I have been mapping on OpenStreetMap for a little over 11 months now. However, OpenStreetMap is not where my love for mapping started. 7 months beforehand, I started editing Google Maps. Every time I had a minute of free time, whether at my computer or on my phone while going to school, I would trace roads all around the world. I completely stopped doing anything else for fun other than fixing and creating roads.

However, this craze of mine ended on August 12th, 2025. I found out that more than 50% of my edits were being rejected by Google when I knew that all of them were OBJECTIVELY correct. I decided that I was done with Google Maps, but I needed something new to fill the hole that mapping had in my heart. That’s when I discovered OpenStreetMap 15 minutes later. I knew I had heard that name somewhere, so I decided to check it out.

Before I even completed the tutorial, I was hooked. While before I could only map walking paths, now I could map literally anything I want. Even the concept of mapping buildings was something I had to get adjusted to due to how small the number of things I could map on Google Maps was. I spent the rest of my day figuring out the mapping capabilities of the iD editor. The next day, I spent the entire day mapping and seeing what others had already mapped (spoiler alert: a lot).

My love for mapping on OpenStreetMap has never really ended; If anything, it has grown. I went out of my way to drive from Virginia all the way to Madison, Wisconsin for State of the Map 2026. Now, I have accumulated nearly 3,000 changesets and a little under 200,000 contributions to the map. I have made so many edits in Virginia to the point where I run into features I’ve edited nearly every day. I edit in school, on the car ride to school, while procrastinating homework, while having nothing else to do at home, and everything in between. I’ve recently even seen the iD editor haunt (bless) my dreams. My mind can’t go more than 5 minutes without thinking about mapping.

I’m not writing this to ask for help or anything, I just wanted to share everything on my mind and if at least one person reads this then I’m happy.

In late-2025, we received a grant through NGI0 Commons Fund, a fund established by NLnet with financial support from the European Commissions Next Generation Internet program to integrate vector tiles in uMap.

A quick update on where things stand after the first half of the coding period.

Please refer my March 2025 diary entry as this is changes only.

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  Changed the voice recording notes method to a dedicated microphone nearer my face. I launch a script at the same time I start the side cameras. It still saves as date/time stamped 1 minute length files.
  
• 
  Use a dedicated 2nd WiFi device on the laptop for direct connection (not using in van WAP) to the 225deg side facing camera. This increases the max framerate slightly. The 270deg side camera is still USB connected.
  
• 
  Procured a cheap 2K dashcam and mounted it rear window. Actually has a GPS position reporting fault, but the clock is okay. Do a lot of local processing to geotag against the UBLOX GPS unit to give 1FPS above 45kph and 3FPS below. Very handy for capturing the back side of speed signs by either swapping views locally or seeing the signs recognised on Mapillary.
  
• 
  The WiFi/cell router now has two antennas connected (MIMO) which helps the upload rate rate and low signal area performance. Now upload 15-40GBytes for each drive day.
  
• 
  One of the 20 year old Toshiba laptops had a temp sensor fail such that the cooling fans wouldn’t start. Upgraded both to 10 year old HP Probooks. These reduce processing time approx in half. The extra dashcam included. Still running Debian Linux.
  
• 
  No longer beacon APRS.
  
• 
  GPS nav unit now has giveway and stop sign POI’d displayed, so I can add these to the voice notes. I continue to create other special POI’s plus modify the mkgmap process for better end use.

Currently near Injune Qld about to sit still for a while.

Cheers Bob

I hate route relations. They make editing roads a nightmare, and they’re likely to be out of date. All people need is the list of stops, not the actual roads.

My Home of Rags2Riches Company.

Today, someone mentioned to me that theres an ongoing reform of a certain local tagging scheme.

A quick update on where things stand after the first half of the coding period.

Hello I’m a former Marine and an American who still believes in The Constitution and the words written in it!!! Stand up!!! Stand together!!

Hello Im a former Marine and an American who still believes in The Constitution and the words written in it!!! Stand up!!! Stand together!!

A short guide to create web maps with uMap

It is a very rare moment, when somebody made a new tool, that must become one of main tools in you palette, like Building Tools or RelToolBox.

The Current Representation of India’s International Boundaries on OpenStreetMap Is Unacceptable

The current representation of India’s international boundaries on OpenStreetMap is unacceptable.

Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, and Arunachal Pradesh are integral parts of India according to the official position of the Republic of India. Displaying a map that does not reflect India’s official boundaries creates confusion for users and undermines the reliability of your platform.

OpenStreetMap must immediately review and correct the representation of India’s boundaries or provide a clear public explanation, supported by its official mapping policy, explaining why the platform displays a different representation.

If OpenStreetMap is unwilling or unable to display India’s official map, it should clearly disclose that its map does not represent the official map of India in relevant jurisdictions. Continuing to present an alternative representation without clear disclosure is misleading to users.

