There’s quite some changes by First World contributors in Africa, primarily from mapping events. Perhaps they could also play a role in integrating POI and line elements (which are traditionally areas); or maybe allow a more POI- and line-based standard in Africa, not requiring areas for such objects. Or an intuitive UI, supporting editing of geometries, could be added; despite gluing and complicated relationships, etc. I would love to be proven wrong in my skepticism.
Ah okay, now I get it; I wasn’t familiar with that. Satelliet Data Portaal provides both partial (more recent), and full mosaics (less recent) WMTS from multiple sources (Pleiades-NEO or SuperView-NEO); which might complicate things (having to load the right imagery, based on the location being edited for the partial captures; and selecting the right source). The resolution, especially from the partial captures, but also the mosaics, doesn’t really hold up to something like PDOK or Esri. So perhaps this source being the default might not desirable, but having it as an option (especially the mosaic) would be neat.
OSM is a community project, someone have to the the PR, It won’t show up automagically without human intervention.
Is this referring to the “mass imports” part, you would argue are done in batches by many contributors? If so, then yes, mass import might give the wrong idea, I agree. But even if imported by many over time, the result is still a mass import from these open databases (minus a few addresses maybe, drawn in by hand; or roads not yet aligned with BGT, in case of The Netherlands).
Are you sure its license is compatible? E.g. The website says I can’t view it because I’m not in the Netherlands. There are a lot of frequent editors from there, it’s strange they haven’t added it yet.
I can’t find the forum post regarding this, but I’m quite sure the conclusion was it being compatible; despite viewing being restricted to Dutch citizens (because it’s a service provided by The Netherlands). It’s a quite common source here, especially for recent changes (which other imagery just doesn’t provide). And they are providing WMTS directly, so if they wanted to restrict usage for georeferencing, I don’t understand why they’d do that.
Editing geometries is hard enough as it is on the desktop (especially with glued points), so I can’t imagine making such changes on the mobile. I think it’s best to not allow editing geometries, and to leave such changes to devices better suited for the task.
Oh, you can add new things, that’s perfectly fine. I still prefer mobile users adding features, even if they are of an unusual object type; effectively being another type of fixme to desktop users. But instead of another desktop user integrating these elements, I rather have mobile users on the desktop as well; as to integrate their mobile changes when at home. If you’re sightseeing, these applications are very helpful, for creating/editing POIs and effectively sketching out non-POI features; but the latter does require some work to integrate them.
If that’s the only way you’re going to contribute to OSM, by all means, go for it. But as a desktop OSM editor, I really dislike some of the incentives pushed by mobile applications. Primarily not adding objects as polygons (as it would be difficult to draw on such devices), but adding them as POIs (parking, amenities, etc.) and paths (waterways for instance: where paths are often used for just naming, or as water"ways", like for marine traffic). This often leads me to correct these changes, as they really stand out compared to the rest of the map. So generally, I view these tools as complementary, rather than final changes; unless it’s changes to POIs or something, which is where these applications shine, in my opinion.
I personally quite like OsmAnd’s granular control, but understand how others might experience this as being overwhelming; which big-tech’s restrictive… I mean “modern” user-experience (UX) might be to blame for. There are however quite some alternatives to pick from, if you wanted a more minimalist approach to UX; which OsmAnd could also provide by default (while allowing advanced users to toggle additional “expert” settings).
What makes Google “Maps” superior to OSM-based maps, is not its inferior “map”, but rather the navigational aspect: businesses and other ‘points of interests’ (POIs) registering their location to Google, public transit data being supplied to it (allowing for planning), traffic statistics (through creepy location tracking, even in the background unless opted out), etc.; and bundles all into a single, undeniably convenient application.
I would argue OSM data is primarily mass imports, from other permissive or open (government) databases; which are strongly dependent on region. For The Netherlands: BAG (basic registration of addresses and buildings) and BGT (basic registration of large-scale topography), make up a large portion of the data presented (which are either directly imported or used as a reference). Although, relative to real-world changes they might temporarily lack behind, and users add details based on satellite imagery.
Regarding satellite imagery: editors don’t always have up-to-date imagery, leading to some users undoing changes others have made. In The Netherlands, the government provides relatively recent satellite imagery: which can be imported into the alternative JOSM editor as an WMTS layer. And you may also want to check the comments of the last change: in OSM’s own iD editor you can click the “last modified …” link, all the way at the bottom of the “Edit object” tab, for the selected object.
Another thing I would really recommend, is checking how other mappers have added certain features. Which is sometimes easier to understand than OSM’s documentation; which doesn’t always correspond to practice (possibly dependent on region). A very useful tool for this is Overpass Turbo, which you can use to search for certain elements, to see how others have implemented these.
I know this might all feel a little overwhelming, but I wish I had known these things earlier in my mapping journey. I started doing it because I noticed things missing, that I knew existed as a mailman. Just starting with smaller changes to get my feet wet, and gradually working my way to larger changes. As long as you don’t start taring up large roads (including their often many relationships), you’ll be just fine; and might even become hooked (as it can be quite satisfying, having created another beautiful part).
Hmm, maybe it also monitors for changes to the DOM: cosmetic filtering done by uBlock (to hide/remove containers for these elements)? Something which network filtering by itself cannot do?
