Ivan aka BANO.notIT: “If OSM starts to advertise and promote itself, new people will come into it with new ideas”
Ivan is a student-programmer from Moscow who joined the RU-OSM community just a few months ago. Therefore, his opinion about OSM, as a young man and from the outside, is doubly interesting. Why it is necessary to install JOSM, why mark the point of sale of shawarma and how to modernize OSM - he told all this in an interview.
- How did you find out about OpenStreetMap?
- I don’t remember how I learned about OSM, but my opinion about it changed after I read an interview with Timofey Subbotin on Habré. It helped me look differently at this project. Before that, of course, I knew that OSM is a free map that people draw, but I did not know what kind of map it was or what properties it had. I began to study OSM and discovered: my yard was practically not drawn in any way, and the area was a little better, but still bad. Therefore, I decided to try to add a couple of tracks and thereby help to become OSM even fuller and more accurate. In the iD editor, after you submit the edits, a link to the local OSM community appears. So I ended up in the RU-OSM Telegram chat, in which quite a lot of people are sitting.
- Continue to edit OSM?
- Yes, I gradually drew my yard, in some places a kindergarten and a school. Then I found out about the F4Map project - a 3D map based on OSM data. It turned out that in the neighboring area almost all objects without floors. I plan to somehow walk along it: put down the floors and note the porches.
- How many questions did you have when you started drawing in OSM?
- General OSM terminology: points, lines, polygons - I know. And tags are understandable thing. The problem is an abundance of tagging systems: some are accepted, others are not, and others are not accepted, but are used. There is some confusion about this. Therefore, you have to consult with a community that knows some undocumented traditions. When I can’t understand what tag to mark this or that object with, I ask in the chat and they prompt me.
Do you know what surprises me in OSM? After him, you begin to walk along the street and pay attention to everything. Not so long ago I saw a sign with a Latin letter on the house. It turned out that the energy efficiency of buildings is indicated. I did not know about this before. Then at some point I caught myself thinking: is it necessary to enter everything in the OSM or not?
It amazes me that all these tagging systems were invented by exactly the same volunteers as I was. They sat and thought how to put it all ... and came up with. Of course, there are people, as I managed to notice, who do as they want, but then anyway, someone checks their contribution and either corrects it themselves or asks the culprit to put it in order. And this is good, because it turns out that the osmerians have an understanding of what is good and what is bad, and, therefore, there is an ideal that you can strive for.
- What fascinated you with the mapping process in OSM?
- I do not even know. The process is simple, and its result is useful to someone. Marking a track in the same iD or drawing a building is so simple.
- What do you like and dislike about OSM, so that you improve or change?
“It inspires me that OSM is a huge, self-regulatory community with its own rules of conduct.” It is quite possible this is due to the fact that it is composed of relatively adult and conscious people. I noticed that the older the community, the more it regulates itself. In general, OSM tries to maintain the spirit of friendliness and mutual assistance, and insults and curses are stopped.
Another point that I like and dislike at the same time is the threshold for entering the project. He is tall enough. In particular, I’m talking about tagging systems and JOSM, which require a person to study them. JOSM is not just a map editor - a harvester that can do everything. Compared to it, iD is a light version created just to quickly draw a track or put an end to it. So, I really like that JOSM is complicated, as it weeds out people.
On almost every OSM-related site, a newbie is invited to download JOSM . The JOSM man downloaded it, launched it, looked at the interface and thought hard. After all, it will not work quickly to start editing the map. You have to spend time learning the instrument. And here the most important thing happens - if a person is frightened and leaves everything, most likely, he didn’t really want to start. If immersed in JOSM, then he and OSM begins to perceive in a different way. For him, then everything becomes logical and convenient. I believe that without learning JOSM, you cannot start to properly edit a map.
I have a few questions for the technical side of OSM. One of them: why are raster tiles still? Wasn’t it possible to translate everything into a vector already? This would greatly simplify life: OSM servers, programmers, and generally everything. It seems to me that this is quite an important thing that would make OSM more modern.
I noticed that in RU-OSM people are not teaming up to “saw” some software or validator. My conclusions were confirmed by Timofei Subbotin, who told me that almost all projects in RU-OSM were completed by individuals. Why is that? After all, it seems that any open community should be the most dynamic, since there are a lot of people and there are no restrictions, and therefore they can do what they want. But the problem is that people do not want to communicate with each other. This is not good. Because when people work in a team, they can help each other, prompt. Therefore, for me now OSM is a big project, where there are a lot of different people and their projects, but they are all single. No groups. In everyone in the Russian community, I have not seen this. Maybe in Europe somehow differently? Maybe they have somehow more developed work in groups?
