, so you can easily distribute polling place locations in your area<br />
  * Analysis, such as distribution of polling places according to population density<br />
  and plenty of creative things I haven&#8217;t imagined yet.</p>
  <p>I hope this step of action, then begging forgiveness rather than asking permission (in I hope the best tradition of mySociety) will spark curiosity and consideration by the IEBC to more fully embrace openness, not only by releasing data, but inviting conversation and feedback from the citizens it serves, and becoming more transparent in how decisions are made and how the complicated and incredibly important business of running an election is being carried out.</p>


guid: http://brainoff.com/weblog/?p=1781
url: http://brainoff.com/weblog/2012/04/24/1781
title: Moabi and Big Important Challenges for the GeoWeb
published: 2012-04-24 10:10:06
fetched: 2019-10-25 13:00:08.124280
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:39.816445
updated_at: 2019-10-25 13:00:08.210847
summary:
  Recently finished a technical review of WWF&#8217;s Moabi platform, their geodata sharing platform to track deforestation, and came out with some important technical challenges for the GeoWeb I want to share with the mapping nerds. Just following TAI&#8217;s bridging session on natural resource governance, I met Charles Huang of the World Wildlife Fund at a &#8230; <a href="http://brainoff.com/weblog/2012/04/24/1781" class="more-link">Continue reading<span class="screen-reader-text"> "Moabi and Big Important Challenges for the GeoWeb"</span></a>

content:
  <p>Recently finished a technical review of <a href="http://drc.moabi.org/">WWF&#8217;s Moabi platform</a>, their geodata sharing platform to track deforestation, and came out with some important technical challenges for the GeoWeb I want to share with the mapping nerds.</p>
  <p>Just following <a href="http://groundtruth.in/2011/11/29/revealing-transparency-and-its-relation-to-community-empowerment/">TAI&#8217;s bridging session on natural resource governance</a>, I met <a href="http://www.worldwildlife.org/science/staff/charles-huang.html">Charles Huang</a> of the World Wildlife Fund at a <a href="http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/event/mapping-and-technology-improve-governance-natural-resources">similarly styled event at the World Bank</a>. After self-identifying as a developer, Charles asked if I&#8217;d like to talk more about Moabi &#8230; they needed a developer&#8217;s eye on the platform as they considered how to move to their 2.0. This isn&#8217;t GroundTruth&#8217;s usual sort of work, but considering the TAI Bridge effort to connect technologists with sector experts, our <a href="http://groundtruth.in/2012/04/16/welcome-to-grassroots-al-quds-network/">other work with Drupal and mapping</a>, and my own deep interest in conservation, I dove in.</p>
  <p>Moabi is ambitious. In its current expression with DRC and deforestation, the platform is meant to collect geographic data and detailed profiles from all sorts of courses, including the &#8220;crowd&#8221;, on everything from mining concessions, informal logging, road construction, to REDD projects, and enable conversation and coordination among everyone conservation workers on the ground, government officials, and the interested public on the other side of the world. And in the long run, this platform is intended to apply to other places and focus areas of WWF. This is such an ambitious, wide mandate, and I think touches on 3 key technical developments for the GeoWeb.</p>
  <p><b>Features as Full Social Objects</b></p>
  <p>In Moabi, every single feature, such as an individual mine or road, has a profile page, which should be shareable, pivotable, a focus point for social interaction among people and groups organizing to prevent deforestation. Most often in GIS and web mapping, we talk about layers of information, and while individual features often have expression in various forms on a site, there is no open source software package that deals with feature-level data in this way out of the box. And there&#8217;s not really that many examples to draw on. Every feature in OpenStreetMap has an individual url, with details on its tags, last editor, etc. But it&#8217;s not quite used as a social object, excepting maybe <a href="http://code.flickr.com/blog/2009/09/28/thats-maybe-a-bit-too-dorky-even-for-us/">the awesome machine tag integration with flickr</a>. Foursquare has some elements of this, every venue primarily being a place, and users able to connect to that place. But besides these sorta examples, a geographic feature is generally treated as a property of social objects, rather than social objects in themselves.</p>
  <p><b>Multi-master sync and flexible schemas</b></p>
  <p>Data is Moabi is sourced from both government, civil society, and interactions on the site. Those source databases are very likely to update over time, and very possibly they will receive updates on Moabi as well. Given a foreign key, or even a clever lookup, at least identifying which features have updated is possible. But this inevitably leads to thorny issues of handling conflicts during synchronization. This is commonly experienced in the simple situation of editing in OSM during a mapping party, where two editors independently modify the same feature. The OSM API can detect the potential conflict, but once detected the interface and process to resolve the conflict in JOSM is not intuitive or easy at all. When writing code, this situation happens all the time, and simply being text, it&#8217;s simple enough to throw the problem to the programmer to resolve. But we&#8217;re talking about geographic features here, and that&#8217;s going to take very well designed interfaces to solve properly.</p>
  <p>A related issue is that a single feature may contain pieces of information from several different masters. Take roads. Yes, common enough is the geometry, maybe the name (or names) of the road, the surface. But with Moabi, they may also want to know if the road has a regular anti-poaching patrol, or if it&#8217;s commonly used to transport lumber. OSM deals with this unpredictability of attributes through tags, arbitrary key-value pairs, with no predetermined mandated structure, with conventions of use worked out over time. In contrast, traditional GIS requires pre-decided database schema, leading to long running discussions which often never resolve to the point of actually collecting and sharing data. So why not just use OSM? Well I&#8217;m not sure it&#8217;s best to keep every single thing interesting to Moabi about roads in OSM, and some features, like say mining concessions or REDD projects, may simply not be appropriate for OSM (this is up for discussion of course). So assuming that something else is needed, what are the options for a tagging based system that&#8217;s not OSM? The closest I&#8217;ve seen is Matt Berg&#8217;s work at Earth Institute on <a href="https://github.com/mangroveorg/georegistry#readme">georegistery</a>, an open source db with RESTful API for sharing and versioning geographic objects in GeoJSON, with arbitrary attributes. </p>
  <p><b>Complex interactive experiences without a lot of fuss</b></p>
  <p>Moabi has a lot of data, two dozen layers, thousands of features. Currently the only way to work through the data is via query, which can be a little slow both in usability and response time. Interactive exploration is best accomplished through Tiles and Grids, as enabled so well in TileMill and MapBox. And there&#8217;s been a <a href="https://github.com/openlayers/openlayers/pull/244">lot of activity in OpenLayers with Grids</a>, including support for interaction in multiple layers.</p>
  <p>The issue comes with how to make this architecture efficiently queryable. Say you wanted to show only to show mines operated by Chinese companies in the DRC, which are not located in mining concessions. The most obvious way is to send this query to the server, and render the result on the client side. But perhaps there are other ways, utilising the same approach <a href="http://mapbox.com/blog/custom-styles-mapbox-streets/">MapBox Streets takes to customize styles on the fly</a>, by manipulating the color table of tile images. If a tile set handled just a single layer, then the color table could someohow be used to encode other properties. This would essentially pre-can a set of interesting queries during tile generation, with the query results rendered by the server. If that&#8217;s too limiting, perhaps we need to start thinking further in the future, where something like SVG based tiles could be efficiently rendered and queried in the browser.</p>
  <p><b>Thoughts?</b></p>
  <p>Would love to hear feedback on whether these are actually interesting challenges in your opinion, and what are some other ways of moving forward with them.</p>


guid: http://brainoff.com/weblog/?p=1773
url: http://brainoff.com/weblog/2012/03/30/1773
title: All I Want for OpenStreetMap is … Social and Attention
published: 2012-03-30 13:18:25
fetched: 2019-10-25 13:00:08.124280
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:39.819568
updated_at: 2019-10-25 13:00:08.214012
summary:
  Kate posted her wishlist for OpenStreetMap and I second everything she wrote &#8230; OSM can be fine tuned to be even easier. In my wishlist post, I want to cover improving connections between mappers, and focusing mappers attention. In short, OSM should be more like Facebook. Seriously. A news feed should show you the most &#8230; <a href="http://brainoff.com/weblog/2012/03/30/1773" class="more-link">Continue reading<span class="screen-reader-text"> "All I Want for OpenStreetMap is &#8230; Social and Attention"</span></a>

