Talk:Main Page/Archive 2

This is an archive of old discussions moved from Talk:Main Page Please do not add further replies to these discussions. If you have further comments to make, or you want to revive a discussion, you might move it back to Talk:Main Page (or other talk pages), or create a new discussion there and just add a little link on here Old discussions remain here deliberately to allow searches to turn up old answers to questions.

Wiki discussion

There's currently no link whatsoever to the main discussion venue for the wiki itself, this should be fixed. As far as I can see, it's Talk:Wiki. --Nemo 10:28, 16 August 2012 (BST)

Copyright infringment should be under legal, not community.

In Template:Portals. That's about it; it has to do with legality more than community. - User:Tmcw 14:57, 13 September 2012

yup. I agree -- Harry Wood 16:36, 13 September 2012 (BST)

Where do we put information of technical projects

There is a page for projects collecting data, but doesn't appear to be any summary (or otherwise) pages on projects using/manipulating the data.

I'd like to add a page detailing an C# .Net processing system I've developed to import and render OSM data via an Sql Server database.

User:Derek bartram of 09:41, 20 October 2012

Cleanup this (and others) discussion page

Should there be some kind of cleanup process for the discussion pages - e.g. there is a section on here relating to someone who deleted some spam content which is months old. It has no ongoing value so should either be archived, or perhaps more sensibly deleted.

-- User:Derek bartram 09:13, 24 October 2012

Yeah this is quiet a big discussion page so we've archived it off on a couple of occasions. I'm not sure how wikipedia organises this. I think in the past i've made a value judgement and moved the discussions which seem clearly old and of limited value (as opposed to some which can be old but still relevant) Of course if we're too trigger happy, we'll end up archiving a discussion before people have read their replies. Best not to stress too much about it, but occasional cleaning is needed yes.

The other ongoing discussion cleanup hassle is to add people's signatures to their comments when they forget to do it themselves :-P

--Harry Wood 02:30, 25 October 2012 (BST)

Feel free to move no longer needed discussions to Talk:Main_Page/Archive, or in future other archive pages linked from top of Talk:Main_Page Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 10:44, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Remapping link more prominent

I've left this hopelessly late of course, but been trying to work out where on the Main Page we should link to license change info, and particularly the remapping guidelines for mappers. Then I noticed/remembered we've had it linked at the bottom of the news panel for a long time. I think it's appropriate to make this a little more prominent. Although license change is kind of a techy topic, not of interest to outsiders for example, the remapping page is one we'd like to get mappers to take a look at.

I'm making it in a light yellow box at the top of the news panel. Hopefully not too ugly. Of course we're hoping to be over and done with remapping very soon anyway so it won't be like that for long.

-- Harry Wood 13:34, 3 July 2012 (BST)

I agree that it's late (especially for the "Asking users to accept the ODbL", which slowed down significantly after April 1st), but the placement in the news panel is fine imo. I've done the same for Template:DE:News now. --Tordanik 13:52, 3 July 2012 (BST)

I have added info to the Licence change. I think, we should temporarily move the Licence link to same place at wiki, where we create information about new licence. The page Open_Database_Licence could serve as a good start. --Jakubt 15:20, 16 July 2012 (BST)

"We are changing the license" Except we have. News Template doesn't really need to talk about the change - just leave the news entry that it changed. Also under Licensing in the top left box, text needs changing (we really don't need the link to redaction bot progress any more). Can't think of suitable wording though. --EdLoach 10:33, 15 September 2012 (BST)

I've changed the wording to indicate we have changed it, and link to the OSMF blog post. It could likely do with a complete rewrite but it's an incremental improvement. Pnorman 06:55, 18 September 2012 (BST)

OK. The link to remapping is important at the moment, but becoming progressively less important. We can drop the yellow box entirely at some point. -- Harry Wood 18:56, 19 September 2012 (BST)

Just swapped it from yellow to grey -- Harry Wood 02:38, 25 October 2012 (BST)

Several months after the license change now. The Remapping page is happily no longer important at all in my opinion. Most areas have either been remapped pretty well. Some areas never will be, and the gaps will be discovered by natural map progress instead. Frederik decommissioned his OSMI layer for those kinds of reasons I guess. I think Edloach was suggesting we don't give it special position in the news template and just leave it as a news item which will disappear off the bottom soon. Sounds good to me. I guess I will add a link to remapping from news entry and drop it form the news box header -- Harry Wood 02:33, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

DONE - Harry Wood 15:06, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Refresh maybe?