Checking the network traffic, it does a series of “s_a_f_e…Overflow” (indicating safe buffer overflows?), replacing them with filter-list-specific domains after the overflow (the address after the long string of characters); triggering uBlock to block these requests?
With “deletion” you’re simply advancing the moment, they’re supposedly “deleting” your data; something I refuse to believe, they actually do. Instead, I suspect they “anonymize”, or effectively “pseudonymize” the data (as cross-referencing is trivial, when showing equal patterns on a new account; would the need arise). Stagnation wouldn’t require services to take such steps, and any personal data remains connected to you, personally.
For the Gmail account, I would recommend: not deleting the account, opening an account at a privacy-respecting service (using Disroot as an example), connect the Gmail account to an email-client (like Thunderbird), copy all its contents (including ‘sent’ or other specific folders) to a local folder (making sure to back these up periodically), delete all contents from the Gmail server, and simply wait for incoming messages, at the now empty Gmail account.
If a worthy email comes in: copy it over to the local folder, and delete it from the Gmail server. For used services, you could change the contact address to the Disroot account, and for others you could delete them, or simply mark them as spam (and periodically emptying the spam-folder). You may not want to wait for privacy-sensitive services, to finally make an appearance, and change these over to the Disroot address right away.
I’ve been doing this for years now, and my big-tech accounts remain empty most of the time. Do make sure to transfer every folder, and make regular backups!
My emails forced me to, locking me out of accounts I needed to access.
Microsoft had me fill this form, to “prove” I was the rightful owner of the account, after some suspicious login-attempts from an African country. The form included fields like: name (I don’t think I supplied at creation, or a false one), other email addresses, previous passwords (which potentially yield completely unrelated passwords), etc.; only for the application to be rejected and locking me out of my primary email for a full month. After that outright violation, I immediately switched to Disroot, and haven’t had any of said problems ever since. I backup all its contents locally using Thunderbird, and delete the origins from the server afterwards.
Many platforms have this messed up dark pattern, of revoking one’s access to a real-world dependencies, unless giving in to the service’s demands. Enforcement of 2FA is another one of those “excuses” for this type of misbehavior, and so is bot-detection.
Yeah, I think they employ a pretty sophisticated bot detection algorithm. I vaguely remember there being this ‘make 5 friends’ objective, or something along those lines, which I had no intention of fulfilling. If a new account, having triggered the manual reviewing process, doesn’t adhere to common usage patterns, simply have them supply additional information. Any collateral damage simply means additional data, to be appended to Facebook’s self-profiling platform… I mean, what else would one expect when Facebook’s first outside investor was Palentir’s Peter Thiel?
It’s been like that for quite a while. I remember deleting all big-tech accounts in 2019, and shortly after, Facebook started requiring login for full public page access. Therefore I created a burner account using a ‘this person does not exist’ picture, which provided me short-lived access after manual review. For account recovery, I was required to supply additional selfies (or even video-selfies?), but at that point I gave up.
Great article! “education” … “risk assessments” … “early intervention” … Got to break their spirit while they’re young
It’s almost as if they’re seeking to replace these with technology. They’ve purposefully neglected social services and will continue to do so, to lower the bar for AI and grant themselves an excuse for the poor “substitute”. And this isn’t at all restricted to the UK, in The Netherlands we’re in the midst of it too: the same exact playbook. Modern surveillance cameras (like Axis’ for example) have NPU’s built in, or camera footage (even from legacy analog cameras, by use of encoders) is linked to either an onsite server, a cloud-service, or a combination of the two, facilitating the functionality. I hardly believe AI to be the limiting factor here, storage of footage is another story however. But I think they instead strategically place facial-recognition cameras, while the other cameras simply store abstractions from the footage. Of course if one of those cameras senses an event, which it recognizes might be of elevated relevance, it might store the raw footage. An example being: railways doing face-scanning for “depression detection”, instead of implementing ‘platform screen doors’ of course…
I don’t turn my face towards houses while I’m walking if I notice a doorbell camera
I do that haha… In all seriousness, I’ve recently quit my job as mailman, in part because of this. Year after year I saw the number of doorbell cameras increase, and so grew my discomfort of my job requiring me to expose myself, to these privacy-hostile situations. The worst case scenarios were semi-detached houses: since the doors to the paired addresses are right beside another. Between the entries there’s often (decorative) separation, requiring some acrobatics to shortcut to the next address. If the second address would have a doorbell camera, while requiring me to sidestep between the obstructions, I could either: A) face the door and have my face right up to the camera, or B) turn my back to it and spin back into position. I did the latter, and I HATED having to adapt my seemingly simple job to this extend, just to protect my dignity.
The Netherlands technically requires a sign which indicates camera surveillance, besides having to direct cameras in such a way that they cannot capture the public sphere. But have a guess at how much enforcement there is in this regard…
Ah, indeed. Must’ve read over it
Why would governments, or any other organization, want to buy an entire pole assembly? If it was just an IoT device that could easily be implemented into existing infrastructure, I’d consider it a lot more compelling. Seems like just another “Smart City” startup, selling a dystopian sales-pitch; because that seems to sell these days… :)
Quoting another comment of mine. Your use of the tool is something I’m advocating for, really; I recognize it’s usefulness, but am not treating it as a substitute for desktop editors.