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Ilya Zverev

@zverik @simon @amapanda @Melaskia @IvanSanchez @luis_in_brief

This reflects, as much as anything, that #OpenStreetMap is tech dominated. I've been advocating that we try and move away from such narratives for a long time :

"Let’s work so that ordinary folk can actively participate in OpenStreetMap. Geographic knowledge is a universal, we must step away from the techy focus of the first 10 years."

From @opencage interview NINE 9️⃣ years ago! blog.opencagedata.com/post/117

@zverik @simon @amapanda @Melaskia @IvanSanchez @luis_in_brief

This reflects, as much as anything, that #OpenStreetMap is tech dominated. I've been advocating that we try and move away from such narratives for a long time :

"Let’s work so that ordinary folk can actively participate in OpenStreetMap. Geographic knowledge is a universal, we must step away from the techy focus of the first 10 years."

Ilya Zverev

@amapanda @Melaskia @zverik @IvanSanchez @luis_in_brief

My hypothesis is that making things easier also reduces the value of leaning how to contribute and makes the whole thing less of a rewarding pastime.

There are naturally similar scenarios in all areas of human endeavour.

Simon Poole

@amapanda @Melaskia @zverik @IvanSanchez @luis_in_brief

Back on the maintenance topic.

There has been this concept that this would be done by the drive by contributors that the "simple" tools are targeted at, and while that can't be completely dismissed, just the volume and nature of what has to be maintained would suggest that that is not going to happen.

Just consider that it isn't really #OpenStreetMap these days ...

Ilya Zverev

@simon @amapanda @Melaskia @IvanSanchez @luis_in_brief That is actually an excellent point! Because "contributing to OSM" is a non-goal, much like "reading a book" or "caring for the environment".

A goal needs to be achievable (e.g. medals in StreetComplete) and social (so that a person gets some praise). Missing Maps events got that quite right.

For me, OSM is kinda like pokemon: I like to collect everything. That's why @everydoor is like this: clunky but super effective at a scale.

Ilya Zverev

@Melaskia @zverik @IvanSanchez this is why I love apps like @streetcomplete and @everydoor. They're highlighting another level of #OpenStreetMap and making it much easier for people (incl me) to add that data.

There are many types of data, where we are far from complete

Simon Poole

@amapanda @Melaskia @zverik @IvanSanchez @luis_in_brief

Since I've had anything to do with OSM, a good 15 years, enabling low barriers to entry has been the dominating mantra, and there have been wide variety of apps doing exactly that.

They do not drive long term engagement any better than the web based browser iD, and actually most of them are so much worse at doing that, that we are not really doing OSM a service by directing people to them. ...

Ilya Zverev

Good news: @qgis have just announced the winning grant proposals, and one of the projects that got the money was "Mitigate Abusive Tile Fetching on @openstreetmap ." This was an issue, and I'm glad it's getting the funding and attention.

blog.qgis.org/2024/05/01/qgis-

[DATA EXPUNGED]
Ilya Zverev

@migurski @zverik @woodpeck @openstreetmap Which leads to the *ethos* of the issue at hand: What do we want OSM(F) to be; what should OSM(F) be?

It can be a crowdsourcing tool so that US-based corps can extract value out of it.

Or it can be a GIS playground so that anarchist hackers can play around and invent new things.

I do not think it can be those two things at once.

And I'll choose anarchist hackers over US corps, any day.

Ilya Zverev

📄 Some good news to kick off the month: the deadline for proposal application has been extended to 31st of May!
That's a whole month more to think about the ideas you could mesmerise other community members at the next State of the Map Europe.
Apply now, and see you there!
cfp.openstreetmap.org.pl/state

#SOTMEU #SOTMEU2024 #StateoftheMapEurope #OSM #OpenStreetMap

📄 Some good news to kick off the month: the deadline for proposal application has been extended to 31st of May!
That's a whole month more to think about the ideas you could mesmerise other community members at the next State of the Map Europe.
Apply now, and see you there!
cfp.openstreetmap.org.pl/state

A graphic with organiser's logos and the following text above:
State of the Map Europe 2024
Call for the Papers! Time extended to 31 May.
Send your ideas!
Ilya Zverev

@sotmeu Excellent — this morning I realized I forgot to submit my talk!

Ilya Zverev

@zverik @migurski @simon Quincy was great at his job, is pretty much universally loved, and is great at interacting with the community. He left for personal reasons.

Ilya Zverev

@grischard @migurski @simon If that's not the case, I'm happy to be found wrong!

Ilya Zverev

@zverik FWIW, open source foundations talk amongst themselves all the time, including on a mailing list that has been active for over a decade.

OSMF has, for various reasons (some good, some bad), never really actively participated in that conversation (either online or IRL).

(This is not to defend LF, who are not always great partners either, though for different reasons.)