Hi, I've created proposal of bit refreshed main page. Feel free to edit and comment. Yarl ✉ 15:46, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Any reason why you didn't include the language template in your demo page? I think due to its standard placement at the top it would have a noticeable effect on how the page looks? And do you propose update the style of templates used elsewhere in the wiki, too, or is this design refresh limited to the front page? --Tordanik 16:38, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I want to add lang. template on main page, but current one isn't look nice. Well, I want to standarize country WikiProjects and templates like {{ValueDescription}}, but I need to test them first. Yarl ✉ 16:52, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Hey, that looks like Wikidata! :^) The overall style is quite pleasant, though I find the duplicated OSM logo on the right a bit odd. Earlier this year, I developed a layout for the Vietnamese main page based on a large slippy map and compact lists. My main objectives were to tame unwieldy sections like Events while adding a bit of interactivity with the slippy map. I think your design and mine would make a great combination. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 11:41, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

+1 It looks very good. Why this has not been adopted yet and what has to be done to adopt it in the current version of the main page? Paweł Paprota 17:08, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

+1 It looks nice --Kendzi 17:56, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I like the general look. Suggest to tone down the bars a bit (would prefer green bar to match one of the logo greens). What about the +/- buttons in the headlines - have you forgotten them or omitted them on purpose? And I think we need the language thing back else lots of people will complain. I argued against it in the past and was shouted down ;) --Frederik Ramm 21:42, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

"Moderate rework"

I don't like some aspects of yesterday's "moderate rework". The introduction at the top is nice and was also part of Yarl's suggestion above, but the almost complete removal of any kind of border around the various boxes doesn't look good at all imo (and it wasn't discussed beforehand either as is usually required for changes to the Main Page). I suggest to either implement Yarl's design, or revert the boxes to the previous look. --Tordanik 16:27, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree it should have been discussed. Reverted. -- Harry Wood 17:34, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm open to discussing changes on a mailing list or in issues. I don't think that the policy of 'discussing' on this talk page is very effective, and actually that it's much the reason why this page has stayed consistently ugly and incomprehensible for more than three years. Tmcw 02:39, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Well sometimes the mailing list is the place for discussion, sometime the wiki talk pages are better. That can be a source of confusion/tensions particularly around changes to tag documentation (It created a strange kind of wiki fiddlers versus mappers debate at times) Did you discuss on the mailing list? In the case of cosmetic redesigns to the wiki Main Page I think it's well established that here on 'Talk:Main Page' is the best place to discuss this. If you want to discuss the matter on the mailing list, you'll need to cross-post / link here because everyone else discussing it here. Sorry if that seems unreasonable.

The idea of insisting upon discussion before making changes, was introduced in relation to content and prominence of links, because people have occasionally added crappy ideas as links on the Main Page. But it does apply to restyling of the boxes on the wiki page too. Again, sorry if that seems unreasonable. If I understand your point correctly, you're saying the styling of the boxes has made the Main Page "consistently ugly and incomprehensible" for the past three years, and that insisting on discussing changes first has prevented improvements, or had some kind of chilling effect over that time. Interesting theory. You may be right, but it balances against other benefits. In any case, as far as I'm aware this is first time anyone's expressed a particularly strong opinion about the current style of the boxes. I would have thought the matter would have been discussed more often if everyone really felt the boxes are "ugly and incomprehensible". It's also the first time anyone seems to be questioning the common sense of discussing changes first, and it's the first time anyone has decided to restyle the boxes without discussing it.

So your idea seems to be to drop some of the 1px borders (or all of the borders? you actually applied the change inconsistently across some but not all the boxes). We can discuss it, but the timing seems bad. We were actually in the middle of a discussion about restyling the boxes. I guess you didn't see that. What d'you think of Yarl's boxes style above?

-- Harry Wood 13:22, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

+1 for discussing widely before changes are made (ideally presenting the alternative suggestion visually like Yarl as done it). The big "PLEASE DISCUSS FIRST" message in the page source has been there since 2009 at least and even if someone thinks it stands in the way of progress, simply ignoring it cannot be the answer. --Frederik Ramm 21:37, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Contribution List

Can we add one more item to the "Contributing" list as follows in order to encourage people to contribute more to the cleanup of the wiki itself: --yigiter 2 Dec 2012

Contributing

Use the Beginners' guide to find out how you can improve the map content Improve these wiki pages Report an error using OpenStreetBugs Create better tools Donate some money, or offer data for other people to import.

