From February 21th to April 23th I spend 192 extra hours on iD and iD tagging schema, thanks to funding from OpenStreetMap Foundation. This grant is now complete and I want to report on progress made thanks to it.

And I want to also thank for other help:

• Kyℓe Hensel (k-yle) and Martin Raifer (tyrasd) for multiple meetings to process found PRs/issues (as some actions required consultations or can be taken only by maintainers)
• authors of pull requests, for preparing code - I also want to thank all people who made good faith contributions but where PR were either sadly closed without merge for some reason (or are not yet processed at all - sadly many are still waiting)
• authors of various useful issues
• people who provided feedback by reviewing - github, on forums
• special thanks for language advise to Brian Sperlongano (ZeLonewolf) and Minh Nguyễn (1ec5) and others
• everyone else who helped

Here is list of pull requests and issues that were processed during that time, with very limited commentary. I will post also report on forums with more commentary and without detailed listing of issues and PRs.

I want to mention also that substantial design and review work was spend on schema builder to unblock its release. Work on including relation structure knowledge into tagging schema[1][2] took hours, but is not listed below as this PRs are not yet merged. Though it is getting closer now that blocker was resolved.

Disclaimer: I took these notes while working and looked over for mistakes before publishing (fixing some), but I have not tripple checked everything. If you see a mistake, please let me know.

I tested and reviewed this changes prepared by others, recommended changes to be merged and it was followed by maintainers:

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It is one year since I was elected to OSMF board.

I am recording time spend on some things, including time spend on things resulting from being on OSMF board.

So I can report that since 2022-12-09 it was 355 hours.

It records time spend on what I do as result of being on OSMF board. So it excludes for example time spend on mapping and StreetComplete development. And it includes time on some things that I could complete without being on OSMF board like some attribution-related activities - that I do as result of being on OSMF board.

I have seen on tagging mailing list and some other places claims that deprecated tagging schemes continuing to be used are a critical issue.

I also have seen claims that having two tags with the same meaning is a critical issue that cause very big problems.

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In my experience as mapper, someone working on OSM editors, someone working with OSM data:

Deprecated tagging schemes continuing to be used are not a big problem or a serious issue.

There are some tags that should be never used ( osm.wiki/Key:class:bicycle is a good example of something that is pure waste of time, see for example https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/issues/2210#issuecomment-726974964 ).

But pointless tags can be completely ignored if they are truly bad ideas.

Note that popular tag which is not fundamentally bad idea and someone wishes to get rid of them is just regular duplicated tag for basically all purposes.

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Duplicated tags with the same meaning.

For data consumer it is not a big issue. It is a bit annoying, but as long as new tags do not keep appearing then simple alias solves approximately all the problems.

It can be described as a problem but is definitely not in top 10 issues for data consumer. Maybe not even in top 50.

And is basically eliminated by decent documentation, if one exists at OSM Wiki.

For implementing it in editor - it depends on an exact case and definitely can be annoying.

But the worst part is case when group A demands to deprecate one tag, and group B demands to deprecate tag B. Or when one group accuses someone of being destructive because they followed documentation/consensus that documented some tag as deprecated/not deprecated and situation suddenly changed and another group appeared.

Overall this is quite ironic: people wishing to deprecate, rename, change tags often argue to be doing it to help data consumers.

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osm.wiki/Editor_usage_stats has some interesting parts for 2021

• iD use continues to increase by percent (both edited objects and distinct users)
• iD by number of distinct users dropped from all-time-height in 2021
  • end of lockdowns? OSM slowing down? 2018 to 2019 also dropped, this year JOSM edit volume went from 996 million to 905 million edits
• JOSM still used for over 50% of all contributed edits by objects
• StreetComplete is the second most popular editor (by number of distinct users), usage almost doubled
• StreetComplete is still almost not noticeable by edited object volume - 0.8%
  • but last year it was 0.3%, it tripled to 12 million edits
• failed import and its revert is the second most popular editor, by count of edited objects
  • 1.5% of all edits in 2021
  • https://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?pid=760818#p760818 is an example of what was imported
• new editors: Organic Maps
  • ok, “new” as it is MAPS.ME fork
  • and that failed Finland forest import
• MAPS.ME continues to die, also as an OSM editor

StreetComplete is an application allowing to contribute to OSM by answering simple question. It makes possible to contribute without learning about tagging schemes and without learning how to handle interface of more general editor like JOSM, iD or Vespucci.