Ilya Zverev

This sentiment is such a recurring sentiment for so many people who try to work in good faith with open communities. That sucks.
mastodon.social/@migurski/1123

Show previous comments
Cat Hicks

@luis_in_brief uh yeah and the fact that people are honestly so scared to talk really honestly about this should tell us something

Simon Poole

@luis_in_brief do I really need to dig out all the relevant material? Essentially all the friction was due to dev egos and the abuse was the other way around.

Luis Villa

@grimalkina drops a follow up thought that I will be thinking about for a long time mastodon.social/@grimalkina/11

Ilya Zverev

@simon @zverik The Mapbox staff doing the work at the time described how difficult it was to work with the community: enduring abuse, devoting time for psychological recovery, limiting time spent on the project, and swiftly exiting it once minimum deliverables were complete. Source: talks from team members ca. 2014, not recorded. Great software came out of it, but also a general understanding that the OSMF can’t support this kind of work.

Ilya Zverev

@migurski @simon Yeah I remember how Quincy was hired by OSMF to support iD, he tried and then noped out. Can't imagine how it is.

Ilya Zverev

@zverik actually Mapbox back then was a good example of how a symbiotic relationship with a commercial entity can work to the benefit of both sides.

Mapbox repeated what they had already done with Tilemill to kickstart the company enough that they could really get going. It was clear that this wouldn't fly without buy in from the OSMF and OSM at large, and they talked to the OSMF and once the grant was awarded the work on both the website and iD was done not against, but with the community.

Michal Migurski 🍉

@simon @zverik The Mapbox staff doing the work at the time described how difficult it was to work with the community: enduring abuse, devoting time for psychological recovery, limiting time spent on the project, and swiftly exiting it once minimum deliverables were complete. Source: talks from team members ca. 2014, not recorded. Great software came out of it, but also a general understanding that the OSMF can’t support this kind of work.

Ilya Zverev

Kidpix the Early Years: red-green-blue.com/kid-pix-the
this is inspiring reading. it’s worth sharing every time i see it!
“Since I was going to give the program away I decided I could design it exactly the way I wanted. These were its guiding principles:…”

Ilya Zverev

@ian @zverik That lost decade was a key ingredient: those of us who’ve moved through these companies working on OSM-adjacent things kept hearing the same stuff in our informal chats over the years, like “oh yeah they’re trying to figure that out at the fruit company too but nobody’s allowed to share notes unless we create an exec-approved structure to do it in” … this is what LF is for.

Ilya Zverev

What I think happened when @linuxfoundation took Overture Maps:

Companies and foundations want to support OpenStreetMap. They see the huge community and the impact we make to the world. Foundations were made to support projects like ours.

But.

We already have a foundation. OSM Foundation.

They rightfully expect OSMF to support project grows, that is, to support mappers and communitiy and tools for editing and validation. Tools that would make Niantic stuff easily identifiable and revertable.

Ilya Zverev

Nobody in OSMF asked to be part of LF. And we shouldn't. Foundations usually don't talk among themselves (I guess?)

So there is another group. For packaging data for consumers and promoting open geodata to businesses. On a scale never seen before. They needed a foundation, and LF stepped in.

Why wouldn't they? It open data. Participating companies have a good track record in supporting open source. Bringing open data to more people — what's not to like? OM competes with Google, not OSM.

Frederik Ramm

@zverik I think what happened is that companies and foundations wanted some sort of "handle" on OSM and didn't understand OSM enough so they had to stuff it into a box they could understand. A box that is not a movement but a proper corporate entity they can deal with. Something with a big budget, lots of employees, and a leader you can put pressure on. It is possible that the OSMF could have pre-empted that by becoming such a corporate entity. It would have been a capitulation.

Simon Poole

@zverik @linuxfoundation quoting myself:

"It needs to be pointed out that if the OMF founders were actually doing this for the good of humanity, they could have simply open sourced their validation tool chains and financed the OSMF running them.

But they didn’t."

Ilya Zverev

So the median number of games owned for Nintendo Switch is 50, and the average is 83.

Looking at my library of 230 games (90 completed)... I didn't want to be a gamer, but I guess...

Ilya Zverev

5.0-beta1 is out! Finally I see E-P for estonian opening hours :)

github.com/Zverik/every_door/r

Please test the drawing mode! See the wiki page with instructions for other editors: wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Ge

Expect the production release next week! I'll try making a short video on using the new mode properly.

Rihards Olups

@everydoor Had to look this up, but I guess it's "esmaspäev" for Monday.

What's P? At least Google Translate gives "reede[l]" for Friday.

Ilya Zverev

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 Overture (for substantial amounts of money), but its customers continue to vandalize OSM, burning lots of volunteer time at multiple levels.

community.openstreetmap.org/t/

Ilya Zverev

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

A puzzle which shows a map of Ghent. The neighbourhoods are labeled.
It has a title in the top-left, saying 'Gentse Wijken en buurten' (Neighbourgoods of Ghent), wit attribution to me and OpenStreetMap
Harry Wood

@pietervdvn @protomaps Nice! Probably more sensible than the 1000 peice beast I went for, although you've done a rendering (or zoom level) without street labels which must've made it harder!

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