I wonder whether we should also add links to the bug trackers for the most important OSM tools. There has been a comment on help recently that the usage of trac isn't easy to spot. --Scai 18:57, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Link for developers should be more exposed

The Develop page (developer "portal") is linked only from the rather vague "Create better tools" link. Link for developers should be front and center on the home page. I think it could be done as a separate main headline after "Contributing" - something like "Developers". It is just too important to be buried. I can do the changes but apparently it needs to be green-lit... - Paweł Paprota 17:08, 10 December 2012 Ppawel

+1 for more prominence to developing for and with OSM. The "developing for" could actually fit under "contribute" but the "developing with" maybe not... --Frederik Ramm 21:29, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the response Frederik. We discussed exactly this topic at EWG meeting today and last week also - the separation between developing "for" and "with" OSM. I think there could be a single general "Developers" link and under that link a developer would get more information about this separation and also relevant links to further content for each "side". But I think anything really will be better than the current situation... Paweł Paprota 21:41, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

"I can do the changes but apparently it needs to be green-lit" I think you're referring to my rule described above. Just to clarify... It's not necessarily a matter of green lighting changes. On this page we have a special rule, that all changes must be have a corresponding discussion on this talk page. This doesn't preclude people from making a change immediately provided they add the discussion immediately. You might do this if you're confident the change will be widely agreed upon, otherwise discussing in advance of a change is better.

I understand this rule and I agree with it. Sorry for my hasty comment about green-lighting - it sounded like I was angry at this "red tape" but in fact I was just frustrated by the fact that there's no link to developer stuff... Paweł Paprota 12:51, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Anyway yes, a "Development" link used to be more prominent actually see this version in December 2011 before Peter made some changes. Lots more links and text were added, and the Development link got sidelined a bit. I agree it should be boosted in prominence somehow.

-- Harry Wood 12:19, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

OK, I think restoring the "Development" link is probably the best way to do it. Paweł Paprota 12:51, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

DONE. I also created a new landing page for developers - Developers, need some feedback about it. Paweł Paprota 18:16, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Navigation by use cases

I proposed a reorganisation of the wiki navigation, which would imply bigger changes to the main page. I would be happy to get your opinions about it. --Cantho (talk) 20:03, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Sidebar translation?

Hi, I would like to change some text and links in Czech version of the sidebar (main menu on the left). I am not able to figure out how to do so. Could you advise me please? Chrabros (talk) 07:23, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

You'll need to ask an administrator to edit the necessary interface messages for you. The sidebar links are defined in MediaWiki:Sidebar. Everything currently to the right of a | is the name of an interface message that holds the link text; for instance, mapfeatures refers to MediaWiki:Mapfeatures, which contains the text "Map Features". By editing MediaWiki:Mapfeatures/cs, an administrator can translate the link text when the interface is in Czech. Likewise, everything to the left of a | is the name of an interface message that holds the linked page name. So MediaWiki:Mapfeatures-url/cs should be edited to say "cs:Map Features". – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 12:09, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for clear explanation. Chrabros (talk) 13:58, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Calculating shortest path on maps

My project is about calculating the shortest path between several points .get this points from database, run a shortest path algorithm on them and then draw this path . how could i do this using OpenStreetMap ????????????

- User:Aya eltokhy 21:48, 6 April 2014‎

Hello. You are asking this question in the wrong place (This page is for discussion the wiki Main Page contents)

We have various Contact channels. As your question is not very specific, maybe http://forum.openstreetmap.org would be a good place for this.

-- Harry Wood (talk) 06:42, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to change the main page

In January, I proposed to organise navigation in this wiki by use-cases, which implies fundamental changes to main page. During the extensive discussion I incorporated a lot of feedback into the proposal. One month ago the last wave of discussion ended and now I feel ready to propose to apply the proposed new main page, which would imply to link several navigation pages (example) from the main page.

Main improvements are:

• The new main page is consistently structured by use-cases. The current main page is partly structured by features, for example the "Software" group in portal block.
• The new main page has a hierarchy in use-cases, taken from the amount of pages related to each use-case. The three primary use-cases are 1) use OSM, 2) Contribute map data and 3) Software development. The three secondary use-cases are 1) about OSM, 2) Other ways to contribute and 3) General help.
• The new main page layout, adapted from mediawiki.org, is lighter through the introduction of navigation pages, which shifts many links away from main page. See the list of omitted links to be sure that all links stay accessible through the new navigation pages.

Now I would like to change the current main page to the proposed one. As far as I can see, there is no defined procedure to decide about that. My hope is that we can do a vote and get a consensus about it (meaning that nobody is against it and at least some people support the proposal). So, please give me your vote about applying the proposed new main page.  :) --Cantho (talk) 09:58, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

I support the change. You've obviously put a lot of thought into it, and it looks great. Thanks for the hard work. There's tweaks I would make, but we can discuss those later. -- Harry Wood (talk) 11:37, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

• I support the change. Is it possible to fix the different start-heights of the left column and the right column? --LordOfMaps (talk) 13:21, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