content:
  <p><a href="http://www.maploser.com/2012/03/29/all-i-want-for-openstreetmap-is-simple/">Kate posted her wishlist for OpenStreetMap</a> and I second everything she wrote &#8230; OSM can be fine tuned to be even easier. In my wishlist post, I want to cover improving connections between mappers, and focusing mappers attention.</p>
  <p>In short, OSM should be more like Facebook. Seriously. A news feed should show you the most relevant activity and news for you personally, and the profile page should show what you&#8217;re about in OSM in a more approachable way.</p>
  <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisfleming/4784567751/" title="State of the Map Group Photo by Chris Fleming, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4120/4784567751_6aaf2bc04f.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="State of the Map Group Photo"></a></p>
  <p>The sociality of OSM is its biggest strength. The intricacies of maps, tags, places are discussed in minute detail, and are ultimately the result of conversation, not top down dictate. The result are maps that are more expressive for more situations than any other platform. And we even meet in person! At the pub, the hack weekend, the LogCluster meeting. Anyone who&#8217;s ever been to a State of the Map conference can attest, it&#8217;s a vibrant, fun, exciting <i>movement</i>.</p>
  <p>OSM has hundreds of thousands of users, and hundreds of millions of map features. Yet the tools to connect to mappers and monitor an area are still the same as 5 years ago. Changing this is my wishlist &#8230; and yes, I know that most all of OSM features are coded voluntarily, and its something I could do myself rather than list out &#8230; I appreciate all the time and energy that goes into OSM coding, this is my *wish* list.</p>
  <p><b>Finding the Local Community</b></p>
  <p>If I&#8217;m travelling some place new for an event, I want to connect to the local OSM community, and the process is complicated and not obvious. First, browse to the area in OSM and click the &#8220;History&#8221; tab, which should show recent edits in the area. Problem is, this often includes large, global edits which overlap this local area and aren&#8217;t relevant. And if you page through in a somewhat mind-numbing fashion, the OSM rails app starts to have performance problems past page 5. <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OWL_(OpenStreetMap_Watch_List)">OWL</a> is potentially a solution to this, but it has <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Top_Ten_Tasks#OWL-powered_activity.2Fhistory_tab">already been a priority development item for years</a>.</p>
  <p>And what the history tab won&#8217;t do in either form is tell you who the most active, prominent mappers in the community are. For that, I usually jump over to ITO&#8217;s excellent <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_Mapper">OSM Mapper</a>, which present and visualizes summary statistics for an arbitrary area. Excellent, but you have to know it&#8217;s there, and it takes a separate authentication, and is a little counter intuitive to use. But from there, I have a list of 5-10 top mappers, with links to the OSM profile pages, from which I can send them a message. And wait, and hope they respond.</p>
  <p>Next, I&#8217;ll jump into the wiki, and look through the relevant <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/List_of_territory_based_projects">Wiki Projects</a>. Sometimes this will have listing of Users in an area, or links to their website, or mailing lists. The User profile pages sometimes have a way to contact that user, but just as often not. If there&#8217;s a <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mailing_list">mailing list</a>, then it&#8217;s about subscribing to yet another mailing list, perhaps one in a foreign language, and posting. If there&#8217;s a project website, that&#8217;s usually golden and a sign of an active local community that will be responsive.</p>
  <p><b>Focusing Attention</b></p>
  <p>And that&#8217;s just for a one time connection. Most mappers have been involved in mapping many areas. How do you keep informed? You basically need to have a ton of RSS feeds, poke around the <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Quality_Assurance#Monitoring_Tools">monitoring tools</a>, read a lot of lists. </p>
  <p>A lot of activity, most of the time, you only need to be dimly aware of. If a user with a good reputation is editing in a familiar area, there&#8217;s little need to check into it further. If a new user has just signed up and is editing, it would be good to take a close look at their edits, and reach out and welcome them to OSM and offer to support their work. Reputation needs to be calculated, and used to filter.</p>
  <p>And not just edits. There&#8217;s so much going on in the community. The <a href="http://opengeodata.org/weekly-osm-summary-39">Weekly OSM Summary</a> is super useful, but is only the cream of the global activity. There are OSM events all the time,  but it seems <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Current_events">mostly German mappers are adding their events to the wiki</a>. Expand User Diaries so these posts are accessible in all sorts of ways, for all kinds of notifications.</p>
  <p><b>Being Social Should Be Simpler</b></p>
  <p>Maybe the general concept is around &#8220;Interest&#8221;. There are places you might be interested in. There are particular mappers and communities you might be interested in &#8230; either because they&#8217;re active in an area, or perhaps because they make suspicious edits. Directly in the OSM website, you should be able to manually indicate this interest (by friending a user, set a list of locations); or it can be automatically calculated through analysis and stats of where you&#8217;ve been active before. </p>
  <p>I started on this idea by adding <a href="http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/dev/2012-January/024168.html">friend and home location filtering to Diary Entries and Changesets</a>. An ok start, but not everyone uses Diary entries to communicate, and the changesets still include everything &#8230; it&#8217;s both too much information and not enough. A lot is happening in OSM at any time, and you have limited attention. </p>
  <p>There&#8217;s definitely a need for some system to do processing and analysis, from the planet diffs. Make these stats visually intriguing, and directly a part of a user or groups activity streams. There&#8217;s great experiments visualizing group stats with <a href="http://osmranking.altogetherlost.com/">rankings on altogetherlost</a>, and <a href="http://osmstats.altogetherlost.com/">overall stats</a>. And the <a href="http://hdyc.neis-one.org/
  ">personal statistics on neis-one</a>, and <a href="http://yosmhm.neis-one.org/">heat map</a> are excellent. Bring this directly into osm.org.</p>
  <p><b>Social Design</b></p>
  <p>Currently the user profile page on OSM has two functions &#8230; one to view other people, and another as a dashboard for yourself. I think these should start to diverge into two different pages. The User Profile should be grown to give a better idea of what a mapper is up to. The Dashboard would be a focus point for a mapper to stay on top of everything they care about in OSM. So in one page, give a summary of what friends and nearby users are up to, but also what&#8217;s happening in places you care about. For many users, myself included, there are many areas you&#8217;ve mapped, and would like to keep track of. Right now, you explicitly express interest by declaring your home location. This could be expanded to multiple, manually specified locations (my top 10 areas); or by analysis, a list of your top areas for editing could be automatically compiled.</p>
  <p>It&#8217;s not only a design challenge, but it&#8217;s going to be an architected challenge as well. More social takes a lot more servers.</p>
  <p>And don&#8217;t require mappers to visit OSM.org to get this. Yes, send emails out with weekly summaries of activity.</p>
  <p>Some summary ideas for an activity stream:</p>
  <p>* Recent mapping activity in multiple areas you&#8217;re interested in. Should be higher level than individual changesets (SteveCoast has made 12 edits over the last week in Seattle), but allow you to dig in further if you want.<br />
  * Some visual distinction between trusted vs non-trusted<br />
  * Also deal better with &#8220;big&#8221; edits, bots, etc. Filter these, or make them visually distinct.<br />
  * New mappers in these areas, and their activity. Highlight these, it&#8217;s a good opportunity to reach out.<br />
  * Highly trusted or experienced mappers in these areas, and their activity. Again, sometimes highlight, sometimes filter, depending on the need.<br />
  * Non-mapping activity in the area &#8230; upcoming mapping parties, other local news.</p>


guid: http://brainoff.com/weblog/?p=1767
url: http://brainoff.com/weblog/2012/02/17/1767
title: When it comes to politics, crowds can be manipulated, but not communities
published: 2012-02-17 07:41:40
fetched: 2019-10-25 13:00:08.124280
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:39.822413
updated_at: 2019-10-25 13:00:08.216870
summary:
  The women and children in the photo are suffering, and the story tells of hidden revolutionaries challenging brutal rule in all arenas, and victorious on the maps of the most powerful company on the planet. They&#8217;re renaming the infrastructure after revolutionary heroes. You can&#8217;t help but cheer on such clever efforts for freedom. Google supports &#8230; <a href="http://brainoff.com/weblog/2012/02/17/1767" class="more-link">Continue reading<span class="screen-reader-text"> "When it comes to politics, crowds can be manipulated, but not communities"</span></a>

content:
  <p><a href="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/tn.jpg"><img src="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/tn.jpg" alt="" title="tn" width="496" height="600" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1768" srcset="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/tn.jpg 496w, http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/tn-248x300.jpg 248w" sizes="(max-width: 496px) 85vw, 496px" /></a></p>
  <p>The women and children in the photo are suffering, and the story tells of hidden revolutionaries challenging brutal rule in all arenas, and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/syrian-opposition-seeks-to-wipe-the-assad-name-off-the-map--via-google/2012/02/14/gIQAad5aER_story.html?hpid=z4">victorious on the maps of the most powerful company on the planet</a>. They&#8217;re renaming the infrastructure after revolutionary heroes. You can&#8217;t help but cheer on such clever efforts for freedom.</p>
  <p>Google supports liberation! Another front in American online diplomacy?! How far from the truth. Another lame attempt to boost American companies sales with puff pieces about their support for the Arab Spring. Let&#8217;s watch and see how long before Google scrambles to show its commitments to national governments (i.e. customers) and their maps switch back to their Assad era names. </p>
  <p>The real story here is the nature of &#8220;crowdsourcing&#8221; (a term I&#8217;m increasingly despising), and power over and control of our geographic reality. Stefen Geens says that such false information, that politically motivated editing is a risk of crowdsourcing; it&#8217;s not, it&#8217;s rather the result of a false community and opaque processes. <a href="http://ogleearth.com/2012/01/google-conspiring-for-regime-change-in-syria-through-maps-hardly/">This write-up (&#8220;regime change, hardly&#8221;)</a> is an excellent blow by blow, but there is absolutely no way to full penetrate this proprietary system.</p>
  <p>Could this have happened on OpenStreetMap? Sort of. Anyone can edit anytime, I could change these names right now. The difference is that the change would be spotted soon by the community which cares for this data, all past changes by the user easily identifiable, discussion and questions posed in public, and reverts applied if necessary. In the event that the inaccurate edits ontinue, the case can be escalated to mediation, and the <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Data_working_group">DWG</a> can finally take actions like warning and blocks. It&#8217;s happened before, in Northern Cyprus, and OSM dealt well. </p>
  <p>OpenStreetMap does not support the Assad regime, nor does it support the rebellion. It supports everyone&#8217;s access to the facts, and the equal ability for those common facts to respond to reality. OSM was the first map to display <a href="http://ogleearth.com/2011/07/south-sudan-arrives/">the world&#8217;s newest country of South Sudan</a>. And in the event the brutality in Syria ends, and the streets are renamed on the ground, you know where to edit.</p>


