 Sister projects on Main Page
- 2 Russian translation/namespace "RU"
- 3 Greek translation
- 4 New section about using the map data
- 5 More than one map
- 6 Status
- 7 lolcat
- 8 news
- 9 User Anouncements/ Call for Research
- 10 Portals
- 11 Discuss BEFORE adding things
- 12 Quick Contact Template?
- 13 Reorganising the calendar
- 14 "gillMapping" by G.N.D.E.C, ldh
- 15 uggiMapping & nakodarMapping events
- 16 Disaster mapping message
- 17 RIT Imaging Department
- 18 Project of the week
- 19 Quality Assurance
- 20 Chilli earthquake message
- 21 Export
- 22 more weight for 'Country projects'
- 23 Purpose, name and structure of the "Main Page"
- 24 Rename this page / suppress the title
- 25 Categorization of this page and other language main pages
- 26 Image of the week doesn't work
- 27 software
- 28 Image of the week 2010-51
- 29 Beginner's guide
- 30 Remove OSM Binary Format link
- 31 Making changes...
- 32 Main page beta
- 33 Proposed changes Jan 2012
- 34 Moving legal and Using OpenStreetMap links into main panel
- 35 New Portals beta article
- 36 Reworked Portal
- 37 Minor layout changes
- 38 Link to contributors page
- 39 Further adjustments following comments above
- 40 Software
- 41 Legal line to Portals section
- 42 Switching Calendar and News sections
- 43 Twitter
- 44 Quick contacts
- 45 Sidebar review
- 46 Vietnamese main page
- 47 An edit by Leedsescorts25
- 48 Wiki discussion
- 49 Copyright infringment should be under legal, not community.
- 50 Where do we put information of technical projects
- 51 Cleanup this (and others) discussion page
- 52 Remapping link more prominent
- 53 Refresh maybe?
- 54 Contribution List
- 55 Retire Lolcat of Awesomeness
- 56 Link for developers should be more exposed
- 57 Link to trac.openstreetmap.org
- 58 Software list
- 59 Navigation by use cases
- 60 Sidebar translation?
- 61 Calculating shortest path on maps
- 62 Proposal to change the main page
- 63 Stats
- 64 Missing Whitspace
- 65 Cut down Meta Info
- 66 Unbalanced tag
- 67 Make country pages easer to find
- 68 Review of translations of the new main page
- 69 Functionality and reliability under opensource conditions.
- 70 suggested changes to 1060762 version
- 71 Fund raising drive 2015 banner
- 72 How to link from a wikidata item to a way
- 73 link "creative, productive, or unexpected ways"
- 74 Link to the wiki from the Help page
Sister projects on Main Page
I just noticed that there are two sister projects mentioned in the Template:Osm_metainfo which is displayed on the Main Page. What about adding OpenAddresses? It is a project for geocoding address data. Together with OA2OSM it can be used to enhance OpenStreetMap with house numbers. --Dwi Secundus 09:43, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
- I took a quick look at OpenAddresses, because I've never heard of it before.
- It uses google maps.
- Did you know OpenStreetMap also collects address data (see house numbering tagging instructions) and we do so by asking people to gather locations using GPS units, or based on the street layouts we have mapped out from scratch. We do not use google maps. We'd be happy to work with you and your database, e.g. by importing it all into our database, but first you'll need to throw away all the data you've gathered so far, and build your interface based on OpenStreetMap, so that non of your geo-locations are derived in any way from google maps. You'll also need to request that your contributors release their address location data under the OpenStreetMap License (in fact this may be required if they are pinpointing based on our maps). Then we can use your data. Good idea hey? If you do all that, we may one day think about listing you as a sister project :-)
- Currently we list a very small number (three) sister projects: Free The Postcode, Mapstraction, OpenStreetPhoto. We can't list all the geo projects we like around the web (although we do have longer lists elsewhere such as List of OSM based Services) I'm not sure what the entry criteria should be for choosing these, but they are all projects with long-standing ties to OpenStreetMap.