  I've changed this via an edit of Template:Calendar3, although this now makes the current main page look wonky. It won't hurt for a little while, I trust. Moresby (talk) 17:30, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. We talked about it before, great work! One small suggestion: Don't include Openstreetmap_logo.svg twice. --phobie m d 13:31, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. --★ → Airon 90 13:52, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. The existing page is a hangover from when we were a much smaller project with a link farm of pet projects added to it. The new page gives a makeover like the one the map has benefited from. --Andrew (talk) 17:49, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

A followup: other pages linked from the main page should be as clear as the new ones.--Andrew (talk) 19:37, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Another followup: having pages called Use OpenStreetMap and Using OpenStreetMap both linked from the front page could confuse people not understanding what the difference is meant to be.--Andrew (talk) 15:43, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah I'm confused about that. See Talk:Use OpenStreetMap -- Harry Wood (talk) 01:00, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

• I support the change with minor tweaks. Only one of these tweaks I see as crucial and that is to add the Contributor Terms link from the Portal box (that is being dropped) to your Use OpenStreetMap page. My other two suggestions are (i) to keep the community links (e.g. by keeping the Portals Box but with just the community links), and (ii) to consider whether the presntation of "More about OpenStreetMap | How to contribute | Where to get help" can be improved. --RobJN (talk) 19:34, 23 May 2014 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Under the current state. Chtfn (talk) 08:27, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

About OpenStreetMap

How to contribute

Where to get help

Use OpenStreetMap

Using OpenStreetMap

---

• Browse our world map
• Check the ready-to-use products for your mobile device, your desktop computer or the web services
• ...more on using OpenStreetMap

Become a mapper

Beginners' Guide

---

• Browse the map feature documentation
• Browse the Mapping projects
• ...more on contributing map data

Software Development

Develop and use the Platform

---

• Use OpenStreetMap for your software
• Contribute to the OpenStreetMap software

• Edited to add a proposal (above) of how to integrate the top three link. No boubt you will come up with something much better :-) --RobJN (talk) 20:54, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

A comment: mediawiki.org has a template for the main page that the page in each language uses. Is that something worth doing here?--Andrew (talk) 16:45, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. I like the new design. Great work. --Werner2101 (talk) 08:47, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

• I neutral this proposal. Okay! I do not have enough time (or rather willing to invest time) to get into the details of the proposal in-depth (although I was discussing in an earlier stage), so I think I should not vote "pro". The change project seems to be very good planned (e.g. list of omitted links) and thought about (at least compared to the low activity in our wiki), so if you, Cantho, think that it is ready, go for it. Thank you for your effort, Cantho! Some ideas:
  Note 1: One issue which comes to my mind: what about translations? I did not find a planning or concept at Talk:Wiki_organisation#Navigation_by_use-cases.
  Note 2: There are some other bits which are improvable, but that is not really in scope of this redesign (e.g. the use of the words "the map" – we do not have only the one and only map. At the help centre people are often confused about the several maps... and we do it wrong ourselves, how should they know better?).
  Note 3: tables for layout is not the best thing to do. Tables are for structured data. Using divs and css would likely be better. --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 23:08, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Great work on the new design, well thought of and a good improvement all round. Martin Renvoize 18:34, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks everybody for your feedback! After one month of vote nine people supported the proposal, one person was neutral (given reason: no time to go into detail) and nobody oposed it. The last vote is three weeks ago. I think, the proposal is ready to go online. There were some (smaller) suggestions, as there will always be, but I think it's good to implement the changes as they were proposed and voted on, and then people can continue on improvements if they want. I don't have the right to change the main page, thus I asked a sysop (User:Harry Wood) to do the changes. Let's enjoy the new main page :) Best wishes --Cantho (talk) 20:28, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Here's a text one could put into the news box: "The main page was redesigned to be lighter and strictly use-case oriented, and we introduced navigation pages." --Cantho (talk) 20:39, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

PROPOSED CHANGE IS DONE

I think there's a few ongoing tweaks we'd like to make. I suggest these are put forward as new discussion headings here.

-- Harry Wood (talk) 13:55, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Missing Whitspace

Hi, i miss some whitespace between the meta-info and the calendar.. Greetz, GercoKees (talk) 07:34, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Yup, see this comment from me above:

I've changed this via an edit of Template:Calendar3, although this now makes the current main page look wonky. It won't hurt for a little while, I trust. Moresby (talk) 17:30, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

It was a temporary change to allow the new page proposal to be viewed correctly. The proposal looks as if it's going ahead, in which case this problem wil disappear. If the new proposal doesn't happen, for some reason, someone need simply undo that edit. Moresby (talk) 08:12, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Problem disappeared. --Cantho (talk) 11:49, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Cut down Meta Info

