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Organizing OpenStreetMap mapping parties

contrapunctus.codeberg.page

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Re: Organizing OpenStreetMap mapping parties

#81
post #4

I'm really curious how this person got codeberg pages working, I still haven't managed to get a codeberg page deployed. I thought it required a 3rd party server, like their actions seem to. Also: > It's easy to pick a proprietary network like Telegram or an unsustainable one like Matrix, What's unsustainable about Matrix? I've really enjoyed running our community on Matrix.

> I'm really curious how this person got codeberg pages working, I still haven't managed to get a codeberg page deployed. I thought it required a 3rd party server, like their actions seem to. Hi, author here. It doesn't need a 3rd party server - it's all hosted in Codeberg Git repos. Here's a guide - https://codeberg.page/ > What's unsustainable about Matrix? I've really enjoyed running our community on Matrix. Many…

Hosting costs makes sense (though last check ours only really pegs out at 4gb, granted that's with about 100 logins).

So far as I can tell, xmpp has no concept of threading, is that the case? It's what prevented me from choosing it when I went with matrix for my co-op.

Re: Organizing OpenStreetMap mapping parties

#82
post #72
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the usecase of Matrix As IRC I guess you mean? I've never participated in any matrix.org rooms outside of the matrix / synapse / element support rooms (I believe they're on matrix.org). For our community it's kind of moot if matrix.org closes, the only downside is of course support will drop off precipitously. But other than that, we self host.

I don't see what this has to do with IRC. But if all your users use your homeserver, then yes you should be fine.

I mean in the sense that IRC as a community and support hub for certain things like various Linux distros, other Foss projects etc, shifted away from irc to other tools like discourse or matrix.

I believe several are hosted on matrix.org.

Re: Organizing OpenStreetMap mapping parties

#83
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would absolutely decrease the amount of non-residential parking. You will be obliged to direct your car to off-site parking when driving to businesses in urban core. That's the main point. It will be somewhere in the vicinity so it will only congest local roads, which would be much emptier now that they're not used for parking.

Building the infrastructure sounds more expensive, physically difficult, and politically difficult than expanding bus and train lines. How do you justify the car option given that public transit objectively takes up less space and is better for the environment?

Because people want that?

In reality, you can do both. You can also do neither. I live in a dense urban core already where it is often convenient to take a bus. But not always - there are those mysterious poles of unavailability. Upgrading it with automatic off-site parking could still free up a lot of street estate.

Re: Organizing OpenStreetMap mapping parties

#84
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the iD editor https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/ID

That’s great to hear. The OSM website hides the Edit link on my phone and I’d inferred that iD must therefore not be sufficiently usable on mobile.

It's not usable on an iPad, so likely not on mobile either.

I was able to do edits in RapID (the Facebook fork), although you need to reload between each edit.

Re: Organizing OpenStreetMap mapping parties

#85
post #82
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see what this has to do with IRC. But if all your users use your homeserver, then yes you should be fine.

I mean in the sense that IRC as a community and support hub for certain things like various Linux distros, other Foss projects etc, shifted away from irc to other tools like discourse or matrix. I believe several are hosted on matrix.org.

Rooms in Matrix are hosted on every server who participates in them - just because the alias is #somewhere:matrix.org doesn’t mean that if matrix.org goes down the room disappears.

However, user accounts aren’t portable yet, sadly. So the problem is more that if matrix.org disappeared then it would impact the user accounts homed on it.

Re: Organizing OpenStreetMap mapping parties

#86
post #26
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, as recommended in the article, StreetComplete[1], which shows incomplete areas on your map and marks them as quests to add to :) Also recommended, Organic Maps[2], which is an OSM client that's good enough to use as my main map app (in my city, at least) Final recommendation, this interview[3] with the founder of OpenStreetMap Steve Coast. 3 hours of fascinating insight into the history and future of the p…

> including how he doesn't think OSM will be relevant for much longer once someone manages to develop a mapping project into their self-driving cars As someone who intends to never drive again, this is very funny to me. Cars are very obviously not the future of human transport, self driving or otherwise. They take up an absurd amount of space.