- - Harry Wood 13:28, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
- There is a Testimport with OpenAdresses-Data (the inventor of the project is my tutor). You can see it at [1]. --Christian Karrié 18:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Why is the dead project OpenStreetPhoto still listed there? Should be replaced by OpenStreetView, some other project or just removed.--Scai 11:45, 29 August 2010 (BST)
- Good point. In fact all three of the projects we have there are a little bit stale. I think Free The Postcode and Mapstraction were bunged on there in the early days by Steve, since he was involved in setting up both of them. Free The Postcode stagnated a little bit even before the Ordnance Survey released postcode data. It's still of value in other countries, but UK used to be the main impetus. Mapstraction is still a pretty neat project, but I've heard they're not managing to take patches very well, and certainly the documentation on the website seems fragmented between versions. I haven't heard much from OpenStreetPhoto lately. I think it was only ever a few enthusiastic dutch guys, and I assume they declared themselves a sister project, which probably shouldn't have been allowed. They got some funding and seemed very active a few years back, but strangely distracted by quadcopters. In summary, none these project are really setting the world on fire these days.
- I'm not sure which other Related Projects I would pick as "sister projects" these days, if it were my choice, and I've no idea how we'd ever reach agreement on such a choice. Easier to just drop the "sister projects" from the main page That's what I propose.
- -- Harry Wood 23:22, 15 October 2010 (BST)
- DONE. I was forgetting about this but Frederick went ahead and dropped them [2] -- Harry Wood 11:25, 25 July 2011 (BST)
Russian translation/namespace "RU"
Hi! Is it possible to create a namespace "RU"? There is certain amount of pages in Russian language already. -- Zkir 09:56, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
- Add this suggestion to Talk:Wiki#multilingual name spaces. I'm not sure how firefishy's deciding which languages get to be namespaces, but anyway here we are discussing "Main Page" (and translations of it). -- Harry Wood 11:50, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
- Old discussion. To be archived. By the way. 'RU' has since been added as a wiki namespace. See table at the bottom of Wiki Translation -- Harry Wood 01:33, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
Greek translation
I just wanted to tell that I'm interested in helping a mapper to make the Greek translation. I don't think it's that complicated. Someone recommended me to post such a message(from irc at freenode) so here it is. Logictheo 09:57, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
- Greek translation of the Main Page you mean? The page should be created at EL:Main Page. Think that's the plan. The 'EL:' prefix could eventually mean we create an 'EL' namespace which would allow you to search only within greek language pages. Go ahead and create the page! We'd love to encourage more greek participants. -- Harry Wood 12:19, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
- Someone's created El:Main Page. That's cool. I've added in the language links -- Harry Wood 11:47, 14 April 2009 (UTC))
More than one map
Since there isn't solely "The map" anymore, at least a link to a site with all other rendered maps (London tube map, german PSV map, hiking maps etc.) would be handy. I suggest straight below the "Show me the map"-link. RalpH himself 18:24, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
- Old discussion. To be archived. Nobody had much to say about the suggestion, but the page was rewritten since. These days with have a slightly less prominent link and the text: "Use the main online map or some of the many other services". Partially adopting the idea you might say. -- Harry Wood 00:45, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Status
Could someone maintain USEFUL status information on the front page please? For example, the current page says 'Generally stable', but the main map hasn't been updated in more than 2 weeks and I get lots of 'error 500' trying to get the main home page these days. Could someone fess up and put a meaningful status there please? - User:Kmf - 16:34, 15 June 2007
- It's fairly likely that that status indicator will be out-of-date at any given time, just because the servers/services are up/down/crippled quite a lot, and because the people who know details about the server status, are not necessarily the same people who regularly communicate via wiki edits. I would encourage everyone to be bold, and whack in new status information themselves. If you observe the API to be down, why not just switch the status to red with quick edit of Template:Platform Status. Obviously if you can confirm with others on IRC for example, then that might be a good idea, and if you know more information about what exactly is wrong, you can provide this on the Platform Status page, but there's a underlying mantra for all wiki editing (especially where things need to be kept up-to-date) which is to be bold. -- Harry Wood 19:19, 22 July 2007 (BST)
lolcat
I removed it, its been put back; lets discuss. What do people think of it being there, particually in its current form? Ben 22:40, 7 August 2007 (BST)
- You could remove it now, on the basis that nobody has awarded it to anybody. It was supposed to be weekly.
- But the lolcat of awesomeness is just a harmless little kitten. How can you be so heartless?
