OpenStreetMap is powered by thousands of volunteers. But a special thanks to the Data Working Group volunteers, who have done excellent work at countering the recent wave of vandalism in OSM. 👏👏👏
AddisMapTransit has mapped over 2,300 public transport stops and 443 routes in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 🇪🇹 . These routes were then converted from OSM to standardised open transport data (GTFS) and submitted to the DigitalTransport4Africa repository. ( 🙏 @weeklyOSM for the write-up)
OpenStreetMap is a map that everyone can edit and improve, and that's how we've created the best map of the world. 😍 🗺 💪 🥇
Alas, some people just want to vandalise things 😭. If you've seen weird things on the map (e.g. lots of crossing white lines), that could be vandalism. Here's what to do if you see this:
The OpenStreetMap project strives to make the best, freely licenced map of the world for everyone, available for free. We provide the alternative to the handful of massive global corporations.
If you really want to get upset about something going on in open source / open data space, I would suggest considering Niantic.
After years of refusing any communication with #OpenStreetMap, not to mention -any- kind of support. Niantic joined the Linux Foundations @linuxfoundation Overture (for substantial amounts of money), but its customers continue to vandalize OSM, burning lots of volunteer time at multiple levels.
I wanted to learn the names of the neighbourhoods in #Ghent, so I made me a #puzzle. I added the neighbourhoods in #OpenStreetMap , then made a custom theme in #MapComplete and use the 'export as PNG'-functuon. The background is a modified stylesheet for @protomaps
I am doing some #OpenStreetMap updates in rural Brandenburg, Germany. And I have been reading about water shortage and lowering groundwater levels for a few years. But I never imaged how well one can see the change in the aerial imagery of the last couple of years…
📬 You've got mail! Germany's national postal service (Deutsche Post/DHL) has switched to OpenStreetMap for their public facing websites, https://deutschepost.de, https://dhl.de. 🎉🥳🎊🎁
Hard to overstate how enshittified and botshitted Google Maps has become. Went looking for my local locksmith on Gmaps. Maps shows 20+ fake locksmith referral scam outlets and doesn't even register the real locksmith, despite it being fully visible in Street View.
Instead, a red pin on the shop identifies it as a fake locksmith scammer. The real locksmith - which has been there SINCE 1942 (!!) and is a verified merchant - doesn't even show up.
Also, sadly, #OpenStreetMap's default search tool seems to search for names but not categories, so even though that feature is tagged as shop=locksmith, it doesn't show up if I search for "locksmith burbank" only for "lock burbank" because "lock" is in the name.
Ouch. A large OpenStreetMap group has been using a proprietary chat platform as a community space for ~10 yrs. Now they gotta pay a $80k/yr (or $10k??) for usage. 🤯😱😢
Slack (now Salesforce) now wants to charge @OpenStreetMapUS for all ~6k users on their server. 😢😢 Ouch.
This sort of bait & switch is why open, community owned platforms (like this!) are vital!