Well, OSM needs advertising and promotion. Roughly speaking, for each project participant to bring three friends with him. Then the situation will change. There is an opinion in the OSM community that everyone already knows everything about OSM - this is not so. It’s good that there is a chat room in Telegram and a forum where there is live communication, where you can ask a question, but still you need to master other platforms. It is good that WeeklyOSM translations and interviews with project participants are coming out on Habré. Thanks to these materials, I plunged into the world of OSM. It would be nice if experienced osmeri-programmers weren’t lazy and wrote articles, at least on the same Habré, how to use data from OSM, how to work with them, how to make some kind of simple GIS service on their basis. And when you start poking around in the bowels of OSM, you find a bunch of different useful materials, but there are no people who would popularize them.
- Do you use OSM in your daily life? Work?
- Not. I have so far only dreams about him.
- Recently, it is often said that OSM is in stagnation. Is it so?
- It seems to me that now the project is in good condition, given that it will soon be 15 years old. Yes, now there is no incredible pace of development, it is moving slowly, but it is. I saw a comparison of the 2008 OSM card and the current one. In a way, the map is already full. It remains to bring it to perfection: mark floors, porches, house numbers, POI, since in general the map is no longer a blank spot. Of course, there are unmarked settlements, but they can always be drawn by satellite. I note that those places where there are many people - they are relatively well drawn.
I am sure that if OSM starts to advertise and promote itself, new people will come into it with new ideas that will not allow the project to turn into a swamp.
- How would you explain to a person who is far from IT what OSM is and why you make changes to it?
- I once tried to explain to my family what OSM is. I told them that this is a map that is drawn and filled with people. Then anyone can use it for free. Why am I correcting her? There are places where only I and no one else go, and therefore no one else will notice something important for me. Also, my edits might come in handy for someone else. This someone, for example, will be able to better navigate in my area and quickly find a place where they sell delicious shawarma. All of this was answered with the expected answer: “Do you have nothing to do?” Then I thought that I apparently couldn’t explain the global nature of this project, and maybe what I described is not such a global goal?
- What would you say to a beginner or to a person who is thinking about whether to plunge into the OSM world or not?
1. Drawing houses and roads in OSM is fun.
2. Go to the site of Ilya Zverev and thoroughly scribble it.
Communication of Russian OpenStreetMap participants is in the Telegram chat room and on the forum .
There are also groups on social networks VKontakte , Facebook , but they mainly publish news.
Join OSM!
Previous interviews: Anton Belichkov , Elena Balashova , Ilya Zverev , Timofey Subbotin , Sergey Golubev .
- How did you find out about OpenStreetMap?
- I don’t remember how I learned about OSM, but my opinion about it changed after I read an interview with Timofey Subbotin on Habré. It helped me look differently at this project. Before that, of course, I knew that OSM is a free map that people draw, but I did not know what kind of map it was or what properties it had. I began to study OSM and discovered: my yard was practically not drawn in any way, and the area was a little better, but still bad. Therefore, I decided to try to add a couple of tracks and thereby help to become OSM even fuller and more accurate. In the iD editor, after you submit the edits, a link to the local OSM community appears. So I ended up in the RU-OSM Telegram chat, in which quite a lot of people are sitting.
- Continue to edit OSM?
- Yes, I gradually drew my yard, in some places a kindergarten and a school. Then I found out about the F4Map project - a 3D map based on OSM data. It turned out that in the neighboring area almost all objects without floors. I plan to somehow walk along it: put down the floors and note the porches.
- How many questions did you have when you started drawing in OSM?
- General OSM terminology: points, lines, polygons - I know. And tags are understandable thing. The problem is an abundance of tagging systems: some are accepted, others are not, and others are not accepted, but are used. There is some confusion about this. Therefore, you have to consult with a community that knows some undocumented traditions. When I can’t understand what tag to mark this or that object with, I ask in the chat and they prompt me.
Do you know what surprises me in OSM? After him, you begin to walk along the street and pay attention to everything. Not so long ago I saw a sign with a Latin letter on the house. It turned out that the energy efficiency of buildings is indicated. I did not know about this before. Then at some point I caught myself thinking: is it necessary to enter everything in the OSM or not?
It amazes me that all these tagging systems were invented by exactly the same volunteers as I was. They sat and thought how to put it all ... and came up with. Of course, there are people, as I managed to notice, who do as they want, but then anyway, someone checks their contribution and either corrects it themselves or asks the culprit to put it in order. And this is good, because it turns out that the osmerians have an understanding of what is good and what is bad, and, therefore, there is an ideal that you can strive for.
- What fascinated you with the mapping process in OSM?
- I do not even know. The process is simple, and its result is useful to someone. Marking a track in the same iD or drawing a building is so simple.