Most of the below-the-line boxes have contents that change frequently, the static links have gone to navigation pages. With Meta Info, only the platform status is that sort of information. If we trim it down we can also get rid of the unclear name.--Andrew (talk) 11:27, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't really understand your proposal, sorry. Do you want to remove the Meta Info box from Main Page? Or the platform status link? --Cantho (talk) 11:51, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I want to keep the platform status and get rid of the links to statistics and feeds.--Andrew (talk) 12:02, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Stats is already linked on About, and I added Feeds to About. [1] is linked on Stats, thus all three links will stay accessible after removing them from Main Page. I approve the proposal. --Cantho (talk) 10:11, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I further propose to completely remove the current Meta Info box (thus also to remove Platform Status) and instead add a mesage box on top of the calendar box, which only appears if Platform status is not ok. I suggest to link Platform Status on Develop, when removing it from Main Page. --Cantho (talk) 10:11, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Make country pages easer to find

The mew front wiki page is a significant improvement over the previous version, however it has made one issue worse: it is very unclear where the country specific wiki pages are. This is likely simply a wording issue, most people don't (does anybody) think of the country/local stuff as a "Mapping project..." I would suggest replacing "Browse the Mapping projects" with "View Country and Thematic resources" or similar. SimonPoole (talk) 16:09, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Yeah they're gradually being sidelined for some reason. We used to have Mapping Projects linked in the sidebar, and the list of countries was on that page, but that list was moved onto the title "List of territory based projects". The list of countries is an import page on the wiki to my mind, so (as I mentioned at the time Talk:List of territory based projects) it was maybe a shame it got hidden away with a clumsy long name. -- Harry Wood (talk) 14:28, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Actually I think country specific stuff as a Mapping project :) Anyway imo we can link more specific from main page, since there's only Mapping projects related to either countries or cities or specific features. Everything else listed on Mapping Projects is not really a mapping project. What do you think about "Browse the mapping projects for countries or specific features, or search for your city."? I would then clean up Mapping Projects: Focus it on mapping projects on specific features, (additionally) link List of territory based projects there and move the rest to where it belongs (for example WikiProject Semantics to Contribute map data under "Tagging"). --Cantho (talk) 22:35, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Review of translations of the new main page

There are a few translations of the new main page now. The translatable headings for the boxes at the bottom are often not being translated. The markup to use them (with headings in English) is:

{| role="presentation" style="margin: 0;border:0;" width="100%" cellspacing="10"
| valign="top" width="50%" |
{{Image of the week | Image of the week | Other featured images}}
{{News | News}}
{{osm_metainfo | p_status=Platform Status}}
| valign="top" width="50%" |
{{Calendar3 | Event Calendar}}
|}

(slightly different if your language community is capable of maintaining its own news box)

If the main page in English uses these explicit strings it would make the translation of the headings more discoverable.--Andrew (talk) 21:51, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. You can preview the result on Proposal_to_restructure_the_main_page (you see no difference). --Cantho (talk) 15:03, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

suggested changes to 1060762 version

1. unlink "Develop and use the Platform"
2. link "Use OpenStreetMap for your software" to Using_OpenStreetMap#Software_development
3. link "Contribute to the OpenStreetMap software" to Develop or even Develop#Main_Projects

Also, remove following text from Develop:

There are two major ways you can get involved in OpenStreetMap:
By developing the OpenStreetMap Platform itself. This includes the OpenStreetMap.org website and related components and services.
By Using OpenStreetMap. You can "use" OpenStreetMap data and services together with software and services from our community to build anything you want.

Xxzme (talk) 20:52, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

That part of the navigation/ main page can definitely be enhanced. The currently linked Develop is about both, development of OSM and development with OSM. It's for that reason, that currently Develop is linked as the general entry point for both use cases. Splitting like you propose should be done on Develop before it's done on the main page, in my opinion. I already proposed that, but got negative feedback, see the disc. --Cantho (talk) 10:17, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes and sadly Tordanik forcing that Develop should be single page for anyone. [2]

I think we should create portals:

• Software development using OSM data (relevant cat Category:Development)
• Development of OSM (mostly from current Develop, relevant Category:Development of OSM)

and leave Develop as simple Disambig afterwards. Xxzme (talk) 06:23, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Well, the page was created not long ago with the goal to offer a single point of contact for developers, and imo that's a pretty good idea. I believe the two audiences are very, very similar. There also is no clear boundary, as creating a map that is used in the OSM community is the same process as creating a map for external users. So the synergies pretty much outweigh the differences.

Look at the infoboxes: Most of the content of the left one is also relevant when using OpenStreetMap for development. Likewise, the contact information below, as well as the knowledge of editors and libraries, are relevant for non-core developers.