I contributed to StreetComplete in past. Recently I received a grant that will allow me to spend more time on improving it.

Grant is funded by a NLnet as part of NGI Zero grants. StretComplete grant is mentioned by NLnet at https://nlnet.nl/thema/NGIZeroDiscovery.html and https://nlnet.nl/project/StreetComplete/ pages. It will allow me to spend far more time on improving StreetComplete.

I will participate in project as usual, sending pull requests that will be reviewed and accepted (or rejected) by StreetComplete author, Tobias Zwick and minor changes commited directly (and still subject as review).

Note that I selected topics of work to be done (based mostly on open issues on the bug tracker) on my own, and it was accepted without any requested changes. I am sole beneficiary of the grant.

Total grant will depend on how much I will manage to do before deadline.

See osm.org/user/Mateusz%20Konieczny/diary/368849 for earlier, very similar entry.

I created osm.wiki/NLnet and submitted it OSM weekly as it seems to me that other OSM projects also may be funded.

I made https://mapsaregreat.com/osm_to_svg_in_browser/ that can be used to generate vector maps in SVG format.

Generated maps can be downloaded. This allows much easier reuse of OSM data in some cases. For example where someone needs OSM geometries of relatively small area, but existing tools are too complex for them[0]

It will likely work well for tiny and small areas, it will definitely fail for very large areas.

It is very experimental, feedback is welcomed!

https://github.com/matkoniecz/lunar_assembler/issues has list of known issues and is best place to report existing issues, but feel free to simply leave comments also here.

I am also working on making easier to make own map styles. It is already relatively easy, but documentation is missing.

[0] For many people Overpass Turbo, databases, filtering OSM data will be far too complex.

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StreetComplete is an application allowing to contribute to OSM by answering simple question. It makes possible to contribute without learning about tagging schemes and without learning how to handle interface of more general editor like JOSM, iD or Vespucci.

I contributed to StreetComplete in past. Recently I received a grant that will allow me to spend more time on improving it.

Grant is funded by a NLnet as part of NGI Zero grants. StretComplete grant is mentioned by NLnet at https://nlnet.nl/thema/NGIZeroDiscovery.html and https://nlnet.nl/project/StreetComplete/ pages. It will allow me to spend far more time on improving StreetComplete.

I will participate in project as usual, sending pull requests that will be reviewed and accepted (or rejected) by StreetComplete author, Tobias Zwick.

Note that I selected topics of work to be done (based mostly on open issues on the bug tracker) and that Tobias who will review pull requests remains completely independent - I am sole beneficiary of the grant.

Total grant was 5000 euro.

I have written a short text about what people are doing in OSM. I am curious whatever others would use the same taxonomy.

OpenStreetMap is a large decentralised project. There are thousands of people who participate for various reasons.

Mappers, people mapping the world are the most important group. They collect various information and enter it into the OpenStreetMap database - for example location of playgrounds, shapes of forests, routes of hiking trails, street names and many more.

But to make it possible it is necessary to maintain various software and hardware. It includes creating and improving editor programs used by mappers, maintaining OpenStreetMap servers and website.

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During making documentation of OSM tools and software it is frequently useful to add screenshots. Especially tutorials are often featuring multiple ones. I always disliked that such images are frequently getting outdated. It may caused by interface changes, map style changes and edits to OSM data.

Sometimes it requires more significant update of documentation, sometimes updating images is enough. But it may be very time-consuming.

When I was making my Overpass Turbo Tutorial for newbies* I wanted to find a way to make such images easy to recreate.

I found an interesting solution. Selenium is a software usually used for testing websites. It has plenty of features but interesting here is is that one may write a simple script that will

• open a website
• wait for it to load
• take a screeenshot

This way it may be possible to generate and recreate screenshots without manually taking them.

There is plenty of way how Selenium may be used, I am using Python bindings connected to Firefox using geckodriver.