guid: http://brainoff.com/weblog/?p=1756
url: http://brainoff.com/weblog/2012/02/02/1756
title: Only Possible With Open Data
published: 2012-02-02 19:35:43
fetched: 2019-10-25 13:00:08.124280
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:39.824847
updated_at: 2019-10-25 13:00:08.219360
summary:
  Arguments about the importance of Open Data often come down to a principled stance, or a licensing discussion &#8230; that kind of argument doesn&#8217;t make much impression on folks who aren&#8217;t way in the weeds. And it&#8217;s more than just licensing &#8230; there are equal parts issues of legality, technical freedom, and community. Clear examples &#8230; <a href="http://brainoff.com/weblog/2012/02/02/1756" class="more-link">Continue reading<span class="screen-reader-text"> "Only Possible With Open Data"</span></a>

content:
  <p>Arguments about the importance of Open Data often come down to a principled stance, or a licensing discussion &#8230; that kind of argument doesn&#8217;t make much impression on folks who aren&#8217;t way in the weeds. And it&#8217;s more than just licensing &#8230; there are equal parts issues of legality, technical freedom, and community. Clear examples of what you can do only with OpenStreetMap, and not with say, <a href="http://brainoff.com/weblog/2010/03/16/1541">Google Map Maker</a>, makes this stuff real. Here are just a few, among many.</p>
  <p><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6208/6075723839_da72067ab2_z.jpg"/ width="320" height="241"/></p>
  <p>Mapping of Jalabad and surrounding countryside is unique to OSM. They collect data with GPS and Smart Phones and Walking Papers. With GMM, you can only trace imagery on your laptop computer. With OSM you can go into the field to actually talk with people about what to put on the map. Afghanistan is not an option at all on MapMaker, for political reasons. And the Jalalagood guys are organized as a company, but do mapping largely in their free time, voluntarily &#8230; so they get nixed for being &#8220;commercial&#8221;.</p>
  <p><a href="http://kabulinnovationlab.com/2012/01/24/hamid-tasal-jalalagood/">Great video on Jalalagood</a> and <a href="http://www.jalalagood.com/2011/08/surkhrod-trip-of-osm/">a detailed mapping trip report.</p>
  <p><img src="http://i.imgur.com/foPJg.jpg"></p>
  <p>In Haiti, <a href="http://taptapmap.org/">TapTapMap</a> maps local bus routes, free to add any sort of data in OSM. In GMM, users are not allowed to add bus routes, only Google does that, and only by getting data from transit agencies. Haiti&#8217;s system, like many places in the developing world, does not have a single authority which maps and controls the routes. You can only get these routes by riding with your GPS.</p>
  <p><a href="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/gaza.png"><img src="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/gaza.png" alt="" title="gaza" width="500" height="398" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1758" srcset="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/gaza.png 500w, http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/gaza-300x238.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 85vw, 500px" /></a></p>
  <p>Another project that certainly couldn&#8217;t happen without Open Data. This is a <a href="igaza.ps">Tourist Map of the Gaza Strip</a>. Produced by a spin-off company from a university that took part in OpenStreetMap mapping in Gaza. This is not an area that can even be mapped in Google because of a political decision, it&#8217;s mostly blank on the map. While the map is free, it&#8217;s produced by a commercial entity and contains ads for local restaurants, hotels and sites.</p>
  <p><img src="http://hot.openstreetmap.org/sites/default/files/ph_mw.jpg" width="380" height="272" /></p>
  <p>In the Phillippines, <a href="http://hot.openstreetmap.org/updates/2012-01-25_hot_mapping_for_flash_flood_affected_areas_in_northern_mindanao_philippines
  ">recent humanitarian response to flooding relied on open source tools</a> to process and make available satellite imagery to create OSM data. The GMM toolset would not permit integration of any other data sources except those controlled by Google. So it would stifle local ability to respond to disasters that don&#8217;t make huge media splashes (G Crisis Response has not been active at all in the Philippines).</p>


guid: http://brainoff.com/weblog/?p=1741
url: http://brainoff.com/weblog/2012/01/24/1741
title: A Week for the Record Books
published: 2012-01-24 13:09:12
fetched: 2019-10-25 13:00:08.124280
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:39.827402
updated_at: 2019-10-25 13:00:08.222124
summary:
  That was a week where I really was truly and completely welcomed to DC. Some great things, some other things, and some things I can&#8217;t talk about yet. Social Technologies at the GWU Humanitarian Mapping Workshop View more presentations from mikel_maron Was invited to fill for Kate Chapman at the Mapping the World of Humanitarianism &#8230; <a href="http://brainoff.com/weblog/2012/01/24/1741" class="more-link">Continue reading<span class="screen-reader-text"> "A Week for the Record Books"</span></a>

content:
  <p>That was a week where I really was truly and completely welcomed to DC. Some great things, some other things, and some things I can&#8217;t talk about yet.</p>
  <div style="width:425px" id="__ss_11233382"> <strong style="display:block;margin:12px 0 4px"><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/mikel_maron/mikelmaron-humanitarianworkshop" title="Social Technologies at the GWU Humanitarian Mapping Workshop" target="_blank">Social Technologies at the GWU Humanitarian Mapping Workshop</a></strong> <object id="__sse11233382" width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=mikelmaron-humanitarian-workshop-120124061703-phpapp02&#038;startSlide=2&#038;stripped_title=mikelmaron-humanitarianworkshop&#038;userName=mikel_maron" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"/><param name="wmode" value="transparent"/><embed name="__sse11233382" src="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=mikelmaron-humanitarian-workshop-120124061703-phpapp02&#038;startSlide=2&#038;stripped_title=mikelmaron-humanitarianworkshop&#038;userName=mikel_maron" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object> </p>
  <div style="padding:5px 0 12px"> View more <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/" target="_blank">presentations</a> from <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/mikel_maron" target="_blank">mikel_maron</a> </div>
  </p></div>
  <p>Was invited to fill for Kate Chapman at the <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/worldofhumanitarianism/2012-workshop/agenda">Mapping the World of Humanitarianism</a> workshop (not the geo kind of mapping). Talked about the challenges with community centered social technologies, within the humanitarian system. Most difficult question &#8220;Do you consider yourself a humanitarian?&#8221;</p>
  <div style="width:425px" id="__ss_11089852"> <strong style="display:block;margin:12px 0 4px"><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/mikel_maron/open-mapping-and-community-journalism" title="Open Mapping and Community Journalism" target="_blank">Open Mapping and Community Journalism</a></strong> <iframe src="http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/11089852" width="425" height="355" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> </p>
  <div style="padding:5px 0 12px"> View more <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/" target="_blank">presentations</a> from <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/mikel_maron" target="_blank">mikel_maron</a> </div>
  </p></div>
  <p><a href="https://twitter.com/sedamur">Seda Muradyan</a> invited me to present within a multi-day workshop with Armenia journalists. Was via Skype, with translation (the translator did an amazing job. Spoke about OpenStreetMap and how we&#8217;ve applied it within community-centered journalism projects. Just missed saying hi to <a href="http://tortureinegypt.net/english">Noha Atef</a> who had been in Armenia for this. Still amazed that the Internet makes this kind of thing possible. </p>
  <p><a href="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Screenshot-at-2012-01-24-075613.png"><img src="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Screenshot-at-2012-01-24-075613.png" alt="" title="Screenshot at 2012-01-24 07:56:13" width="556" height="314" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1752" srcset="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Screenshot-at-2012-01-24-075613.png 556w, http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Screenshot-at-2012-01-24-075613-300x169.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 556px) 85vw, 556px" /></a></p>
  <p><a href="http://tc103.techchange-courses.org/">TC103, Tech Tools for Emergency Management</a> is an online course led by TechChange. I&#8217;ve been moderating, and the quality of the discussion and participants is phenomenal. Rob Baker and I sat down for a chat in front of the camera, good fun &#8230; may be released at the end of the course.</p>
  <p><b>World Bank and Google</b></p>
  <p>* http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/14/opinion/empowering-citizen-cartographers.html?_r=2<br />
  * http://www.globalintegrity.org/blog/bank-responds-to-google-maps-deal<br />
  * http://irevolution.net/2012/01/20/google-inc-world-bank-empowering-citizen-cartographers/#comment-11284</p>
  <p>How many beers, coffees and phone calls discussing this boggling move last week? I&#8217;m still thinking about how to respond and where to go from here.</p>
  <p><b>OpenStreetMap and Google</b></p>
  <p><a href="http://opengeodata.org/google-ip-vandalizing-openstreetmap">Google contractors were caught vandalizing OpenStreetMap</a>. Oy vey.</p>


guid: http://brainoff.com/weblog/?p=1723
url: http://brainoff.com/weblog/2011/11/12/1723
title: Thanks to the 2012 OpenStreetMap Foundation Board. This is going to be the year.
published: 2011-11-12 02:32:46
fetched: 2019-10-25 13:00:08.124280
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:39.830154
updated_at: 2019-10-25 13:00:08.224816
summary:
  Last weekend in Seattle, the OSM Foundation Board met &#8220;face-to-face&#8221;. We get together because no matter how much you try otherwise, there&#8217;s way more done in person in a couple intensive days. It cost about 4 or 5k USD this time, and it&#8217;s worth the cost. But, I think we&#8217;ve always done a terrible job &#8230; <a href="http://brainoff.com/weblog/2011/11/12/1723" class="more-link">Continue reading<span class="screen-reader-text"> "Thanks to the 2012 OpenStreetMap Foundation Board. This is going to be the year."</span></a>