- -- Harry Wood 11:32, 28 August 2007 (BST)
- keep (dutch user ;) ) Alexanderpas 00:26, 23 September 2007 (BST)
- Keep because I made the template. Bruce89 00:34, 23 September 2007 (BST)
- Remove because of wrong spelling. --Lulu-Ann 15:17, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
- keep since a) to much seriousness causes gastric ulcers and b) it is now a part of OSM-tradition invented three years ago. -- Malenki 15:43, 11 May)
"gillMapping" by G.N.D.E.C, ldh
gillMapping is the event which is organizd by the civil department of "Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College, ludhiana" with collaboration of the LUG(linux User Group )ludhiana. In this event we use the GPS(Global Position Sytem) Technology for Creating the map of the gill village . The event will be scheduled to start 0n 22th nov,2009 at 9:00am in consultancy hall of G.N.D.E.C College ludhiana; Following are the Students Selected for the “gillmapping” from LUG, ludhiana. 1)Daljeet Singh Pathania D3(IT)
2)Jagdeep Singh Malhi D3(IT)
3)Davinder Kumar D2(CSE)
4)Parveen Kumar D2(IT)
5)Adity Arora D2(CSE)
6)Priyanka Sharma D2(IT)
7)Chandeep Singh D2(CSE)
User:Daljeet123 05:41, 19 November 2009
- OK. GillMapping yes. Hope it went well. I'll remove this discussion from here now then I think -- Harry Wood 20:19, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
uggiMapping & nakodarMapping events
These two mapping events were organised by the Dr.H.S Rai. of Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College Ludhiana. In this event we use the GPS(Global Position Sytem) Technology for Creating the map.The Event uggiMapping was held on december 29,2009. and nakodarMapping was done on december 31,2009.
Only two students named
Parveen Arora B-Tech IT GNDEC LUDHIANA
Rahul Wadhwa B-Tech CSE CT JALANDHAR
mapped these places.
The vIllage uggi with village post office Tehsile Nakodar and District Jalandhar... State PUNJAB INDIA
User:PARVEEN ARORA 21:56, 2 January 2010
- I hope the event went well Parveen. Did you want to list this on Past Events?
- -- Harry Wood 20:19, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
Disaster mapping message
The haiti message is too wide causing horizontal scrollbars (on my firefox at least)
I added a bright message in the news section, because I hadn't see the top message. The top one is now bright too, but in a (clashing shade of yellow/peach)
My suggestion. Consolidate to just one message in the top-right next to the Haiti image of the week. I think the message should link the "resources" we are offering. As far as I can see that should be the main push now actually (getting people use our Haiti maps)
would do it myself but I'm running late. gotta go.
-- Harry Wood 13:59, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
- I've fixed it by removing width:100%;. It works fine in FF and Chrome under Linux. Please test it with other browsers. --Jarkas 16:58, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
- Yesterday I consolidated the message -- Harry Wood 13:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
I've reduced the size of the message. I guess at some point we'll need to decide that it's old news. Could swap it for a more generalised link to Humanitarian OSM Team. -- Harry Wood 07:40, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
- Reduced the size again today -- Harry Wood 09:38, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
The Haiti link got relegated down to a new 'Downloads' info box. I'm dropping the Haiti link altogether today, swapping in a 2011 Christchurch earthquake link instead, and making it bright orange again because this is current. I know that's quite obtrusive for what will turn out to be a much more minor disaster than Haiti, so I plan to leave it like that for just a week maybe, before going to pastel green again. Basically just going with what seems reasonable. Of course it's unfair that we didn't do the same for recent Pakistan & Colombia floods etc, but... well maybe we'll try to do it more often from now on.
It's an uncomfortable matter of judgement, whether disasters are important and for how long after they happen. Hmmm maybe we could base it on google trends to be more objective about it.
-- Harry Wood 18:29, 22 February 2011 : [3] [4].)
Chilli earthquake message
Rather than "Please help" I've written "Chilli mapping is currently limited by available imagery".
I'm basing that on the contents of these pages: 2010 Chile earthquake/Mapping Coordination, 2010 Chile earthquake/Imagery and data sources. So if I'm wrong, feel free to correct the message on the main page here, but also please update those pages. It's very important the these pages are updated to reflect what imagery is available and what types of mapping contributions we are encouraging.
