OpenStreetMap
10 years + a few days ago, we held the White House Mapathon.
Over a hundred mappers gathered and livestreamed the happenings, shared stories of cool mapping projects, dialed in Peace Corps volunteers from the across the globe, and naturally mapped. There were cake pops decorated like globes. Along the walls, stunning reproductions of historic American maps provided by the Archives (I snagged a couple prints, they hang in my office to this day). Everyone dressed formal for the setting, except Alex Barth in usual attire, commenting “Wow OpenStreetMap is fancy today”.
Can you imagine that occurring today? Unimaginable. Of course not.
These kinds of convenings are by their nature fleeting. A recognition and shared touchstone for future work. Yes a bit hype-y, but grounded in real work and real opportunity. This was the era of upswing in open government, open data, the early days of 18F and USDS. The community that gathered there continued championing open mapping in the years after. Some of the most enduring are YouthMappers https://www.youthmappers.org/ and OSM US government initiatives https://openstreetmap.us/our-work/trails/.
We’re now in the age of BS. Truth or not does not matter. That comes from government and AI vibes.
OpenStreetMap is anti-bullshit https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mikelmaron_i-just-joined-the-humanitarian-openstreetmap-activity-7270058802240978945-89Oj/. OSM is for Truth. We map what’s on the ground, right before our eyes. Humans are at the center of the process. The infrastructure connects local information to a global ecosystem nearly effortlessly. And the projects are resilient, beyond any individual organization’s control. In my mind, my brief time in government was focused on dissolving barriers, between government and the communities it serves, and within government as well. Intentionally, this connection to open community means endurance beyond any entity’s interests, allowing for ebb and flow of collaboration. This month, OpenStreetMap will be contributing to the proceedings at the United Nations Open Source Week https://www.un.org/digital-emerging-technologies/content/open-source-week-2025
Anyway, it was super fun and I learned a lot about pulling off events like this. I proposed something that seemed so implausible, but was taken seriously by my wonderful collaborators Cori Zarek Denise Brown Benson Wilder Megan Smith.
Now we need to be more creative than effort, dissolve more barriers than ever, do things quickly and adaptably, and definitely have fun.
Discussion
Comment from Dzertanoj on 2 June 2025 at 20:08
OSM tolerates “bullshit” and protects those who generate it, except for the most blatant cases of large-scale vandalism, under the unfalsifiable pretext of “Everyone who created an account (including those who did it with ulterior motives) can become a valuable active mapper!” Or under another pretext of “Everyone must be able to have fun mapping (even if it creates the lowest possible quality data, discouraging those who produce quality data or want to use OSM data for their project without creating a massive heuristic filter for garbage)!”
There aren’t any barriers for anyone who has a computer or a smartphone (even vagrants have them now) to do mapping if they want, unless they simply don’t know about OSM. Even in 2015, there weren’t a lot of technical obstacles.
It just sounds like someone really wants those cake pops, attention from the government, etc. Or to LARP a hero of truth and be praised for that.
Comment from mikelmaron on 3 June 2025 at 02:17
Wow. Who hurt you?
Comment from Dzertanoj on 3 June 2025 at 02:53
I simply don’t appreciate people lying and misrepresenting things, like you did in your post.
And your fake “compassionate” appeal to made-up emotions doesn’t work, it’s a middle school mean girl rhetoric, it’s pretty pathetic for a grown-up man to use it.
Comment from mikelmaron on 3 June 2025 at 10:05
Ok, feel better now?