[OSM-talk] The real face of MAPS.ME edits and notes - a short analysis

Ilya Zverev ilya at zverev.info
Mon Jul 10 14:54:35 UTC 2017


Hi everyone,

Thanks Michał for your analysis of maps.me edits, and thanks Roland for explaining the value of local knowledge. I don't agree with everything on the list of possible improvements suggested by Michał. For example, I consider name:xx equally, if not more, important to name tags, since not always you can detect a local language. But the most items are definitely valid.

We at maps.me are aware of some issues with our editor, though we have been busy with other tasks lately. Among many other things, we have improved time prediction and voice navigation for the routing, and added intermediate points support for the next release. As per our roadmap we are starting work on incremental map updates, which would give our users and map editors the freshest map possible. We also have experimented with public transport routing: check out the results (definitely not ready for production) in https://youtu.be/GSFY-yxEkj0 .

Alas, some parts of the editor are deteriorating because lack of support from the OSM community. Like, mappers can no longer sign in to OpenStreetMap using a Google account, since Google stopped supporting webview-based OAuth. The pull request for fixing this on the OSM website is still not merged, waiting there for five month, despite us answering every question and following every reasonable suggestion. We'd like to make the website more friendly to mobile users, starting with the authentication.

The good news is, we are compiling the list of issues with the editor, combining Michał's suggestions with reports from the Russian forum and from bugs at maps.me. Then we will discuss the list internally and turn in into a roadmap for the maps.me editor. In a month or so we plan to share it with the community, and you will see positive changes later this year. You should know we care about the map as much as you do, since only because of the open data we were able to create our application. If the data gets worse, our app gets worse, so we are committed to improving the map, and the quality of the map.

Ilya


More information about the talk mailing list