content:
  <p>Last weekend in Seattle, the OSM Foundation Board met &#8220;face-to-face&#8221;. We get together because no matter how much you try otherwise, there&#8217;s way more done in person in a couple intensive days. It cost about 4 or 5k USD this time, and it&#8217;s worth the cost. But, I think we&#8217;ve always done a terrible job explaining what happens at the Board meetings, and a middling job following up, and those two things are totally related. </p>
  <p>I want this meeting to be different. It must be different. This is my fifth year on the Board and final year on the Board (I was elected again this year, but will stand down at the next AGM), and to me, and the entire Board, this is a crucial year for OSM. The face-to-face was the most productive yet, and the most difficult yet. I&#8217;m very satisfied. In year&#8217;s past, the minutes get published, and various announcements go out through working groups, and that will happen.  But it&#8217;s insufficient, maybe distilling too far the atmosphere and the messiness of these get togethers.</p>
  <p><b>The Stage</b><br />
  <a href="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/DSC_6046.jpg"><img src="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/DSC_6046-678x1024.jpg" alt="" title="DSC_6046" width="338" height="512" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1736" /></a></p>
  <p>Steve is based in Redmond, and expecting a child any day, so he offered to host and avoid travel. I wasn&#8217;t far, relatively, in Chicago. The rest of the Board (excepting RichardF who couldn&#8217;t make it) flew in from Europe. I found a <a href="http://www.airbnb.com/rooms/116528">cabin near a lake on airbnb</a>, quiet, cosy, and cheap. Henk hired a car, and drove everyone around. We had a <a href="http://www.meetup.com/OpenStreetMap-Seattle/events/39513972/">meetup Friday night</a>, made some burritos and played Kinect at Steve and Hurricane&#8217;s place (and tried to forget we watched <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1121931/">Crank 2</a>), and enjoyed the Seattle sunshine (no joke). Sunday Hurricane gave us horse riding lessons!</p>
  <p>A regular <a href="http://fakestevec.blogspot.com/2010/12/i-already-blogged-about-how-awful.html">vacation</a>! Except for the part where we spent 18 hours of our weekend discussing/arguing about OSM in windowless meeting rooms at Microsoft (which we very much appreciate btw!). And the rest of the weekend continuing to talk about it, or even dream about it. Being on the Board is a sacrifice of time, because we all feel deeply responsible to the project and our position.</p>
  <p><b>Presentations</b></p>
  <p>The Board meeting proper started with presentations by Steve and Oliver. Steve hit many of the same themes from his SOTM and SOTM-EU talks, except he left out all the stuff about how awesome OSM is doing. We looked and discussed several graphs of recent statistics. OSM&#8217;s growth to date has been beyond imagination, but there&#8217;s no shortage of projects that changed the world and then met reality, hard. Looking at some of these, the factors in decline included insular community, lack of direction, and no innovation. That&#8217;s what we have to avoid.</p>
  <p>Oliver made the point that &#8220;We are the Board! Shape the project!&#8221;. The Board, and the Foundation, needs to be a functional team, with clear goals and activities, all within the limited volunteer time we have to contribute. Fact at this point is, the Foundation doesn&#8217;t have clear objectives, beyond the mission to support but not control the OSM project. To meet goals, we can take action, we can guide and steer, we can spend money. At the end of workshop, there should be a target that guides all our activities towards achievement. Some of the slides were beyond funny management clip art (a guy looking forlorn into the mirror, facing reality) but the point was important. &#8220;We are the Board! Shape the project!&#8221;</p>
  <p>At this point, I thought it would be useful to look at some of the management lessons and differences from HOT. While we are by no means perfect, I do feel there&#8217;s good alignment between the organizational side of HOT and the community, largely the same community as OSM. Contrast to OSMF, HOT is very focused in what it does, with clear guidance and priorities and steering. We aren&#8217;t afraid of spending money when it&#8217;s necessary. We value marketing by the organization (though could be better). There are clear technical needs, and we pay for it. There&#8217;s a key attention to the consumption side of map data collection, seeking strategic partnerships with other organizations. We&#8217;ve been selective and directive with responsibility, and when necessary, have taken it away. We try to be as transparent as possible, publishing very detailed board minutes. </p>
  <p><b>Goals</b></p>
  <p><a href="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/DSC_6018.jpg"><img src="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/DSC_6018-678x1024.jpg" alt="" title="DSC_6018" width="339" height="512" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1733" srcset="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/DSC_6018-678x1024.jpg 678w, http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/DSC_6018-198x300.jpg 198w, http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/DSC_6018.jpg 1356w" sizes="(max-width: 339px) 85vw, 339px" /></a></p>
  <p>We took Oliver&#8217;s point and started strategic planning.</p>
  <p>OSMF Board meeting traditionally use a simple technique to come to consensus on a topic, whether it&#8217;s the agenda of the meeting, or in the case of Seattle, the objectives and activities of the OSMF this year. We brainstorm all our choices on the subject, write them on the whiteboard. Each person gets some number of votes, say 5, and distributes them among the topics. If topics can be grouped together, their count is added together. There&#8217;s discussion about the meaning of terms, sometimes a lot of discussion. Iteration to insure that we all have a common understanding. At the end, there&#8217;s a list of priorities. I always squirm in this process, because somehow I don&#8217;t believe it can work, but inevitably does a pretty good job, and if we need to override, we&#8217;re not strict about the methodology.</p>
  <p>In less than an hour, we had these goals for 2012.</p>
  <p><b>The World&#8217;s Most Used Map</b> OSM is clearly the world&#8217;s most used open map, and most open map, and the best map. We want as many people of possible contributing and using OSM, and to do that, the experience of using OSM needs to improve, and where you use OSM can improve.</p>
  <p><b>More Than Just Streets</b> Do you know everything OSM is capable of mapping? Does your neighbor? Does your mayor? OSM is relatively well known in some circles, but it&#8217;s full potentially is still opaque to many. We want everyone to know what OSM is about.</p>
  <p><b>Cultivating Leadership of Mappers. Shared Goals Between the Community &#038; OSMF</b> Mapping is driven by mappers, with a clear goal (make the map!), and there&#8217;s every reason that with clear goals and empowered members, the OSMF can act strongly. We now have clear goals, and clear expectations of what the management team and working groups can do and achieve, without much prescription on how things happen. This all frees the Board to provide the direction, and the management team and working groups to make the operational decisions.</p>
  <p><b>Easier Contribution for Non-Geeks</b> We debated how this differed from the Most Used Map, and decided it was important enough focus to stand on its own. Usability is certainly related, but more broadly, there&#8217;s much to do to improve all kinds of involvement in OSM.</p>
  <p><b>And Again</b></p>
  <p>The bulk of our time was spent translating these goals into actions, and this really was the most difficult part. Some things were quick to decide, like the final switch over to ODbL, but others became very drawn out and very detailed, like the process for site redesign. We touched on every standing issue, and aligned clearly to the goals. PR, list moderation, license change, the management team, working group budgets, SOTM, PR, site redesign, the articles of association. </p>
  <p><a href="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/short-long1.png"><img src="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/short-long1.png" alt="" title="short-long" width="500" height="302" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1735" srcset="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/short-long1.png 500w, http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/short-long1-300x181.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 85vw, 500px" /></a></p>
  <p>We all agreed that short term action was needed on almost everything, with mind to how things should play out in the longer term. This meant drawing the above diagram, a lot, to remind ourselves of the urgency. We set big, audacious goals for all parts of the Foundation, with clear deadlines.</p>
  <p>With so much on the table, we decided to stay in the room until we had decided on everything, which ended up meaning staying hours late, til there was little sunshine outside (or metaphorically sunshine inside the room) and tension rising. At one point, I was so fed up, I almost walked out, really seeing that if we didn&#8217;t resolve the issue at the Board, it wouldn&#8217;t resolve in the Foundation and the project, the goals wouldn&#8217;t be met, and decline was inevitable. And for me personally, that would mean a slow turning away from a project ingrained in almost everything I do in the world. We had to push through.</p>
  <p>And we did. Despite looking over the brink, we had resolve. I felt tense, but knew I&#8217;d be happy with what we accomplished.</p>
  <p><a href="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/DSC_6183.jpg"><img src="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/DSC_6183-1024x678.jpg" alt="" title="DSC_6183" width="512" height="339" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1728" srcset="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/DSC_6183-1024x678.jpg 1024w, http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/DSC_6183-300x198.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 512px) 85vw, 512px" /></a></p>
  <p>And after it was all done, we had some beers. The next day we rode horses. Group hug.</p>
  <p>Thanks to the 2012 Board. This is going to be the year.</p>
  <p><i>And thanks to Oliver Kuhn for the photos!</i></p>


