It's great to see you interested. OSM has some great potention.

OpenStreetMaps is not just limited to simple roads, the goal is to produce a free map of the world. As AndrewMcCarthy mentioned we can map hotels, B&B and the such. But we're not limited to that.

The Map Features page ( osm.wiki/index.php/Map_features ) shows some of the features we normally map. e.g. Tourism features: osm.wiki/index.php/Map_features#Tourism , Parks and other leisure items: osm.wiki/index.php/Map_features#Leisure . We have a flexible tagging system that allows us to tag anything we want. For example someone recently started tagging Holy Wells: http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-ie/2008-September/000202.html .

Hi all,

Was this lighthouse uploaded to the main OSM database? I don't think it was. (see mailing list discussion here: http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-ie/2008-December/000253.html)

Unless there's any objection, I'll upload it myself.

Rory

I like that idea of landuse being for humans and natural being the natural way things are. That's a nice clear separation between the two. :)

Hi vlodia, good to see you here!

It's great that you want to contribute maps. A good starting point is the Beginners Guide on the wiki: osm.wiki/index.php/Beginners%27_Guide

Short guide is to zoom into a part of the map on the main page and then click on the 'edit' button on the top of the screen. You should be able to draw new roads and add features from there.

Be careful about the copyright licence of any maps you want to add. Rule of thumb, anything you make yourself is OK, but copying from google maps or a paper map is most likely not OK.

Hiya Marianne Perdomo,

Good to see you on board. I'm sure you can contribute something, everyone can bring something new to the table. Just have a look around the areas you're familiar with, and if you see anything not quite right, change it!

Good luck and happy mapping!

Rory

Hi Afni.

The 'name' tag is used for the main name on the ground of a feature. The old name can be stored using the 'old_name' tag. More details here osm.wiki/index.php/Key:name

By tagging a road with both of these tags, then when someone draws a map, they have the choice if they want to display the name, or if they want to do a "Name (previously old_name)" type thing.

TwisTer has just messaged me to say that "I didn't translate the street names, I just "Transliterated" them into english because the arabic characters didn't show in my Garmen software".

That's interesting. Have a look at osm.wiki/index.php/Japan_tagging#Names which is about tagging names in Japan. They have a similar problem. They use "name:ja" for the japanese name written in japanese characters, and "name:ja_rm" for the japanese name transliterated into the latin alphabet. Perhaps you could do something similar? "name:ar_rm" ? that makes it different from "name:en"?

Be careful with this. The "name" tag should be for what the name on the ground is, the common name. It does *not* mean the name of it in english. If there's a street, and all the street signs for it are in arabic, then the "name" of it is the arabic name.

Having said that there's nothing wrong with using "name:en" for the english name and then having "name:ar" for the name in arabic.

There are some areas where, in my opinion, openstreetmap is better than google maps. Compare these 2 areas: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=53.282664,-6.222467&spn=0.023246,0.077162&z=14 and osm.org/?lat=53.28563&lon=-6.22967&zoom=15&layers=B00FTF

Welcome back!

I'd guess the main reason the streets have no name is because people have traced them from the Yahoo imagery. (osm.wiki/index.php/Yahoo!_Aerial_Imagery). From that people can trace out the street, but until someone visits the street in person, no-one knows the name of it.

HTH

There are 2 main programmes that make the maps on OSM. The main (and visually nicer map) is called Mapnik, and is what you see by default. But there is another map, Osmarender. You can access it by clicking on the + to the right of the map, and selecting Osmarender. It's updated regularly by people at home by the tiles@home project. Usually changes show up after about an hour on osmarender.

You're not the first person to think of this. Steve Coast brought this up in July on the talk@openstreetmap.org mailing list. There were a few suggestions thrown around, "noname=yes", "name:absent=yes" "name=__none__", "unnamed=yes", "named=no", "nameless=yes".

As Richard said, the german OpenStreetMap community is fairly active. Fair play to them. Let's map the world!

Hi Michel,

I'm going to Africa in a few days. I'm teaching Linux in Kenya for a month. I'm going to bring my GPS device with me. I hope I can get Kenya filled in a bit. I'm afraid I don't know anyone in West Africa, so I can't help much.

Great to see you on board.

Wow, ianlopez1115, great to see that you're interested and active. Just goes to show that it all it takes is smart motivated people and we can map the world. :)

My main problem with numbering bus stops is that it's hard to figure out the number in Dublin. It's not written anywhere.

Yes it's read. It's also available at osm.org/diary

Oh and welcome. :)

I think the proper OSM guidelines is to use the street signs. Map what's on the ground.

Cool. I've ordered a BGT-31 aswell, but mine hasn't arrived. This is my first GPS device. I'm really looking forward to it.

I share your concern about the lack of representation of Africa on OpenStreetMap. I've done my bit to help. I've been tracing over some yahoo maps for places I've been

Some African Cities I've traced. OSM vs Google Maps:

Dar Es Salaam

Google maps: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=-6.821444,39.285049&spn=0.29794,0.642014&z=11
OpenStreetMaps: osm.org/?lat=-6.7976&lon=39.2721&zoom=12&layers=B0FT

Addis Ababba:

Google maps: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=9.013268,38.752899&spn=0.148179,0.321007&z=12
OSM: osm.org/?lat=9.0082&lon=38.7417&zoom=13&layers=B0FT

OSM is ahead of the main closed source maps in a lot of africa.