And ultimately, there's something to be said for not changing pages all the time for minuscle improvements. If the current state has no big flaws (which this page definitely has not), then perhaps we should leave it alone. If we change a page, it has to be translated all over again, all the wiki links need to be modified, old links from outside the wiki get destroyed and so on. If you take this into account when considering the usefulness, you come out far in the negatives with a page like this. --Tordanik 12:39, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

There very clean boundary. I don't want to show content only for Category:Development_of_OSM (especially always outdated stuff like Category:Development of OSM/requested features to all Software developers (Category:Development).

I don't see how information about source code of iD (JOSM/osm.org) will help somebody to deploy their own Mapnik/whatever.

I don't see how informations about translations of iD (JOSM/osm.org) will help somebody to deploy their own Mapnik/whatever. Xxzme (talk) 13:18, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Categories are a comparatively rarely used feature, and should hardly dictate how to split or merge pages. And you mentioning examples of the few things that are not relevant for both groups does in no way change that most of the content is mutually relevant. --Tordanik 13:25, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Okay. Here is list of "few things" from Develop:

https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website

https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/issues

https://trac.openstreetmap.org/newticket?component=website

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contact_channels#Systems_administrators

https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim

https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim/issues

https://trac.openstreetmap.org/

http://josm.openstreetmap.de/wiki/DevelopersGuide

http://josm.openstreetmap.de/browser/josm/trunk

http://josm.openstreetmap.de/newticket

https://trac.openstreetmap.org/browser/subversion/applications/editors/josm/plugins

https://github.com/openstreetmap/iD/labels/get-started

https://github.com/openstreetmap/iD

https://github.com/openstreetmap/iD/issues

https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto

https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues

https://translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special:Translate&group=out-osm-potlatch2-main

https://github.com/systemed/potlatch2

https://trac.openstreetmap.org/newticket?component=potlatch2

https://github.com/openstreetmap/osmosis

https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/osmosis-dev

https://github.com/openstreetmap/osm2pgsql

https://github.com/openstreetmap/osm2pgsql/issues

https://trac.openstreetmap.org/newticket?component=osm2pgsql

And only after that there tiny link to Leaflet. Who will read this page? Xxzme (talk) 13:41, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

link "creative, productive, or unexpected ways"

We should expand They are using OpenStreetMap and link "creative, productive, or unexpected ways" to They_are_using_OpenStreetMap#OpenStreetMap_data

1. good promotional page 2. good overview page for begginners Xxzme (talk) 15:40, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I would prefer the "mission statement" to mostly stand for itself, rather than containing links. (THat includes the existing link, but that's not the topic here.) While such an overview could indeed offer some additional motivation for beginners, it's not so important that it needs to be linked within the first two sentences on the page. As for general issues with the "They are using OpenStreetMap" page, I've added a note on its talk page. --Tordanik 07:54, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Link to the wiki from the Help page

The OSM Help page only mentions the wiki at the very bottom. Given its usefulness, shouldn't it be at least before the Mailing Lists ? The RedBurn (talk) 08:42, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

All the most useful links are on the home page, they necessarily address different needs for different users, including beginners, or regular contributors. Advanced contributors use the search tool at top to look for features and their doc directly. I would not say it is "useless". But you have a more specialized use of this wiki, where you no longer need the main page. — Verdy_p ^(talk) 10:24, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. What I mean is that to get to the wiki main page (where we can then use the search tool), we have to go to the bottom of the Help Page and click on wiki.openstreetmap.org. Why not put that link at least above the Mailing Lists link, which users click on much less often? The RedBurn (talk) 17:16, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

By the way, the wiki link points to the English version even for the French help page. Is there a way to fix that? The RedBurn (talk) 17:22, 15 December 2016 (UTC). Ok, I think that part is fixed. The RedBurn (talk) 17:28, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

I still don't understand your issue. The search tool is already at top of every page on this wiki, not at the bottom. You don't need to go to the bottom of the Help page.

I think you are asking for something which is NOT a problem at all of this wiki but another website. So this cannot be discussed here, but on the relevant support page for that website, where's you'll contact their local site admins. — Verdy_p ^(talk) 18:27, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm talking about the OSM Help page. Do you know if there's a way to modify it or who we can contact? The RedBurn (talk) 23:12, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes. The link to the wiki from the OpenStreetMap.org was massively downgraded in prominence during a site redesign which took place a few years ago. What was once a single click on 'documentation' in the left hand panel (old design), became a click on 'help' -> scroll down past other things -> wiki link.

Note that many people who maintain the website, and generally in the wider OpenStreetMap community have lost patience with contributing to the wiki, which is the underlying reason why it has been downgraded in prominence. Sadly that's then a bit of a vicious circle, particularly when it comes to keeping the wiki representative of everyone's views.