guid: http://brainoff.com/weblog/2011/08/09/1718
url: http://brainoff.com/weblog/2011/08/09/1718
title: Opening Data in Kenya. My Method is to Hack.
published: 2011-08-09 18:03:21
fetched: 2019-10-25 13:00:08.124280
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:39.832723
updated_at: 2019-10-25 13:00:08.227653
summary:
  There&#8217;s good reason to join the excitement about Open Data in Kenya. As Tariq says on the World Bank blog Open data in Kenya is special: it comes at a time of national change; itâ€™s got a head start on tools and expertise from the global open data community and itâ€™s happening in a country &#8230; <a href="http://brainoff.com/weblog/2011/08/09/1718" class="more-link">Continue reading<span class="screen-reader-text"> "Opening Data in Kenya. My Method is to Hack."</span></a>

content:
  <p>There&#8217;s good reason to join the excitement about <a href="http://opendata.go.ke/">Open Data in Kenya</a>. As <a href="http://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/whats-special-about-open-data-in-kenya">Tariq says on the World Bank blog</a></p>
  <blockquote><p>
  Open data in Kenya is special: it comes at a time of national change; itâ€<img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/11.2.0/72x72/2122.png" alt="™" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" />s got a head start on tools and expertise from the global open data community and itâ€<img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/11.2.0/72x72/2122.png" alt="™" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" />s happening in a country where the information ecosystem is still maturing.
  </p></blockquote>
  <p> I&#8217;m proud that our work with Map Kibera has any relation to this at all. And it&#8217;s certainly due to the hard work of passionate people, in a tough environment, especially Dr. Bitange Ndemo (if you have the time, <a href="http://www.livestream.com/worldbankafrica/video?clipId=pla_8dc3cbce-cf6e-4345-91bb-ffeda3a2720f&#038;utm_source=lslibrary&#038;utm_medium=ui-thumb">Dr. Ndemo&#8217;s talk at the World Bank is recommended</a>).</p>
  <p>Now that the launch has subsided, and I have a spare moment in the air from Tanzania, I want to look in depth at what data and how data has been released on OpenDataKE, the means of working with the data and collaborating on the data, and how this resource can relate to other open data sets in Kenyan society. Now that the government has made a bold move, I think it&#8217;s the responsibility of the software development community and civil society to really step up and test out the data, and suggest how this can become a really vibrant and social resource. Again, Tariq says this succinctly</p>
  <blockquote><p>
  the call for open data should go hand in hand with a call for better quality data: data that might be collected by official government agencies or in this age, by citizens themselves.
  </p></blockquote>
  <p><b>Transect across data</b></p>
  <p>My &#8220;method&#8221; is to hack. I want to make an interesting simple visualization with some data from OpenDataKE, focusing on Nairobi, using openly available tools. Browsing data sets, the <a href="https://opendata.go.ke/Population/Vol-1b-Table-1-Constituency-Population-and-Density/2uhj-8n5h">Population Density per Constiuency</a>, derived from the 2009 census, seemed promising. The difference in density across the urban landscape Nairobi is extreme. For a sense of it, just look at the density of features in OpenStreetMap in the <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=-1.25856&#038;lon=36.86552&#038;zoom=16&#038;layers=M">map of the slum of Mathare</a> compared to nearby <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=-1.25337&#038;lon=36.83449&#038;zoom=16&#038;layers=M">leafy Mathaiga</a>. And to help the hack, the population density data set even has a handy location column. </p>
  <p>Or maybe not. The usual practice in tabular data is to split the latitude and longitude into two columns, but here both values are formatted along with the unnecessary name of the province in which the constituency is located. Anyone who has had to work with data is used to little problems like this, and it&#8217;s easy enough (for a programmer) to write a quick script to clean this up. So I selected Export to CSV (side note, the other options presented by the platform seem hardly useful), filtered just the constituencies in Nairobi, and cleaned it up just by hand (I was too lazy to script this for just a handful of values). </p>
  <p><a href="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/106.jpg"><img src="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/106.jpg" alt="" title="106" width="640" height="447" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1700" srcset="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/106.jpg 640w, http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/106-300x209.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px" /></a></p>
  <p><b>Gaps and Errors</b></p>
  <p>I uploaded the CSV to <a href="http://geocommons.com/">GeoCommons</a>, which has facility to deal with many formats of data and easily layer together interactive maps, and was surprised to see that several points weren&#8217;t placed in Nairobi at all. Turns out there&#8217;s several errors in the location column, at least in Nairobi, and possibly in the rest of the country (I didn&#8217;t check). I&#8217;d have to correct these by hand. My knowledge of the location and extent of the constituencies is limited, so I needed another source, and that is not something you can find on OpenDataKE. It took some searching until I found <a href="http://constituencies.marsgroupkenya.org/?constID=1&#038;task=about&#038;page=1">scanned maps of contituencies on the Mars Group site</a>. An overview map of all the constituencies was missing, so I used the adjacent constituency names in order to place the mistaken ones. </p>
  <p>This worked well, but I&#8217;m left with questions. Why isn&#8217;t constituency boundary data available on OpenDataKE? How did Mars Group get these maps? And now that I&#8217;ve gone to the bother of correcting this data set, how can I contribute the changes back, or at least alert the holders of the data to the errors? There is a <a href="http://kenya.socrata.com/nominate">nomination section on OpenDataKE</a>, which was wonderfully active until July 9, and then went quiet (did Socrata&#8217;s support contract expire then?). Anyway, I&#8217;m hopeful these will start getting attention again, so I&#8217;ve submitted two requests (pending approval to post), one for <a >constiuency boundaries</a>, and another for <a>a way to correct the location column in the population density data set</a>.</p>
  <p>My second surprise was that when I made the annotation size relative to the population density, I didn&#8217;t see a big difference among the constituencies. The area where Kibera is located, Langata, is about the same density as Westlands, and both are less than CBD and Eastlands. What&#8217;s happening here is that constituencies aren&#8217;t aligned to uniform urban settlement patterns. Langata, the home constiuency of the Prime Minister, includes both the slum of Kibera and the wealthy and sparse suburb of Karen. A more useful and telling metric would be population density per Ward, the sub-unit of constituency which does have fairly good alignment to settlement patterns. The census can and has been aggregated to this level, because there was a large promotion of the census count of <a href="http://www.mapkibera.org/blog/2010/09/05/kiberas-census-population-politics-precision/">population in Kibera</a>.</p>
  <p>So again I&#8217;ve nominated a data set, for the <a>population density aggregated at ward level</a>. And I&#8217;ve also made a request for <a>meta-information on the methodology of the census in Kibera and other informal settlements</a>. While the 170,000 figure is surely more close to reality than the wild 1 million figures of the past, by comparing that number with estimates derived from other methods there is a discripency; the others agree on an average closer to 250,000. Additionally, and admittedly anecdotedly, many people in Kibera say they and their neighbors were never counted. Now this happens in any census, and it does not deligitimize the census, but in order to interpret data, openness on the methodology of data collection and analysis is also necessary.</p>
  <p><a href="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Screenshot-23.png"><img src="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Screenshot-23.png" alt="" title="Screenshot-23" width="640" height="413" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1695" srcset="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Screenshot-23.png 968w, http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Screenshot-23-300x193.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px" /></a></p>
  <p><b>The Civil Society of Data</b></p>
  <p>Open government data exists in a wider ecosystem. Just a few months ago, Columbia University released amazing <a href="http://nairobigismaps.wikischolars.columbia.edu/">data sets of Nairobi, including high detail land use</a> under <a href="http://nairobigismaps.wikischolars.columbia.edu/Copyright">open knowledge licenses</a>. A truly beautiful and informative data set. Another place to find many a Kenyan civil society data set is <a href="http://www.virtualkenya.org/">Virtual Kenya</a>. I thought the population density dataset would be interesting to layer with land use.</p>
  <p>This data is distributed as Shapefiles, and I need tiles to use a base map. This is the purpose of <a href="http://mapbox.com/">MapBox</a>, a rapidly developing tool set to make it easy to build beautiful map tiles. I loaded the Shapefiles in my locally running <a href="http://tilemill.com/">TileMill</a>, styled the landuse categories based on Columbia&#8217;s pdf using carto, assigned interaction, and exported as mbtiles. These were dropbox&#8217;d, and posted to TileStream, as <a href="http://tiles.mapbox.com/groundtruth/#!/map/NairobiLandUse">this map</a>.</p>
  <p>Mouseover or click on the map to get more detail about each parcel. This interaction technique is really interesting (as a geek), it&#8217;s entirely javascript and lightweight in the browser; it still has a few rough edges, but overall, a nice experience. There are limits, like TileMill doesn&#8217;t work with CSV, or permit multiple interactive layers, but it&#8217;s a great work in progress. Thanks to DevSeed for the TileStream account, and Dane Springmeyer, who spent some time with me hacking and bug hunting the interaction features of mapnik.</p>
  <p>Like the OpenDataKE data set, and actually all data sets, there are errors &#8230; there is no such thing as a perfect map. The <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/30210329">Ethiopian Church</a>, across from YaYa, is not indicated nor is its land zoned as &#8220;public use&#8221; as other church lands in Nairobi are. And the <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/968555114">Sarakasi Dome</a>, home of our <a href="http://www.africayogaproject.org/">yoga practice in Nairobi</a>, is not shown a unified plot at all. Now Columbia makes their contact information known on the site, and I&#8217;ve met them personally, so feedback here is direct over email, but I wonder from here &#8230; what is the method and intention to continually correct, update and discuss these data sets? Does it need to?</p>
  <p><img src="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Screenshot-22-1024x525.png" alt="" title="Screenshot-22" width="640" height="328" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1694" srcset="http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Screenshot-22-1024x525.png 1024w, http://brainoff.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Screenshot-22-300x153.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px" /></a></p>
  <p>Of course, that is the primary approach of OpenStreetMap &#8230; geographic data in a wiki, that gets constantly examined, updated, and discussed, completely openly. OpenStreetMap can provide another overlay, so we can have some roads and points of reference for the final map. So on GeoCommons, I configured the tiles from the land use data on TileMill (<a href="http://developer.geoiq.com/blog/2011/02/01/wms-and-tiles/#comment-498">this required some hidden configuration of the tile scheme</a>), composited over semi-transparent OSM data (provided by GeoCommons through Acetate), and then finally, the population density points. This is the <a href="http://geocommons.com/maps/86214">result for now of the data transect</a>.</p>
  <p>I hope I can improve this. You&#8217;ll see that the OSM streets don&#8217;t overlay precisely with land use. This I believe, but haven&#8217;t confirmed, to be the result of a project error in the Land Use data set. And an even better representation of the population density would have been a geo-join with area boundaries, had they been available. This would clearly show a thematic variation of population density. And of course, finer grained detail will be required to fulfill the original intention to show Nairobi&#8217;s vast differences in population density.</p>
  <p><b>Where have we gone</b></p>
  <p>Government data sets, authoratative civil society data sets, and completely crowd sourced data sets, layerd together in a single map, revealing a little more about Nairobi, and about the data itself. Each is collected, distributed, and updated in different methods. In some ways, I feel OSM leads the wild edge here of what&#8217;s possible, and what we want: a truly social environment for data. Data without community is data dry and unimportant. Of course, I&#8217;m not saying OSM is the final repository for all data: OSM doesn&#8217;t deal with demographic and private data of a census, and the <a href="http://mike.teczno.com/notes/gosm.html">methods to authoritatively certify versions of OSM data are just starting</a>. But this hasn&#8217;t stopped several kinds of OSM and government interaction already beyond the <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import">&#8220;traditional&#8221; import</a>, with the likes of <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenTripPlanner">Portland</a> and the <a href="http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2011/1136/">USGS</a> interacting with the OSM community. </p>
  <p>The ultimate promise of all this OpenDataKE is not necessarily in the data itself, but in the deep and wide serving conversations openness triggers. My own personal metric for this will be when government officials from OpenDataKE and slum dwellers from Kibera and Mathare (and <a href="http://www.mapkibera.org/blog/2011/08/01/its-time-to-map-mukuru/">Mukuru</a>) openly collaborate and work together. Can&#8217;t wait to see this happen. <b><i>To get there, I challenge you too &#8230; get geeky with some data and write about it!</i></b></p>


