onosm.org

Morning all

Notes have started appearing on the map from onosm.org. (eg below)

These are fine and useful, and looks like the site is making it easier for people to add their businesses.

It looks like a trivial trick has been missed in that the attributes have to be translated from standard English to OSM form (ie, remove <: > and replace with <=> ) It’d be good to have input masks so the phone number goes in correctly, too.

Does anyone know if the developers can be contacted to suggest this?

Thanks.

https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/2244967
onosm.org submitted note from a business:
name: BGL Customer Services
phone: 01733845555
website: Www.bglggroup.co.uk
twitter: undefined
hours: Monday-Friday 8am-10pm, Saturday 9am-5pm, Sunday 10am-4pm
category: Insurance,Financial Services
address: Fusion house peterborough

There’s a link at the bottom of the screen. I’d suggest clicking that and creating an issue there.

Do you mean the Github link?

I’ve tried learning how to use Github a few times to submit issues, but it’s like learning OSM all over again! I’ve never succeeded in submitting a ticket.

If anyone knows of a really basic for-non-programmers guide, I’d be delighted.

Ah, tracking through Github takes me to https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Onosm.org

I’ll use the developer’s talk page perhaps.

Thanks for your help.

You might be lucky, but there’s no guarantee that anyone will look at that, since the wiki page was (I think) added by people unconnected with the website.

So, how would one go about finding such notes that might exist in one’s area of interest? I might start with some sort of Overpass query to search for text common to all such notes, perhaps the string “onosm.org submitted”?

But is there a better way?

Thanks.

Dave

Use https://ent8r.github.io/NotesReview/ .

Crank up the limit from 100 to 9999, zoom in to your local area (remember to do this, hover your cursor above “Search” button and make sure there’s NO “worldwide query enabled” tooltip), type onosm.org into “Query” box, press “Search”.

I would suggest using https://osmybiz.osm.ch/ and not onosm to start with.

Unfortunately no-one can remember that URL :slight_smile:

Thanks

Dave

Now I have succeeded: https://github.com/osmlab/onosm.org/issues/78
Easier than I’ve found it before, as I didn’t read the instructions about forking or pull requests.

Still no idea what a ‘pull request’ is - apparently one of those may get resolved faster than my issue, but hey. Thanks for the suggestion.

A “pull request” is “This needs fixing, and here, I’ve fixed it by improving the code.”

An “issue” is “This needs fixing. Please can someone else fix it for me?”

Both are good but obviously code contributions in the form of pull requests get things done faster!

Friendly suggestion @eteb - please don’t say “Programming/interface changes needed for this fix are presumably trivial” or things like that in issues. If you’re not a programmer, you don’t know how trivial it will be. Issues should be dispassionate and not judgemental. :slight_smile:

Fair point. Edited: hopefully now less hectoring.

Thanks for the info on pull requests, too. I tried working that out through a search, got results like this one, and gave up!

I still hope OSM can become more friendly to non-programmers, tho as I slowly pick bits and pieces like this up (thanks to always considerate support from people more expert), I wonder if people either stick around long enough to learn enough, or else drop away - and so we stay at equilibrium on a steep learning curve.

@eteb3

I am really in the same boat as you even though once upon a time I was an assembly language programmer. I too have been frustrated with Github and the unfamiliar jargon used by advanced programmers here in OSM and elsewhere. In just one example, why would anyone call the operation to fix some code a “pull request”? Yet, it’s a common term in the Github community.

I simply do my thing with the map data and try not to get in over my head on the programming side of things. Life’s too short to learn all that fine detail. I’m glad somebody wants (and likes), to do it.

Just trying to stay abreast of the various forums where one can seek help is a big job. Another example from my experience: I find the OSM Wiki helpful but extremely frustrating to edit or improve. It’s so frustrating I don’t edit it very often even though I have useful information that could improve or clarify it. My hope is that better Wiki software will come along someday. But when will that be? Nobody knows.

Anyway, good luck in the future at OSM. OSM is a conglomeration of bits and pieces, an all-volunteer effort in which people give of their time when they can so it’s far from perfectly coordinated. Still, it’s a wonderful organization doing useful and interesting work. I’ve been heavily involved with OSM since 2012 and I derive a good deal of satisfaction from my work every single day. It’s worth any effort you make to understand it better.

All the best,

Dave