Required Response

I expect OpenStreetMap to provide:

• A formal explanation of the current boundary representation.
• The official mapping policy governing the depiction of India’s international boundaries.
• The data sources used to determine the current representation.
• The corrective action OpenStreetMap intends to take, if any.
• A timeline for addressing this issue or a clear justification for maintaining the current representation.

This issue requires immediate attention. I expect a formal response explaining the current representation, the policy behind it, and the action OpenStreetMap intends to take.

An inadvertent typo recently led me to a slightly alarming discovery. Omitting the r from www.openstreetmap.org took me to a website that definitely wasnt OSM, and prompted me to download something quite suspicious-looking.

Saudi Arabia Places of Worship Dashboard: Gap Analysis, Data Quality Cleanup & Editor Integrations

One hot July evening ten years ago, I found my way to a bar somewhere near the Barbican in London and descended down the stairs into the basement space for the MapSwipe launch party.

Midterm is here, so this is a proper writeup of whats landed
so far, how the pieces fit together, and what the second half looks
like. If you just want the code: everything described here merged in
#4106.

While field-testing an app Im building for walking Public Rights of Way
(MOROW), I found a real one.

Like much of the web, OSM has been struggling with bots downloading rendered maps, in our case declining to use our planet dumps to get what they want.

I therefore make a suggestion: give suspected scrapers a poisoned version of the map, for instance it could have scrambled POIs, or perhaps roads named after villains. We can then point out the source of the resulting contamination as it goes public.

For a while, the Dienst Mobilteit van Antwerpen (Department of Mobility of the Province of Antwerp) wanted to have (libre) streetview imagery, especially of the Belgian cycle highways - a type of cycling network in Belgium.

Singapore has about 2,300 playgrounds in OSM (), but no easy way for a parent to answer the practical question: is this one any good for my kid, today?

Today marks exactly one year since I started making changes to the map of Korea using openstreetmap.

this morning, i wanted to find an important manuscript in my archive for work purposes.

Just finished a second pass of my hometown. Redid a lot of my shoddier early mapping and reviewed every TIGER import street. Now working on TIGER review outside of the city and some wetlands mapping for the time being.

Last September I wrote about a concept where instead of hand-listing 15–30 tags on every packaging container, the user could just pick the containers colour and let the editor auto-add the right tags.

Clearance is a free software tool for controlling the quality of OpenStreetMap replication diffs. It tracks thematic and territorial edits to OSM and keeps replication extracts (extracts, diffs, and a local Overpass API) up to date.

In July 2026, I decided to return to OpenStreetMap after nearly four years. This project is more than just mapping for me—it is a personal journey to build a detailed digital representation of my hometown, Taiping. My current focus is the Heritage Zone, where I hope to refine every building footprint and individual block with the best accuracy possible. If you’re a fellow mapper or a Taiping resident, your contributions are always appreciated. Feel free to add shop lot numbers, business names, amenities, or any other local knowledge that helps make the map more complete and useful for everyone.

We are looking for Tyler his last flick cam hit was in mars hill Indiana we have a Facebook group I’m sure if you look up his name on Facebook you can find it his brothers name is Brian dads name is Tim same last name flick cam had him in the area in a early 2000’s black f150 on 6/15/2026 in mars hill tag is TK9450xp out of Indiana any help is welcomed and appreciated there is a 7k reward for any information leading to finding him

About three years ago, I had given a talk to some folks at the Irish Wheelchair Association in Kilkenny about the history of Kilkenny.

🙋‍♂️ Review Requests: 32% of newcomers requested a review of their first changeset.

Not at all my work, but a place to record the work of Akash Wadhwani. They have just written a great piece on OpenStreetMap and the work of volunteers to map in support of disaster response.

Hi again!
During the last weeks Ive been working on a Python prototype of the medial axis that will later be implemented in Valhalla

Weve got another OSMLondon pub meet-up tonight!. Im trying to be a bit more orginal with pub choices recently, so I picked a place down in Victoria. This is not the end of London I know best, but its good to go South a bit.

For many years it has bugged me that no maps display whether a road is a toll road, whether cycling is forbidden there and whether its surface is made of cobblestone.

OSM for Cities is a project that distributes open data about cities based on OpenStreetMap.

Hi to all editors including line 225 user. You just can add the anchor portals without changing power lines in substations to anchor portals.

In February I read a short story, “Mr. Pfeiffer” by Vicky Mlyniec that is set in Percy, Illinois. Curious, I looked up the place on OSM and found it lacking in mapping. I’ve spent the last four months improving it on the map. Today I am done with buildings and other features inside the village limits.

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Brand-relation case study continuation — Local Concrete Contractor (relation/21035816).

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