guid: http://brainoff.com/weblog/?p=1691
url: http://brainoff.com/weblog/2011/07/31/1691
title: Jerusalem, Moving the Ladder
published: 2011-07-31 16:19:11
fetched: 2019-10-25 13:00:08.124280
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:39.835211
updated_at: 2019-10-25 13:00:08.230408
summary:
  (x-posted from GroundTruth Initiative) After 4 weeks, we&#8217;re leaving Jerusalem. The finest puzzle of human passion, and passion beyond, resting solidly and unsteadily on 5000 years or so of accumulated white stone and dirt. The most complicated and absurd and somehow, sometimes wonderful city. Our host Micha Kurz of Grassroots Jerusalem warned us that 4 &#8230; <a href="http://brainoff.com/weblog/2011/07/31/1691" class="more-link">Continue reading<span class="screen-reader-text"> "Jerusalem, Moving the Ladder"</span></a>

content:
  <p><i>(x-posted from <a href="http://groundtruthinitiative.org/2011/07/31/jerusalem-moving-the-ladder/">GroundTruth Initiative</a>)</i></p>
  <p>After 4 weeks, we&#8217;re leaving Jerusalem.  The finest puzzle of human passion, and passion beyond, resting solidly and unsteadily on 5000 years or so of accumulated white stone and dirt. The most complicated and absurd and somehow, sometimes wonderful city. Our host Micha Kurz of Grassroots Jerusalem warned us that 4 weeks would be just enough to just begin understanding Jerusalem. In fact, it&#8217;s only enough time for the city to get a healthy grip on you so that you really don&#8217;t want to leave. And it&#8217;s definitely not enough time to come up for air for any writing and reflection &#8230; hopefully now I have a little space, on my trip back down to Dar es Salaam, the other end from here of the Great Rift Valley, where in complete contrast, the biggest conflict is that there might, maybe, be another political party in a couple years.</p>
  <p>There is a ladder resting on the front balcony of the <a href="http://atlasobscura.com/place/immovable-ladder-church-holy-sepulchre">Chuch of the Holy Sepluchure</a>. Centuries of delicate negotiation guide how priests and monks of various sects of Christianity move throughout the twisting bizarre space that might possibly be the site of the crucifixion of Jesus. No set of rules for behavior are comprehensive enough to cover every situation, and you hope you have good faith enough for dialogue when the loopholes come up. Not so here, where no one knows which sect originally placed the ladder, so they all refuse to move it. In the middle of all this, hoards of Russian pilgrims take pouty glamour shots in front of what might possibly be the site of a great suffering of Jesus. Thank you for the absurdity and the warning, that ladder should be the symbol of the city.</p>
  <p>Remember this is also the country where there is meticulous debate on <a href="https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Electricity_on_Shabbat_in_Jewish_law#Automated_milking_of_cows">automated milking of cows on Shabbat</a>.</p>
  <p>Jerusalem is a place where they play excellent music in the streets on Friday, and no one notices a soldier dancing with a machine gun. In Silwan, down the slopes of the Old City, young men ride horses through streets defiantly kept 2-way as it has been for thousands of years, and gallop against slowly trudging tourist buses making their way to the City of David, where archeological diggings expose Biblical history, and expose too much of the present day, with houses and mosques collapsing above the excavations. Kites flew above all of this, capturing the view from cameras. In one day, you can rave off Jaffa Street, visit the birthplace of Jesus (grottos!), have a lovely fish dinner in the shadow of the security wall (thankfully <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/1343194542">just mapped</a>, else we would&#8217;ve missed it), be told &#8220;have a nice day!&#8221; by a teenage soldier at an eerily deserted checkpoint, share a taxi with two Ethiopian priests in town from Dublin, and night cap it with a bottle of Brooklyn Lager. And check which beer your drink, cause drinking Taybeh vs Goldstar might be partisan (or wearing your hair a certain way, or the length of your skirt). Weekends are so confusing in Jerusalem! With 3 religions and 3 different holy days, it depends what side of town you&#8217;re on. Not recommended to go back and forth more than once between East and West Jerusalem in the course of one day, your mind will not be able to take such different worlds living in one city. You can hear Rock the Casbah performed in Arabic, and have multiple two hour discussions on the name of Jerusalem in OpenStreetMap.</p>
  <p>Through it all, there has been such a strong reaffirmation of the mission of GroundTruth. With layers apon layers of history, of too much subtlety of meaning, of confusion, of deadly conflict, seems like the only possible response is coming to some reckoning and witness to it all, to see the change over time, to let everyone speak up about the reality of their lives. Let&#8217;s map Jerusalem. Let&#8217;s let people expose their regular humaness, carefully pace ourselves through the bullshit and maybe just find some small piece of reason. On <a href="http://rockburger.com/jerusalem/20110705.html">Micha&#8217;s tour around Jerusalem</a>, we saw an ancient city transformed yet again at the founding of Israel in 1948, and after 1967, the Green Line is now the smoothest highway through town. The municipal boundary of Jerusalem slices through old villages, envelopes completely new ones, and the security wall takes yet another course, and pressing close is the Areas ABC of the Oslo Accords. It hardly makes sense even if you understand it, and by showing what it&#8217;s like right on a piece of ground you may never visit otherwise, perhaps finally some understanding will happen.</p>
  <p>We have at least 3 more posts to talk about the experience with the amazing Grassroots Jerusalem, who cut their chops mapping <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=31.78665&#038;lon=35.23293&#038;zoom=17&#038;layers=M">the Salah ad Din shopping district</a>, and passed it on to <a href="http://geocommons.com/maps/90237">al Walaja</a> a small and inspiring village, which has a piece of just about everything complicated in Israel and Palestine including a completely encircling section of the wall, and it&#8217;s all being wrapped up in a potent brew of technology and training inspired by a slum in East Africa.</p>


guid: http://brainoff.com/weblog/?p=1674
url: http://brainoff.com/weblog/2011/05/05/1674
title: Doing
published: 2011-05-05 21:41:17
fetched: 2019-10-25 13:00:08.124280
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:39.837698
updated_at: 2019-10-25 13:00:08.232755
summary:
  The past few months have most entirely been about discussing, strategizing, arguing, planning. Really missing actually doing stuff. So I decided to ignore the emails, concepts notes, budgets, design documents. Build something. Just small things, but cool things. Makes me happy. On the OpenStreetMap site, the history tab is super important for keeping tabs on &#8230; <a href="http://brainoff.com/weblog/2011/05/05/1674" class="more-link">Continue reading<span class="screen-reader-text"> "Doing"</span></a>

