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95 posts total
Mohd

One of the place data from Overture Map dataset: "my room, my place to catch some z's"

Mohd

US' TIGER data is apparently published by the US Census Bureau (with a ® too).

Mohd

I knew I was falling so behind - the Department of Statistics Malaysia apparently has an official dataset of administrative boundaries... maybe time to write something asking them if it's okay to use these precious data to improve OSM (their website says all published data in their repo is open source - licensing is holy moly legalese beast)

Mohd

"Beach resorts in the middle of nowhere consisting of tight neighbourhood of housing estates, according to Overture Maps Foundation data"

*surprised Pikachu face*

openstreetmap.org/user/UndueMa

Mohd

Mapbox showcased their map product with the Papyrus font. Yes. Papyrus font.

Mohd

The only group of people apparently that have access to Maxar's imagery is likely the Apple Data Team (by any other word, people at Kaart, getting contracted by Apple - my word) - probably Apple paid for the freshest imagery (maybe Kaart has led the way). They're using Maxar's SecureWatch.

(Thanks, both? Yeah!)

Mohd

Apple: satellite data
Maxar: ok
Apple: money?
Maxar: yes
Apple: there

Mohd

Yikes... there's good data but the bad data (shuttered businesses, misplaced points, dupes) is probably in magnitudes greater than that of good stuff

en.osm.town/@amapanda/11079205

Mohd

Google Maps is actually adverts placed on a map. Sooooo... Bob's your uncle!

en.osm.town/@harry_wood/110791

Mohd

Some entities paid for it, but some or more of them are crowd-serfed ... uhm ... *cough* contributed through crowdsourcing. Without exchange of labour! For the greater good! Making Alphabet money from thin air!

Mohd

Also, what's up with "paying Apple for map services"? Yes, one could (see DuckDuckGo) but some news outlets and/or reporters conveniently left out Esri (duh, they're like, getting monies straight from government contracts), and probably Bing (to an extent).

Mohd

Initially it's the Daylight Map Distribution (of Meta). We'll have to see its evolution with time...

Mohd

MapmyIndia's Mappls (map please? IDK) apparently uses OpenStreetMap to display stuff outside their home country (India) - but without attribution 😣

Their slippy map unsurprisingly renders residential landuses (looking at you Mapbox) though...

Mohd

Place/street names in other languages

I do remember once that OSM mappers don't have to really translate name of everything in other languages per this wiki wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Na

At least up until this moment, it's not something desirable due to ground truth (probably impossible to verify in real life).

I'm still not doing that, unless there's an explicit sign displaying such. For example, a popular street in London, UK - Oxford Street has only street name in English.

Place/street names in other languages

I do remember once that OSM mappers don't have to really translate name of everything in other languages per this wiki wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Na

At least up until this moment, it's not something desirable due to ground truth (probably impossible to verify in real life).

Mohd

Gerrard Street, however, has a Chinese name because it's on a sign put up by the local council (London's Chinatown) openstreetmap.org/way/4082553
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil

There's a Japanese translation though - is it necessary? I don't think so.

(Thoughts are welcome)

Mohd

Map what you actually like is the best method to avoid mapping burnouts

openstreetmap.org/user/CactiSt

Mohd

Ah well...

so long and probably thanks for all the fish?

At least there's Esri, Bing, Mapbox, etc (don't forget municipals with progressive data sharing policies with respect to OpenStreetMap)

DigitalGlobe/Maxar (2016-2023)

Mohd

Oh. 10 years of contributing towards OpenStreetMap and almost 5 years on this instance...

거윈

@AkuAnakTimur

Thank you for your awesome edits! 🥳 I hope you're still having fun.

CJ Malone

@AkuAnakTimur well isn't that something...

I wonder if that's causing any issues on the backend.

Mohd

Geographical name conundrum:

the narrow strait between Penang island and mainland Peninsular Malaysia

Excuse me, since when it bears the name "Penang Strait"?!

Mohd

When I was 10 or something, the Malaysian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire (WWTBAM) even has asked a question about it. This was c.2000 CE.

It's no single strait - in fact one WWTBAM question did mention that there's a "North Channel" (Selat Utara) and "South Channel" (Selat Selatan). Of course - relative to the main island.

edited Strait to Channel

Mohd

Finally I took a jump, contacting the National Library of Australia (through their "Ask A Librarian" ASPX page, whoa ASPX - you definitely need to turn on the Internet Explorer mode on Edge)... about using out-of-copyright maps of pre-independence Malaysia (were British protectorates/colonies) in their collection; to improve OSM in parts of Malaysia.

It was a "yes" but it's Friday night over here and it was a busy week.

Mohd

Tag abuse or known as mapping for the renderer or by any other words, forcing the map to display the desired features when in reality it is something else - is really rampant. Sigh.

Mohd

In Malaysia, some parts of highway is mapped as "under construction" for some purposely built slip roads (ramps) and was intended to be disused until future related highways will connect to these slip roads. 🤷

The map data is already there (mapped as disused:*= tags), but some other(s) deliberately changed these certain slips roads just to display it on OpenStreetMap.org. Why? Who knows.

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