It's anyway a weird analysis. Keeping up with changes to the street network is more or less easy. POI search data/metadata is the stuff that is missing, is something that provides a lot of value to users, and is not easy to automatically collate.

Re: Organizing OpenStreetMap mapping parties

#87
post #9
post #4

I'm really curious how this person got codeberg pages working, I still haven't managed to get a codeberg page deployed. I thought it required a 3rd party server, like their actions seem to. Also: > It's easy to pick a proprietary network like Telegram or an unsustainable one like Matrix, What's unsustainable about Matrix? I've really enjoyed running our community on Matrix.

It seems like the original post may be just a little biased against Matrix in favour of XMPP ;) Matrix has been going strong for 10 years, and while it's true that the Matrix.org Foundation (and Element) need funding (c.f. https://matrix.org/blog/2024/01/2024-roadmap-and-fundraiser/ and https://matrix.org/blog/2024/04/open-source-publicly-funded-... ) it's clear that elsewhere in the Matrix ecosystem there's loads of…

It's not less sustainable than most other FOSS projects, it's just that most other FOSS projects also don't have sustainable funding. If you're just comparing the actual implementations this is true of most XMPP stuff as well.

However, that's not what's being talked about here most likely (though it's unclear since when we just say "Matrix" or "XMPP" we're talking about a protocol, not a service, client, server, etc. so who knows). If you compare Matrix the foundation/company, they are VC funded (the foundation is a bit of a sham after community pressure, it's all the same people and accounts controlling it, so it's a step in the right direction but not really well established). The moment that funding dries up, or the Element people (who still mostly control protocol work) decide they want to monetize the users more, the whole thing will fall apart. That's unsustainable.

Meanwhile proper standards organizations like the IETF or XSF have been going for way longer than 10 years and have proven track records of sustainable funding and membership. People just like to pretend it's worse somehow because they're not building sexy looking software themselves with millions in VC funding. In reality infrastructure is never sexy, and if it's using unsustainable funding models it will fail. This seems like a good reason to pick something controlled by a real standards body over something that's not if you want a long-term community.

(P.S. Since someone once accused me of bias and deliberately not mentioning this even though I'm completely open about it: I have volunteered for the XSF and have done work on both Matrix and XMPP related products and open source projects; I chose to volunteer for the XSF after working on both protocols and evaluating their funding and leadership, so take that for what it's worth)

Re: Organizing OpenStreetMap mapping parties

#88
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm really curious how this person got codeberg pages working, I still haven't managed to get a codeberg page deployed. I thought it required a 3rd party server, like their actions seem to. Hi, author here. It doesn't need a 3rd party server - it's all hosted in Codeberg Git repos. Here's a guide - https://codeberg.page/ > What's unsustainable about Matrix? I've really enjoyed running our community on Matrix. Many…

Hosting costs makes sense (though last check ours only really pegs out at 4gb, granted that's with about 100 logins). So far as I can tell, xmpp has no concept of threading, is that the case? It's what prevented me from choosing it when I went with matrix for my co-op.

XMPP has threading at a protocol level, just like Matrix (and it has since the early days). I'm only aware of one or two apps that implement it though, and I'm not really sure why that is (maybe it's just a lot of old-school developers who like older IM clients? Unclear.). I really like the way the Cheogram app does this (it's XMPP under the hood) and am hopeful that other clients will see the way they've done it and start adopting it.

Re: Organizing OpenStreetMap mapping parties

#89
I really enjoyed this! I've only tried to do this once and it was a bit of a failure (nobody showed up on the day despite a lot of interest), but since then I've done a lot of organizing in other fields (political stuff mostly) and have a lot more experience planning events. The mix of general organizing principals (call people, they're way more likely to show up) and OSM specific stuff in this article (don't map eg. a mall, it's more confusing for newbies) was really helpful and I think there are a lot of tips for organizing other kinds of things; everything from lan parties to mutual aid could benefit from this. Thank you OP!
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