content:
  <p>The past few months have most entirely been about discussing, strategizing, arguing, planning. Really missing actually doing stuff.</p>
  <p>So I decided to ignore the emails, concepts notes, budgets, design documents. Build something. Just small things, but cool things. Makes me happy. </p>
  <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikel_maron/5690947925/" title="osm-changesets by mikel_maron, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5229/5690947925_4da29dc744.jpg" width="500" height="419" alt="osm-changesets"></a></p>
  <p>On the OpenStreetMap site, the <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/history?bbox=-11.091%2C6.029%2C-10.394%2C6.587">history tab</a> is super important for keeping tabs on changes, but visually dull and hard to immediately parse. I added a map, with highlighting between the list and map views. <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/TomH">TomH</a> cleaned up the code and improved the layout. Basically, <a href="https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/commit/48929e8781f9c136a142400a7a2ef1cf994f74fd">just some javascript and view changes</a>, and I had to get my OSM installation up to date. Needs some tweaking, but a good start.</p>
  <p>I was pushed to do this by the <a href="http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Working_Group_Minutes/SWG_2011-04-29">Strategic Working Group</a>. We&#8217;re discussing the OSM front page and usability, going in circles, and realzing the only way forward was to just do some things, however minor, to iterate our discussion.</p>
  <p>Looking at the history tab, I realize there&#8217;s many ways to go in the realm of monitoring change. Make monitoring more interactive, customized to the places your care about, and the mappers you trust. There are a whole set of <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Quality_Assurance#Monitoring_Tools">external monitoring tools</a> and perhaps some of the tools, or the ideas, could be integrated. </p>
  <p><a name="kibera-1961"/><br />
  <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikel_maron/5690947919/" title="Kibera-1961 by mikel_maron, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5186/5690947919_a455af7e71.jpg" width="500" height="404" alt="Kibera-1961"></a></p>
  <p>That is Kibera in 1961. <a href="http://cube.telascience.org/kibera/aerial/">Choose &#8220;Nairobi 1961&#8221; from this map</a>. Really, just a preview, it&#8217;s going to blow people&#8217;s minds, especially with <a href="http://www.brianekdale.com/?p=230">Brian Ekdale&#8217;s concise history of Kibera</a>.</p>
  <p>Last year in Nairobi, I became aware of an amazing <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/33361176/Aagw2010-June-10-Paolo-Paron-Access-Hapa">archive of historic aerial imagery</a>, flown by the RAF, acquired over all the British Colonial possessions, several times over decades. The images were used for creating ordnance survey maps &#8230; but since then the original images have been sitting in various dusty basements, most recently Oxford. Paolo Paron has a plan to get it all openly online. But in the mean time, you have to go to Oxford, sort through boxes of square images, and request photographic copies. I had the chance to do this back in December, and it was wonderful. 1961 is 50 years ago, meaning these images are out of copyright!</p>
  <p>I receieved from Oxford eight largish tiff images. Seeking first to rectify them, I tried various incarnations of <a href="http://mapwarper.net/">map warper</a> (including a local version) but with 30 MB images, it was choking. Next I tried to find a desktop option, and found good results with <a href="http://qgis.org/">QGIS</a> georectification plugin. I stitched together 6 of the images, roughly (if I spent more time, would&#8217;ve adjusted the different brightness levels and try to align better the two North-South runs that covered Nairobi, one at a slight angle to another). Then loaded a shapefile of Kenya OSM into QGIS, set control points, and warped. Took the resulting GeoTiff onto the generous resource of <a href="http://cube.telascience.org/">hypercube</a>, warped the image to spherical mercator using gdalwarp, and after some hints from winkey and crschmidt on #telascience, &#8220;gdal_translate -expand rgb&#8221;, to take this single band image into RGB, which TileLayers seems to prefer.</p>
  <p>There&#8217;s a lot more to say about this image, and that&#8217;ll be built up in the upcoming new mapkibera.org site. And of course, there&#8217;s those 1.5 million time capsule images sitting in an Oxford basement to open up.</p>
  <p><a name="flow-liberia" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikel_maron/5690947911/" title="Flow-Liberia by mikel_maron, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5103/5690947911_085ba05b16.jpg" width="500" height="341" alt="Flow-Liberia"></a></p>
  <p>Friends of my mine from Nairobi, working for the World Bank, undertook a substantial data collection of all water distribution points in Liberia. Pretty interesting compare and contrast with community mapping. I was pinged about this on twitter by Ned of Water for People, who helped develop the Android/Appspot application for this data collection, called <a href="http://www.mobileactive.org/flow-where-mobile-tech-and-water-meet">FLOW</a>. My immediate response was that this should be open source and open data, so other people can do cool stuff with it. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/mikel.maron/posts/879075099358">Max took up the conversation and obliged</a> (as much as he could, the data license is still under discussion). So I had to respond and <a href="http://rockburger.com/flowliberia/">do something cool with the data</a>.</p>
  <p>The <a href="http://flowliberia.appspot.com/">flow web app</a> is ok, but a little clunky. It uses the Google Maps API, and with nearly 1000 markers, it loads slowly and interaction is tricky. So I wanted to try a <i>tile-based approach</i>, to improve the speed and visualization, and this seemed like the best opportunity to get into <a href="http://tilemill.com/">TileMill</a>, part of the <a href="http://mapbox.com/">MapBox toolset by Development Seed</a>. After going through the tools, I am extremely impressed with what DevSeed is building, and hope I can help out by finding good uses, digging up bugs, and contributing here and there.</p>
  <p>So I installed TileMill, updating mapnik in the process. Really nicely designed app, with laser focus on building nice tiles. One of the amazing features is <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/developmentseed/5640168265/in/photostream/">map interactivity</a>, which easily and efficiently turns input data sets into mouseover and infowindow bubbles. The trick it uses is <a href="http://trac.mapnik.org/wiki/MapnikRenderers#grid_renderer">grid renderer</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/springmeyer">Dane&#8217;s</a> extension to mapnik which builds tiled json files, used by the <a href="https://github.com/mapbox/wax">wax library</a> for OpenLayers (and ModestMaps, and GMaps) to define hit areas. Basically, much more efficient than creating markers.</p>
  <p>Finally, Dane showed me <a href="https://github.com/springmeyer/gridsforkids">gridsforkids</a>, a simple sandbox for building image and json tile sets for standalone, offline map apps. I had to grab the &#8220;.mml&#8221; file created by TileMill, have carto convert that to mapnik xml, and then use the custom generate_tiles.py to build everything. Found a small bug in how TMS is handled there, and had to hack in a few things for my data set, but it basically works (a few problems with the hit areas, still investigating). One way this could go is streamlining the process, where one of the outputs from TileMill was a tar ball bundling all the tools to run the map offline.</p>


guid: 1103 at http://www.dankarran.com
url: http://www.dankarran.com/blog/2014/09/adding-more-to-your-maps-with-marine-charts
title: Adding more to your maps with marine charts
published: 2014-09-19 19:02:22
fetched: 2019-07-02 14:30:07.801716
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:40.232636
updated_at: 2019-07-02 14:30:07.860164
summary:
  <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>I haven't posted a lot over the past year about what I've been working on, but I've spent a lot of time building a web application that tracks ships around the world using positions relayed by satellite. I'll post more on the project soon, but for now I just want to share one of the ways that we're improving the usefulness of the maps as part of this project. </p>
  <p>At their heart, the maps in the application are based on <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org">OpenStreetMap</a> data and satellite imagery from <a href="http://mapbox.com">MapBox</a>, but when your clients are mostly looking at their vessels in seas and oceans around the world, traditional web mapping data doesn't really give enough context. Marine charts can fill in those big blue gaps and aid with using the map.</p>
  <div class="photo"><img src="//www.dankarran.com/sites/dankarran.com/files/isleofman-withcharts-1024px.png" alt="Map of the Isle of Man with Marine Charts overlaid" /><br /><div class="caption">Map of the Isle of Man with Marine Charts overlaid<br /><small>Map data © OpenStreetMap &amp; MapBox, Marine charts © Crown Copyright, 2013. All Rights reserved. Licence no. EMS-EK001. Not to be used for navigation.</small></div>
  </div>
  <p><a href="http://www.marinefind.co.uk">MarineFIND</a> - with whom I've been working with to deliver this project - provide marine charts in various formats, including as a <a href="http://www.marinefind.co.uk/web-data-services/tms-raster-chart-service/">tile map service</a> or <a href="http://www.marinefind.co.uk/web-data-services/wms-raster-charts/">web map service</a> for clients who are looking to add charts to their own applications. The charts are made available either individually in their original form, or joined together to form an almost seamless detailed chart of the world. The combined chart layer cuts the landmass out, leaving them transparent, allowing the layer to be used on top of satellite imagery or other maps.</p>
  <div class="photo third left"><img src="//www.dankarran.com/sites/dankarran.com/files/amsterdam-mapbox-charts.png" /><br /><div class="caption">Map label overlay</div>
  </div>
  <div class="photo third right"><img src="//www.dankarran.com/sites/dankarran.com/files/amsterdam-satellite-charts.png" /><br /><div class="caption">Satellite labelling solution</div>
  </div>
  <p>Combining two raster datasets - the merged charts and the OpenStreetMap maps - into a single map causes some issues when it comes to labelling. Especially around coastal areas, labels from OpenStreetMap may be obscured when overlaying the marine charts.</p>
  <p>This can be overcome to some extent by showing the charts as semi-opaque (see left), but for the satellite data we found another way of doing it (see right). Starting with an unlabelled satellite imagery layer from MapBox (which can be coloured to your liking), we then add the marine charts, and finally a separate MapBox Streets layer showing just line data and labels, meaning that any overlapping labels will be shown on top of the charts as expected.</p>
  <p>If you want to find out more about using charts for your own applications, please feel free to <a href="http://www.dankarran.com/contact">get in touch</a>, or <a href="http://www.marinefind.co.uk/about-us/contact/">contact MarineFIND</a> for information about licensing.</p>
  </div></div></div>