So to answer your last question, the help page is part of the openstreetmap website, so maintained on the website github repo. It's generated in a rails 'view' here: https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/blob/master/app/views/site/help.html.erb (which is translatable, so see also text snippets such as these). But being a github repo, that's also one possible place to discuss this issue where it needs to be heard (not much point complaining to people on the wiki!). There must be other discussions about this, but I found this old issue, which was given short shrift. In general any Front Page Design discussion tends to go nowhere. That's a good thing in a way, otherwise the front page would be changing all the time!

-- Harry Wood (talk) 13:46, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the info Harry! I just created a pull request to move it to a higher position. About the issue that was closed, it seems that the creator mixed up the OSM main page with the wiki main page, leading to a misunderstanding. About the people who contribute less on the wiki, maybe is it because they don't have the time anymore. Anyway, I hope other people will maintain it, because it's the main source for mapping instructions, leading to good practice (and not just those). Of course, they have to find the wiki first. The RedBurn (talk) 18:32, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Resolved: the mentioned page is maintained elsewhere, not as part of the OSM wiki Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 10:53, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Performance improvements

By way of an update, the improvements in Template talk:Calendar#Streamlining templates, Template talk:Languages#Lua rewrite, and Template talk:Purge#MediaWiki interface messages for performance and intelligibility have resulted in a significant speedup of most pages on this wiki, especially Main Page, which loads 81% faster:

−

NewPP limit report Cached time: 20190619051845 Cache expiry: 3600 Dynamic content: true CPU time usage: 4.039 seconds Real time usage: 5.588 seconds Preprocessor visited node count: 61429/1000000 Preprocessor generated node count: 47775/1000000 Post‐expand include size: 322899/2097152 bytes Template argument size: 21952/2097152 bytes Highest expansion depth: 18/40 Expensive parser function count: 8/500 Unstrip recursion depth: 0/20 Unstrip post‐expand size: 0/5000000 bytes Lua time usage: 1.520/15.000 seconds Lua virtual size: 16.5 MB/50 MB Lua estimated memory usage: 0 bytes Transclusion expansion time report (%,ms,calls,template) 100.00% 5155.119 1 -total 47.54% 2450.948 1 Template:Calendar3 47.34% 2440.334 1 Template:Calendar 45.79% 2360.338 1 Template:Languages 45.62% 2351.725 1 Template:Languages/div 43.30% 2232.018 115 Template:LanguageLink 41.36% 2132.125 1140 Template:Langcode 35.55% 1832.518 90 Template:LangSwitch 34.22% 1764.288 115 Template:Languagename 34.13% 1759.474 71 Template:Dm

+

NewPP limit report Cached time: 20190808092013 Cache expiry: 3600 Dynamic content: true CPU time usage: 0.760 seconds Real time usage: 1.233 seconds Preprocessor visited node count: 9505/1000000 Preprocessor generated node count: 19022/1000000 Post‐expand include size: 196788/2097152 bytes Template argument size: 17648/2097152 bytes Highest expansion depth: 15/40 Expensive parser function count: 153/500 Unstrip recursion depth: 0/20 Unstrip post‐expand size: 0/5000000 bytes Lua time usage: 0.440/15.000 seconds Lua virtual size: 18.09 MB/50 MB Lua estimated memory usage: 0 bytes Transclusion expansion time report (%,ms,calls,template) 100.00% 960.147 1 -total 76.67% 736.172 1 Template:Calendar3 76.47% 734.220 1 Template:Calendar 74.74% 717.648 56 Template:Calendar/event 31.10% 298.568 61 Template:Event_date 25.77% 247.407 55 Template:Flags 8.56% 82.190 1 Template:Languages 8.47% 81.281 1 Template:News 6.66% 63.957 26 Template:Langcode 5.28% 50.738 8 Template:LangSwitch

 – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 09:30, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! The only thing that seems concerning is "Expensive parser function count" that appears to be increased Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 10:51, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

New data item editor UI

Here's a pre-released version of the new editor for the key & tag data items. To enable, make sure you are logged-in, and create or edit your common.js page. Add this text to it:

mediaWiki.loader.load('/w/index.php?title=User:Yurik/dataitemeditor.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript');

Now go to any English Key or Tag page, and click the WEF Key/Tag link in the left sidebar (refresh if you don't see it). It also works on the data items. This is ALPHA version, use with care... in the worst case, look at the data item and revert your changes.

Limitations that I plan to address shortly

• Only supports Tag: and Key: pages, in the English pages only. Also works on the data item pages.
• Shows a list of all available editors instead of offering just the relevant one.
• Not tied to the "pencil" icon in the infobox.
• Not yet available as a gadget.

Please send me any feedback, bugs, etc.