-- Harry Wood 13:17, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Export
I am trying to export an svg-file as Export -> Mapnik Image, but I am not presented with the selection of file types, should I do something else, or does the site have a problem?, --ClausHansen 18:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
- This is the wrong place to ask this question. Should be on Talk:Export or a different Contact channel. But anyway my answer is "works for me" ... I guess it could be SVG export was temporarily disabled -- Harry Wood 14:23, 8 March)
Image of the week doesn't work
The image of the week doesn't show up ... can somebody fix that please (and delete the comment here) Greetings, -- Schusch 10:13, 4 October 2010 (BST)
- There is a statement of contingency on the page Template:Howto featured images, what to do if an image is not available. :--Ceyockey 13:11, 4 October 2010 (BST)
software
Add a link to Software page in Tools box and Desktop/mobiles software --Esperanza 16:19, 1 November 2010 (UTC) --Esperanza 15:58, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
Image of the week 2010-51
Well - nice image - seems to be a good thing. But no information at all for the people who can't read russian language ... a really bad prepared image of the week. How does this work, is it useful for all buildings in OSM? Not the best timing now, when people have time and take a look at OSM. If the image of the week would have been only in german ... what would have happened? (In reality it would have been translated during the first hours if not before publicating the image ...). Really curious thing - please add at least some english information for the rest of the world! -- Schusch 08:11, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
- Of course, I've translated title text into English (actually, that was other way around). I tried not to overload it with links. Also, the technology is not polished, and we do not want to flood OSM base with bad data: there is no agreement on how to map building parts. In Russian forum we decided to mark them building:part=yes, but in most of the world there's just building=yes, and it messes the database on complex objects (example: Tennispalatsi in Helsinki). The scheme itself is already described in the wiki, but it's not official. So, to sum up, this is just some fun picture just like the most of images of the week. (And also, this is not my first IotW :) --Zversky 08:38, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
- By the way, you can always use Google Translate (the translation is strange, but understandable). --Zversky 08:43, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
- nothing against the fun - and I didn't want to be personal. I don't see a problem in linking to a not perfect page :-) so just add a hint at the top of this 3d-page ("Please do _not_ add 3D-information to the osm database for now - this feature is in an experimental stage" something like this in a red box or so). It doesn't have to be "official" - there should only be some information if you have an image of the week. Otherwise it's like standing in a traffic jam without any information at all (for the people not reading russian) ... I will add this link to the iotw, because it makes much more sense than the one to russian forum. -- Schusch 08:56, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Beginner's guide
Currently the main page links to the Beginners' Guide not the Beginners' guide. If there are no objections I'll change the link to a small g while leaving the text the same, eliminating a redirect. --User:Pnorman 21:17, 1 November 2010
- Yup. fair enough -- Harry Wood 15:03, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
Remove OSM Binary Format link
In the Portals box I plan to remove the link to the obscure OSM Binary Format and replace it with a link to XML (which documents the main OSM XML format) -- Harry Wood 11:09, 6 June 2011 (BST)
- DONE -- Harry Wood 18:05, 14 June 2011 (BST)
Making changes...
Opps.. I have just noticed the comment at the top of the page source asking people to discuss changes to this page before doing them. Too late!
Let me now explain what I have being doing and why. My aim is to increase the percentage of people who actually contribute to the map after signing up, a percentage which is currently very low indeed. To this end I have been putting a lot of effort into a wide variety of pages including Map Features and Mapping projects to make it easier to new people to make sense of the project. Today I have made some changes to this page and have:
- Adding rows for 'Mapping projects', 'Map Features' and 'Help' to the table with appropriate supporting text because these key pages on the index will be central to how people will navigate the wiki in future and it will be good for them to try it early on.
- I have made some layout adjustments to put information in places where I think it will be more helpful to the beginner and hide away potentially confusing information. In particular I have moved the 'portals' down the page to encourage people to use the primary links in the main box.
- I have rolled the 'get out of the way, try the map' link into the main table on the basis that it will be clearer that people may want to go down the list of recommendations in order, first trying the map, then learning about tagging and projects and then finally make some changes to the map itself.