guid: 1101 at http://www.dankarran.com
url: http://www.dankarran.com/blog/2013/09/kaart-cheerey-manx-language-world-map
title: Kaart Çheerey - a Manx language map of the world
published: 2013-09-01 20:00:00
fetched: 2019-07-02 14:30:07.801716
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:40.236003
updated_at: 2019-07-02 14:30:07.863731
summary:
  <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="photo half right">
  <a href="http://kaart.im"><img src="http://www.dankarran.com/sites/dankarran.com/files/kaart-cheerey-europe.jpg" alt="Kaart Çheerey - a Manx language map of the world" /></a>
  <div class="caption">A Manx language map of the world - <a href="http://kaart.im">kaart.im</a></div>
  </div>
  <p>The month of September has been renamed to <a href="http://maptember.org">Maptember</a> this year because of the number of geographic conferences that are going on. With the thought of a month of maps ahead, I decided to make a new map: a Manx language map of the world. </p>
  <p>The map - known as a <em>kaart çheerey</em> in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manx_language">Manx</a> - displays continents, countries and oceans that have been documented on the <a href="http://gv.wikipedia.org">Manx language Wikipedia</a> and visualises them as a browsable map which can be accessed at <strong><a href="http://kaart.im">kaart.im</a></strong>.</p>
  <p>My great grandparents were some of the last native speakers of the Manx language, and the language lost its last native speaker in 1974. In an effort to re-introduce the language to the island, Manx has been taught in schools on the Isle of Man since at least the early 1990s. Some children on the island are brought up as native Manx speakers (in addition to English) at the only Manx language school, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunscoill_Ghaelgagh">Bunscoill Ghaelgagh</a>. Manx translations can often be seen on road signs and other official signage, and can be heard on radio broadcasts and at the annual <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tynwald_Day">Tynwald Day</a> ceremony.</p>
  <p>I learned a bit of Manx at school, though not much of it has stuck with me. Because of that, I struggled a little to find all the names I wanted from the Manx Wikipedia, and I ended up simply searching for each country and seeing what was returned as the top result (or near the top). Often the names resemble the English version - especially if read out in a bit of a Manx accent - so it was usually obvious which article referred to the country. For example, Germany becomes <em><a href="http://gv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yn_Ghermaan">Yn Ghermaan</a></em>, Finland becomes <em><a href="http://gv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnlynn">Finnlynn</a></em> and Canada becomes <em><a href="http://gv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yn_Chanadey">Yn Chanadey</a></em>. Some smaller island nations didn't appear to have articles about them, but that there was an article for most countries in the world still struck me as quite impressive, for a language that is spoken fluently by such a small number of people.</p>
  <p>The cartography on <a href="http://kaart.im">kaart.im</a> could do with some tweaks still, but hopefully the map will be useful for anyone curious about this language from the heart of the British Isles. If you see any mistakes on the map, please let me know in the comments.</p>
  <p>I'll likely be tweeting geographic things more often than usual this month <a href="http://twitter.com/dankarran">@dankarran</a> and may blog a little about the <a href="http://www.soc.org.uk/soc2013">Society of Cartographers</a> and <a href="http://2013.foss4g.org">FOSS4G</a> conferences that I'll be attending as well.</p>
  </div></div></div>


guid: 1100 at http://www.dankarran.com
url: http://www.dankarran.com/blog/2013/04/os-openspace-api
title: A look at the OS OpenSpace API
published: 2013-04-19 23:20:00
fetched: 2019-07-02 14:30:07.801716
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:11:40.238489
updated_at: 2019-07-02 14:30:07.866168
summary:
  <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><div class="photo half right">
  <img src="http://www.dankarran.com/sites/dankarran.com/files/overview-1.jpg" alt="OS OpenSpace Overview map" /><div class="caption">OS OpenSpace Overview map (© Crown Copyright)</div>
  </div>
  <p>This week I've spent a bit of time trying out the <a href="http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/web-services/os-openspace/api/index.html">Ordnance Survey OpenSpace</a> web mapping API for one of the projects I'm working on, and thought it'd be good to share some initial thoughts on it. </p>
  <p>OpenSpace provides free access to a selection of Ordnance Survey maps for use in web projects. It was first released in 2008 as a way for non-commercial projects to use OS mapping, but has since widened its remit to allow commercial services to use the maps as well.</p>
  <p>For a number of reasons, the OpenSpace API is different to other APIs I've worked with, and I think most of those differences are due to the fact that the API is produced by a national mapping agency rather than an international community or a corporation with international interests. In contrast to the other APIs that usually have at least some level of international mapping, you see at first glance with the OpenSpace overview map that it is focused solely on the United Kingdom.</p>
  <p>This initial map, showing a shaded terrain view of the UK, ends just west of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, leaving the west coast of Ireland off the map completely. The rest of the world is just white pixels (no dragons!). Looking at this map, I can't help but feel that filling the space surrounding the UK with a bit of sea and at least basic land outlines would help with initial impressions.</p>
  <p>As you zoom in to the map, you get served an OS map product most suited to each zoom level, from overview maps all the way down to maps that show simplified building outlines (see the <a href="https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/support/web-services/about-os-openspace-layers-and-services.html">list of layers</a> for details). Each of the map products usually shows for two or three zoom levels before switching to a more appropriate one. </p>
  <p>As the maps have been built over the years as discreet products, each one has its own distinctive style that was designed for a particular purpose (e.g. navigating the motorway network, finding your way around cities, or walking in the countryside), and was usually designed to be used as a print product rather than on-screen. Some of the newer products and layers in the OpenSpace API have been built specifically for the digital age as maps come to be used differently than in the past.</p>
  <div class="photo-row clearfix">
  <div class="photo third left">
  <img src="http://www.dankarran.com/sites/dankarran.com/files/overview-2.jpg" alt="OS OpenSpace Overview map" /><div class="caption">Overview map (© Crown Copyright)</div>
  </div>
  <div class="photo third left">
  <img src="http://www.dankarran.com/sites/dankarran.com/files/miniscale.jpg" alt="OS MiniScale map" /><div class="caption">MiniScale (© Crown Copyright)</div>
  </div>
  <div class="photo third left last">
  <img src="http://www.dankarran.com/sites/dankarran.com/files/250k.jpg" alt="OS 1:250k map" /><div class="caption">1:250,000 map (© Crown Copyright)</div>
  </div>
  </div>
  <p>To me, the overview layers don't feel like they have been thought out as well as you might expect from a national mapping agency, with place name labelling appearing on the second and third zoom levels in a way that doesn't look very visually appealing, along with the cut-off edges that I mentioned earlier. Zoom in beyond those layers though, and you see the nice <a href="http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/products/miniscale/index.html">MiniScale</a> map which is, as described by the OS, a clear and uncluttered national map. After a couple of levels of the MiniScale map, you switch to the <a href="http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/products/250k-raster/index.html">1:250,000</a> map that's designed to show towns, major roads, railway stations, and some places of interest. In London and other cities it can be quite overpowering, but elsewhere it can give a good overview.</p>
  <div class="photo-row clearfix">
  <div class="photo third left">
  <img src="http://www.dankarran.com/sites/dankarran.com/files/50k.jpg" alt="OS 1:50,000 map" /><div class="caption">1:50,000 map (© Crown Copyright)</div>
  </div>
  <div class="photo third left">
  <img src="http://www.dankarran.com/sites/dankarran.com/files/vectormap.jpg" alt="OS Vectormap District map" /><div class="caption">VectorMap District (© Crown Copyright)</div>
  </div>
  <div class="photo third left last">
  <img src="http://www.dankarran.com/sites/dankarran.com/files/streetview.jpg" alt="OS StreetView map" /><div class="caption">StreetView map (© Crown Copyright)</div>
  </div>
  </div>
  <p>The <a href="http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/products/50k-raster/index.html">1:50,000 map</a> was designed as a printed map for leisure use. It looks good in cities and is like a work of art in rural areas. It's the last of the print-focused map layers before switching to map products that were designed specifically for the web. <a href="http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/products/os-vectormap-district/index.html">VectorMap District</a> is a background map that you can overlay your own information on without it being drowned out by bright colours and too much information. The <a href="http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/products/os-streetview/index.html">StreetView</a> layer isn't as subtle but also leaves enough space to visualise your own information on top of.</p>
  <p>Overall, there's a lot of variation between each of these map products, so combining them into a zoomable map doesn't create the seamless user experience that other online maps aim to. This may be something that improves over time, but as a set of products that are available freely as part of <a href="http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/products/os-opendata.html">OS OpenData</a> they don't directly make money for the Ordnance Survey, so progress may be slow.</p>
  <p>I'm still planning to use OS OpenSpace for the project I'm working on, but I'll likely be using only a few of the more detailed layers that are suitable for background mapping, and custom building some less detailed, lighter maps for the smaller scales.</p>
  <p>If you want to browse the OpenSpace maps, I've put together a quick <a href="http://geobits.co.uk/maps/osopenspace/">OS OpenSpace map</a> page over on the Geobits site.</p>
  </div></div></div>