Time-saving code is relatively simple.

imports:

from selenium import webdriver
import time
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC

Lets say that I wanted an example of a simple website. This code will take a picture of googling results and save it to a specified file.

driver.get('https://duckduckgo.com/?q=wetland+OSM+Wiki&ia=web')
driver.save_screenshot('wetland-search-results.png')

Following code sample will modify vieport size and interact with page to hide irritating banners, then take a picture of site (note that such use is also subject of Tile Usage Policy like other automated tile downloading, but for regular tutorial updates use will be not higher than human doing the same):

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Fortunately I am typically editing area that is not a victim of landuse imports.

Unfortunately today I am trying to fix area affected by at least two landuse imports

As bonus, one is using mysterious undocumented CLC:code, CLC:shapeId tags that are not documented anywhere and it is not clear what one should do with them on modifying and merging areas with them.

Is there anywhere at least one large-scale import of landuse data that was done properly?

I invite everybody interested in

• using data wikidata to add more data to OSM
• fixing wikipedia tags
• fixing wikidata tags

I would be happy to generate reports for your local area. It is possible to generate report about specific region (and I know that many people are interested primarily in fixing area they know well). Example report is at https://matkoniecz.github.io/OSM-wikipedia-tag-validator-reports/Bremen,%20Deutschland.html (full list of locations with currently available reports is at https://matkoniecz.github.io/OSM-wikipedia-tag-validator-reports/ )

Feedback is welcomed, especially from people who looked at the site and decided to not use it - what went wrong? Also feedback from people using reports would be useful.

I already added and improved how reports work based on requests. For example, I added overpass querries usable in JOSM that skip already fixed objects.

This tool is likely to be useful - it was already used to improve thousands of objects in Poland - special thanks go to wmyrda, rmikke who fixed massive amount of objects (thanks also to everybody else who used this reports).

This is the first part of comparing openstreetmap-carto and other map styles. Note that comparison is focused on finding things that may be improved in openstreetmap-carto.

Relief data

All maps in my basic sample turned out to show relief data. It ranges from subtle, almost unnoticeable to extremely heavy and dominating over all other features. Is is open question whatever adding rendering of elevation data to openstreetmap-carto would be desirable. But it is clear that rendering elevation data is common, and in some cases effect is great.

But even assuming that it would improve map there are some complications:

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There is one common tagging problem - missing service tags on minor railways. It leads to a poor rendering on lower zoom levels, as renderers are rendering minor service tracks like important railways.

It is quite easy to spot places that require fixing by browsing map on lower zoom levels - see for example osm.org/#map=7/34.840/-95.902

This place at times of writing has noticeable bundle of rails near McAlester, indicating place where somebody mapped minor railway tracks without marking them as minor (note for this case is at osm.org/note/630900#map=13/34.8597/-95.8650)

See osm.wiki/Key:service#Railways for documentation how service tags should be used for railways. Note that remote mapping generally is not feasible as result of subtle differences between yard and siding.

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It is typical for maps covering large areas to display city labels. It is quite common to mark exact locations by displaying dots, circles or other symbols.

It also seems that labels for cities and towns may be displayed larger to improve the map.

I tested both ideas, without changing algorithm that selects cities and towns to be displayed. Example of before/after tested on UK are available below.

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During GSoC 2015 I focused on improving road presentation in the Default OSM map style. This year I am again participating, but with more diverse goals. I am planning to improve performance, reduce rendering order problems and tune mid-zoom level rendering.

mid-zoom level rendering

I started with work on improvements to mid zoomlevels (z6 to z9). During search for the best and most promising ways to improve rendering, starting from trawling through reported issues. I also prepared and submitted some additional tweaks like rendering names for barriers, fixing viewpoints and forests and shops and other.

I am also like during GSoC 2015 preparing a comparison between the current map style and alternatives.

A bit of history

There are some visualisations showing how data was added to OSM. But I have neither seen nor found something similar for a map style. So, for start of next big series to the map I made a display of what was changed in the past.

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this entry is copy of osm.wiki/Mechanical_Edits/Mateusz_Konieczny/surface%3Dwoodchip_to_surface%3Dwoodchips

I plan to change surface=woodchip to surface=woodchips.

surface=woodchip is a clear duplicate of surface=woodchips. It is also less popular and undocumented on Key:surface. It would be a good idea to retag it to already documented tag before this tags are used more.

amount of surface=woodchip in OSM as of 2015-09-1 is 135.

amount of surface=woodchips in OSM as of 2015-09-1 is 228.