- What do you like and dislike about OSM, so that you improve or change?
“It inspires me that OSM is a huge, self-regulatory community with its own rules of conduct.” It is quite possible this is due to the fact that it is composed of relatively adult and conscious people. I noticed that the older the community, the more it regulates itself. In general, OSM tries to maintain the spirit of friendliness and mutual assistance, and insults and curses are stopped.
Another point that I like and dislike at the same time is the threshold for entering the project. He is tall enough. In particular, I’m talking about tagging systems and JOSM, which require a person to study them. JOSM is not just a map editor - a harvester that can do everything. Compared to it, iD is a light version created just to quickly draw a track or put an end to it. So, I really like that JOSM is complicated, as it weeds out people.
On almost every OSM-related site, a newbie is invited to download JOSM . The JOSM man downloaded it, launched it, looked at the interface and thought hard. After all, it will not work quickly to start editing the map. You have to spend time learning the instrument. And here the most important thing happens - if a person is frightened and leaves everything, most likely, he didn’t really want to start. If immersed in JOSM, then he and OSM begins to perceive in a different way. For him, then everything becomes logical and convenient. I believe that without learning JOSM, you cannot start to properly edit a map.
I have a few questions for the technical side of OSM. One of them: why are raster tiles still? Wasn’t it possible to translate everything into a vector already? This would greatly simplify life: OSM servers, programmers, and generally everything. It seems to me that this is quite an important thing that would make OSM more modern.
I noticed that in RU-OSM people are not teaming up to “saw” some software or validator. My conclusions were confirmed by Timofei Subbotin, who told me that almost all projects in RU-OSM were completed by individuals. Why is that? After all, it seems that any open community should be the most dynamic, since there are a lot of people and there are no restrictions, and therefore they can do what they want. But the problem is that people do not want to communicate with each other. This is not good. Because when people work in a team, they can help each other, prompt. Therefore, for me now OSM is a big project, where there are a lot of different people and their projects, but they are all single. No groups. In everyone in the Russian community, I have not seen this. Maybe in Europe somehow differently? Maybe they have somehow more developed work in groups?
Well, OSM needs advertising and promotion. Roughly speaking, for each project participant to bring three friends with him. Then the situation will change. There is an opinion in the OSM community that everyone already knows everything about OSM - this is not so. It’s good that there is a chat room in Telegram and a forum where there is live communication, where you can ask a question, but still you need to master other platforms. It is good that WeeklyOSM translations and interviews with project participants are coming out on Habré. Thanks to these materials, I plunged into the world of OSM. It would be nice if experienced osmeri-programmers weren’t lazy and wrote articles, at least on the same Habré, how to use data from OSM, how to work with them, how to make some kind of simple GIS service on their basis. And when you start poking around in the bowels of OSM, you find a bunch of different useful materials, but there are no people who would popularize them.
- Do you use OSM in your daily life? Work?
- Not. I have so far only dreams about him.
- Recently, it is often said that OSM is in stagnation. Is it so?
- It seems to me that now the project is in good condition, given that it will soon be 15 years old. Yes, now there is no incredible pace of development, it is moving slowly, but it is. I saw a comparison of the 2008 OSM card and the current one. In a way, the map is already full. It remains to bring it to perfection: mark floors, porches, house numbers, POI, since in general the map is no longer a blank spot. Of course, there are unmarked settlements, but they can always be drawn by satellite. I note that those places where there are many people - they are relatively well drawn.
I am sure that if OSM starts to advertise and promote itself, new people will come into it with new ideas that will not allow the project to turn into a swamp.
- How would you explain to a person who is far from IT what OSM is and why you make changes to it?
- I once tried to explain to my family what OSM is. I told them that this is a map that is drawn and filled with people. Then anyone can use it for free. Why am I correcting her? There are places where only I and no one else go, and therefore no one else will notice something important for me. Also, my edits might come in handy for someone else. This someone, for example, will be able to better navigate in my area and quickly find a place where they sell delicious shawarma. All of this was answered with the expected answer: “Do you have nothing to do?” Then I thought that I apparently couldn’t explain the global nature of this project, and maybe what I described is not such a global goal?
- What would you say to a beginner or to a person who is thinking about whether to plunge into the OSM world or not?
1. Drawing houses and roads in OSM is fun.
2. Go to the site of Ilya Zverev and thoroughly scribble it.
Communication of Russian OpenStreetMap participants is in the Telegram chat room and on the forum .
There are also groups on social networks VKontakte , Facebook , but they mainly publish news.
Join OSM!
Previous interviews: Anton Belichkov , Elena Balashova , Ilya Zverev , Timofey Subbotin , Sergey Golubev .
All Articles