<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Hello OpenStreetMap community,<div class="">I’m the product manager of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) Collaboration Team. We’ve been working on project recently called Map Improvements 2018 [1] that some of you will find interesting. As most of you probably know, WMF maps are powered by OSM data. The most significant new feature that we’ll be releasing very soon as part of this project is map “internationalization”—which means that’s WMF maps will display in the language of the user, rather than of the territory mapped. I wrote a recent post describing this feature and how it works [2]. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We’re also about to spread our embedded maps capability (“mapframe”) to hundreds of Wikipedias that don’t have the feature now. </div><div class="">The internationalization release will follow soon after. These should be welcome developments for the OSM community, I hope, since they will put OSM-powered maps in front of many millions of new users. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We don’t anticipate that these new maps will put any strain on OSM performance. The impact I do foresee—and hope for—is that the new exposure of multilingual map data will inspire many more Wikimedians to contribute to OSM. This is likely to happen when users start to see, as they will for the first time, that names in their language for some features and places are not available. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I’m writing today to let you know that these changes—and possibly these new contributors—are coming, and to ask for any guidance you think I should pass on to Wikimedians who might like to contribute to OSM. We plan to write a Help page on our end that will pass on some basic advice. And I will certainly link to relevant OSM Help pages, including this"Welcome to Wikipedia users” [3] page. I’d very much like to get your suggestions for a short list of Help links on OSM—pages you think a user coming in to add multilingual names would find useful. Also please send your thoughts about any information you think I particularly should impart. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Please post your thoughts and ideas to the project talk page [4]. Thanks for your help, and for providing the valuable service you do to Wikimedia contributors and readers around the world. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">[1]<a href="https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Map_improvements_2018" class="">https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Map_improvements_2018</a></div><div class="">[2] <a href="https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Map_improvements_2018#April_18,_2018,_Special_Update_on_Map_Internationalization" class="">https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Map_improvements_2018#April_18,_2018,_Special_Update_on_Map_Internationalization</a></div><div class="">[3] <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Wikipedia_users" class="">https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Wikipedia_users</a></div><div class="">[4] <a href="https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Map_improvements_2018" class="">https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Map_improvements_2018</a></div><div class=""><div class="">
<div style="letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><p style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); orphans: 2; widows: 2; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';" class=""><font color="#7f7f7f" class=""><font size="2" face="Verdana" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class="">_____________________</span></font><font size="2" face="Verdana" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class=""></span></font><font size="2" face="Verdana" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></font></font></p><p style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); orphans: 2; widows: 2; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';" class=""><font color="#7f7f7f" class=""><st1:personname w:st="on" class=""><b class=""><font size="2" face="Verdana" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class="">Joe Matazzoni</span></font></b></st1:personname><font size="2" face="Verdana" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class=""> <br class=""><st1:address w:st="on" class=""><st1:street w:st="on" class="">Product Manager, Collaboration</st1:street><br class=""></st1:address></span></font><font size="2" face="Verdana" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class="">Wikimedia Foundation, San Francisco</span></font><br class=""></font></p><div class=""><div style="font-size: 12.8px;" class=""><i class=""><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" color="#5f5f5f" class="">"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." </font></i></div></div></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class=""><i class=""><font color="#000000" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" class=""><br class=""></font></i></div></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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