I’d download all surface=woodchip using Overpass API and change the tagging by search and replace using Level0 editor. The upload of the changed data I’d do in chunks to check the data once more before upload and not to create a worldwide changeset.

This would be a one time edit.

Edits will be made from account “Mateusz Konieczny: bot account”

Example: osm.org/way/25453184

state before mechanical edit:

highway=footway
surface=woodchip

state after mechanical edit:

highway=footway
surface=woodchips

Changeset comment would be “ changing surface=woodchip to surface=woodchips as surface=woodchip is less popular duplicate. This mechanical edit is documented at osm.wiki/Mechanical_Edits/Mateusz_Konieczny/surface%3Dwoodchip_to_surface%3Dwoodchips “

It is not OK to use one tag (for example amenity=hotel) and add second tag that negates or massively change its meaning (for example adding involuntary=yes to amenity=hotel instead of using amenity=prison). Additional tags should clarify meaning of main tags rather than negate it.

In general, any tag tag must be processed to avoid producing false or invalid data is a trolltag.

For example somebody wants to produce map of cycleways. Simply processing highway=cycleway, highway=path with and standard access tags should be enough to avoid listing nonexisting ones. Data consumer in that situation should not be expected to check for “proposed=yes”, “demolished=yes”, “construction=yes”, “completely_fictional=yes” or “end_date=1990”.

Obviously, one may want to look for more detail - for example to show proper map of cycleways one would want to check also access, surface, oneway and other tags. But again - segment of cycleway destroyed in landslide should be removed from map rather than tagged as [highway=cycleway, surface=giant_gaping_hole, smoothness=impassable].

Adding tags like proposed=yes is a really poor idea. In case of data consumers not supporting them it will lead to invalid and highly misleading data. And data consumers supporting completely broken tagging schemes (like [highway=tertiary; construction=yes] instead of supporting just [highway=construction, construction=tertiary]) encourages usage of this tagging method. The danger is that with more and more data tagged using trolltags other data consumers will either be forced to add support for trolltags or stop using OSM data.

And possibilities for trolltag are endless. Lets say that somebody wants to display existing shops and support all tagging schemes. Good luck with filtering out proposed=yes, abandoned=yes, vacant=yes, demolished=yes, construction=yes, empty=yes, ruins=yes, parsing start_date and end_date etc etc.

Some real examples:

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OpenStreetMap Carto 2.34.0 has been released and rolled out to the openstreetmap.org servers. It might take up to 48 hours before all tiles show the new rendering.

Changes include

• better rendering for highway=path/footway/cycleway - this is the next iteration of improving how footways and cycleways are displayed. Unpaved footways are now visible on natural=bare_rock and there are now three classes: paved, unpaved and unknown surface #1788
• man_made=bridge is now rendered #1633, #1791
• new rendering for landuse=quarry #1696
• amenity=veterinary is now rendered #1656
• amenity=community_centre is now rendered #1744
• amenity=prison and landuse=military rendering takes in account area size #1739
• consistent color for boundaries #1773
• tweaked zoom level for amenity=car_sharing #1762 and amenity=car_rental #1761
• Mapnik 3 preperations are now finished. The style now supports Mapnik 3. Most of the work was done on the Mapnik side. #1792

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PR

Next pull request for changing road style was opened. This time it is a final stage of proposing a rendering change including new colours for roads, new widths and rework of a railway styling. Feedback is welcomed.

PR link: https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/1736

All changes before PR were squashed into two commits - as result changes done based on feedback since creating PR are listed on https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/1736/commits

Casings on z11

One of repeated comments was that casings on z11 are not working well. Therefore I prepared also another casingless variant for z11. Below are test renderings for some places (current rendering, rendering from PR, potential rendering using low zoom styling for z11)

Auckland

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highway=pedestrian/living_street is this comparison was set to pale gray/gray version. Reported problems were fixed, resulting in new shield colors, tweaked road color and subtler casings. Thanks for the feedback!

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