The markers which show OSM user locations

It’s possible to see who is mapping near you by placing a marker where you map and seeing which green markers pop up near by, and this is pretty cool. Unfortunately of all the green markers I have recently seen appear in quite a number around me; none have mapped anything which I can yet see, and none have uploaded any tracks.

Therefore what is the opinion on the proposal (and request), that these green markers have an opacity (or icon size) and eventually stop appearing? There is going to have to be some filter even if every one of them was a mapper, just because people will come and go.

The 2 factors that really effect the importance of seeing a user on the map are how much they map, and when they last mapped. Any increase on either and people would tend to find it more helpful to find them.

If each icon has a value, and anything above that is displayed and anything beneath is moved to an ‘extinct’ user list until they reappear, then the data would be more helpful. The increasing of time between last edit and current date would take away from the value, and the more edits the user makes the more is added to the value.

That way if a person turns up and makes 1 edit and nothing more they would stop being displayed after a couple of weeks for example, while if a user worked solidly and got there value up to a top amount and disappeared, there icon would remain for considerably longer… (6 months?)

Discuss… (if something comes of it, I’ll stick it on the mailing list and see if any developer would be interested on improving this feature)

Or maybe the markers fade from white (has done nothing yet) to bright or dark green to indicate a very busy mapper? Should be cool to see.

But basically I see the same thing over here. There are about 10 mappers around me of which only 1 has actually done a significant effort (more then a few hundred edits). The other only have done 1 or so. That doesn’t mean their edits weren’t useful though, they may need some more encouragement like organising a mini mapping party and inviting them personally :slight_smile:

Yeah. I’m also surrounded by lots of users but probably none of them have edited much at all. Difficult to say though. Is there a way to know what a particular user has done?

Another related question. Is there a way of looking at all the user home markers for a different location? You can do it by moving your home location, but that seems like a workaround. What about just scrolling around and looking at them? What if I want to see who lives in Lille where I’m going on holiday this weekend?

The data for where a user has edited is known I presume as it’s shown in JOSM…although that is only the last edit so maybe that data is changed each time someone edits, and therefore only edits made by a person that are ‘at the top’ still could be counted?.. There is the stat’s list of daily/weekly/monthly edit amounts per user on the wiki as well and the list of total edits by some users on the main stats page…(although veerry outdated).

I have used the same method as you for seeing who’s editing in an area, by shifting my location around…I’m not sure of any other method for doing this, but I agree that it should be easier.

Because the icon is just a sprite displays over the map I presumed it would be easier to vary the opacity of it than the colour or size, but I don’t really know. Depending on what would be possible there is actually quite a lot that could be said about a user by there marker which could be very helpful. Having people who have been editing less than a month displayed as blue(?) could be helpful.

There are various factors that would be helpful to see from an icon. Amount of gpx files uploaded (or gpx points). The amount of edits made recently (could be made by adding the daily count on each day and taking away a set amount, with a max value. This way it would gradually drop). And the length a user has been around. Ideally I would like to be able to see which users are running scripts also, but there isn’t really an easy way of finding that out I assume, except by an automated email going out if the amount of edits in a day exceeds a certain amount, and asks users to confirm they are using one.

Maybe the opacity could be set by gpx uploads, and size set by recent edits. Colour then groups beginners, the majority, yourself (red), and scripts…? Actually, editing in a methodical fashion the handful of sprites required to represent all combinations could be made rather easily. which would involve requesting nothing to hard to be added to the page graphically, and just a set of figures that are updated daily for each user using sources which hopefully are already avaiable.

In OpenLayers it is very easy to change either color or opacity (perhaps color is even easier) for features like lines and areas. This probably translates to sprites as well.

Considering the little effort required just to make sprites I rattled off some combinations… If it is really easy for a person to make the attached appear based on the 1 existing image then that would be great, but if not, making them separately isn’t an issue really.

There’s been discussion on the mailing list about contacting new users around you, I think that would be the best solution… Because I’m not really sure everyone wants to share all that information…

All this information is already shared… just not in a single place. (As I explained 2 posts back) If you can contact a new user around you then I don’t see why that’s any more invading of a persons ‘personal information’ than something stating that they are new and it being displayed in there marker…since you know there location anyway; presuming they’ve added themselves…

As well as this the current scattering of green isn’t particularly helpful due to the problems I listed in the opening post, so it would remove the issue, and add some advantages to it. I don’t understand the scepticism therefore.

Interesting stuff. Usually dos not work to “push” people by exposing them, bit what emj suggests, implicitely. I know there are some mappers around me, but don’t know how to see their locations on the map (if at all possible). Any sugegstions?

If you set your own position on the personal settings page on www.openstreetmap.org then you will be able to see the other mappers around you in a radius of, say, 10 km.

Edit: You will only see those who have set their location as well, ofcourse.

Only mappers who have also chosen to add their position, which is why I think it doesn’t expose anybody more than they allow. i.e. there level of privacy is up to them, but presuming they choose to share information, then why not make the most of it?

With the guidance of Lambertus finally found where I was looking for. See your point more clearly now, Ben. I have not seen a single edit of the mappers near-by, they are all from other mappers outside “my 10km circle”. Must say though that my own “highway=cycleway”, don’t show the (C) mark either. Also Tracks are not attributed in Osmarender.

The (C) only shows the name of the last person to edit them, although I’ve seen my name appear in loads of wierd places I’m sure I’ve never touched, so rather confused there.

Not very keen on this feature personally. Although currently there may be plenty of ways that are made/edited by only one person that will become true for an increasing small amount of the data, therefore crediting everyone’s input to one person. Also the main map isn’t really the place for notes/information. If people require crediting in this way, then it should be on the maplint layer rather than the main map layer. (Or a new layer specifically there for notes/information/wiki links/credits etc.) It looks messy with names everywhere…and it’s a golden rule of mapping is to avoid clutter.