-- PeterIto 14:28, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
- I have made some other minor layout changes. In particular I have reordered the entries in the main table to match the order in the left-hand menu better. I have changed the section called 'Beginners' guide' to 'Getting started'. I have created direct links to the 'Help Centre', 'Mailing lists' and OpenStreetBugs. I have demoted the 'community contact channels' below the calendar because all of these links are already available (and more) in the main table or by clicking on 'Help'. I have removed 'reference guide' which not that useful an article. PeterIto 07:00, 27 December 2011 :)
Moving legal and Using OpenStreetMap links into main panel
I suggest that we move the copyright link and 'Using OpenStreetMap' link from the separate panel towards the bottom right of the page into the main panel (at the top left). See Main page beta for my proposed new version of this page and the diff for details of the proposed change. Do adjust the beta page if you feel it isn't right yet or discuss the change here. I will put the change live in 48 hours if there is no objection. PeterIto 05:11, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
- I like the idea, but I would formulate the teaser line in this box more attractive. See Main page beta -- Roland 14 Jan 2012 08)
Legal line to Portals section
I am proposing to add an additional line to Portals beta for legals including links to the Disclaimer, Copyright and License, Contributor terms and to the Open Database License. Any suggestions? I will roll it onto the main page in a few days unless there are any objections. PeterIto 19:27, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
Switching Calendar and News sections
I have been noticing that the calendar section changes length dramatically over time and is currently much longer than news. This currently pushes Portals way down the page. I am proposing to switch calendar to the right hand column after lolcat where it can get a long as needed and move the news section to the left column which makes Portals much more accessible. See Main page beta for what I am proposing. As usual let me know if you disagree or I will make the change is a few days. PeterIto 12:03, 8)
An edit by Leedsescorts25
I noticed this user made this edit to the Main Page, which I undid because it is a spam edit. Leedsescorts25 should be at least blocked for a period of 1 day for these spam edits. --BrandonSkyPimenta (Talk • Contribs) 06:03, 27 May 2012 (BST)
- That user has been banned permanently. We get spammers like that every now and then, unfortunately. --Tordanik 18:36, 27 May)
Retire Lolcat of Awesomeness
Lolcat of awesomeness. This guy hasn't been updated in a while and is kind of an issue with the wiki's home page giving a good impression. Can we retire it? Tmcw
- +1 for retiring the lolcat but I think it should be replaced by something that is "unprofessional" in the same way, something that carries the message "look we're a bunch of people having fun, not a commercial enterprise concerned with a good first impression". What you see as "kind of an issue with the wiki's home page giving a good impression" is actually a truthful aspect of the project that mustn't be polished away. --Frederik Ramm 21:28, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
- This is a duplicate of the same discussion above: #lolcat Although that's much older and could be archived.
- Originally the lolcat of awesomeness was intended to be awarded weekly. That lasted about two weeks! (before the community lost the energy to maintain such a thing. Doing something like that weekly is unlikely to work) however the situation transitioned such that it became more like a major award for OSMing excellence. A kind of george cross medal of honour. The frequency of awards dropped to maybe three or four awardings per year.
- The strange thing is, there's nothing to stop anyone awarding the lolcat to anybody at any time. We didn't devise any rules or decision making process around it. I'm not sure whether people generally didn't realise this, or perhaps people have come to respect and revere the lolcat too much to dare fiddle with it!
- However the frequency has dropped off even more these days. There's two easy solutions. Either we award it to it someone else! Or we could drop it off the page unless/until somebody wants to award it (which might mean it gets forgotten about and retires anyway). Deciding to retire it permanently at this stage... I just don't know if we're ready for that. :-)
- -- Harry Wood 12:34, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
As an update to this old discussion, for some reason we never did award the Lolcat of awesomeness to John Firebaugh back in Dec 2012, but it did got to Zverik in Nov 2013. So very infrequent awardings which tailed off to nothing after it was removed from the Main Page (I notice it has not been removed from all the translations of the Main Page). Think we can archive this discussion -- Harry Wood (talk) 13:13, 20 February 2015 )
Link to trac.openstreetmap.org
Issues with the site need to be reported on trac. I suggest adding a link in the "portals" section under either "community" or perhaps better "Get involved". --Guttorm Flatabø 10:27, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
- +1. I already added a similar comment under the section Contribution List.--Scai 13:50, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
- As no objections appeared, I added it as Bugs & issues (trac) under "Community". --Guttorm Flatabø 17:56, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
Software list
Currently the software list on the portals section refers to osmarender, but doensn't have iD even though it the other editors. Unless there are objects, I'll remove osmarender and add iD. Pnorman (talk) 10:58, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
- I agree. In fact I've done it -- Harry Wood (talk) 11:10, 28 August 2013 . )
Unbalanced tag
There is an unbalanced tag somewhere e.g. on this talk and on the main page seen with monobook; you can notice the tabs and sidebar breaking down. --Nemo (talk) 12:33, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
- This is a problem for IE11 and Android 2.3.6, Firefox 30 displays correctly. Fixed in which needs to be copied to the main page.--Andrew (talk) 19:03, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
-
- Thanks! I left a note to a sysop (User:Harry_Wood), who can edit Main Page. --Cantho (talk) 20:19, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
- DONE - Harry Wood (talk) 23:37,. )