The source code is on github, with the actual templates in the /src/editors dir. The original editor was created for Wikipedia (used on ruwiki and frwiki AFAIK). --Yurik (talk) 17:15, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

"Image of the week" is broken

I don't know how to fix it, just reporting a bug: the "Image of the week" box displays red text "Template:Iotw image/2020-17" instead of an image. Intgr (talk) 15:04, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

There is no image of the week yet. You can propose one at Featured image proposals. --Tigerfell  (Let's talk) 09:01, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

You're saying that it's normal for the main page to look broken? It leaves the impression of a website that's in decay.

If that slot can't be filled, maybe it should be removed entirely. Intgr (talk) 09:49, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree. A broken image on the main page really sucks. The fact that there aren't more people noticing it and complaining about it, or helping with featured images in order to fix it, is a strong indication to me that it's time to retire featured images completely. I say this as the person who's been organising the featured images for a long time.

I've always tried to avoid broken images on the main page. For long time we've struggled to get an image lined up in time and had a broken image on the Monday morning for a short while (as the weekly template rolls over). I hoped the occasional visibile failure might motivate more people to help proposing images. However recently (since May) I have been leaving it broken permanently in order to see if anyone else wants to fix it. The conclusion of that experiment is clear. More details here: Talk:Featured image proposals#The death of OpenStreetMap featured images?.

So yes, we need to remove that section from the Main Page. I will just remove that template, and the one below ("news") will shift upwards on the page slightly.

-- Harry Wood (talk) 08:57, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

It's better no image than a broken image, of course. Anyway, thanks to @Harry Wood: for his effort to update the images every Monday. I used to follow the updates to translate the descriptions. Sometimes, I discovered things about OSM that I didn't know because of the images Harry published every week. Thank you sincerely! --Dcapillae (talk) 21:01, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Resolved: resolved by removing featured images - thanks to Harry Wood for all the work on featuring images for so long time! Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 06:25, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

La Cartographie du Sénégal

Bonjour a tous je m'appelle Alpha Amadou DIALLO, je suis géomaticien, formateur et contributeur d'OpenStreetMap. Nous rencontrons des problèmes au Sénégal sur le manque de moyens matériels et financiers afin de pouvoir organiser a chaque fois des activités sur l'utilisation des données Open Source car les activités se font rarement par faute de moyens. N’hésitez pas si vous avez des corrections a faire car c'est une première d'apporter des modifications sur une page wiki.

Resolved: not about OSM main page Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 06:23, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

vec vèneto

Good evening, I am an admin of vec.wiki and I wanted to start contributing to openstreetmap in my language. However, I have not been able to find where it is possible to translate the cities into my language .. the Vèneto (Venetian)! Thank you in advance for your kind reply! --Fierodelveneto (talk) 18:09, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Welcome! If you would like to tag the names of map features, such as towns in Italy, with their proper name in Vèneto, the tag to use would be name:vec=* - this tag has already been used >600 times: https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/name%3Avec. It's also possible to use other Name tags in this format, such as official_name:vec=* for places which have a longer official name: https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/official_name%3Avec.

If you would like to translate pages in this Wiki into the Vèneto language, see https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Wiki_Translation and start creating pages with the prefix "Vec:", like Vec:Main_Page or Vec:Tag:highway=footway. Have fun! --Jeisenbe (talk) 21:16, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Resolved: seems resolvedMateusz Konieczny (talk) 06:23, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Reverted spam edition

Hi. I have reverted this edition (spam). Maybe we should also block the account that made it.--Dcapillae (talk) 10:34, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Resolved: blocked, see https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/%E5%BC%A0%E5%A9%B7%E8%90%8D Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 06:22, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

More up-to-date news?

As of writing the "News" section of the main page has its last entry dated 3 Aug 2019 - more than 12 months ago. I feel this should be kept much more up to date, especially on the wiki landing page. Coolmule0 (talk)

If you have any specific text that can/should be added then it is likely that it will be used Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 01:44, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

I proposed in the relevant template talk that we cross-post from the OSMF blog. Template_talk:News. RicoElectrico (talk) 01:48, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Resolved: updated a bit, hopefully problem will not reappear Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 14:33, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Proposal - remove news

We have 0 entries from 2020, it would be better to have no such section Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 06:20, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it would be nicer to have it updated rather than removed. But I am not volunteering for that specific Wiki activity Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 06:21, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Resolved: updated a bit, hopefully I will not be back with the same proposal on October 2021 Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 14:32, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Right place to ask about "account page spam"

Dear Wiki people,

I'm looking for some advice from the Anti-SEO spam guys: What to do with user accounts like https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Batteries ? Zero edits, but a SEO link.

Thanks--Svensson (talk) 10:53, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

We should have report user page explaining this... Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 11:26, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

There is a section in Spam called Spam#User description and diary spam. --Dcapillae (talk) 11:32, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Resolved: User reported, page created Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 11:38, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

More vandalism

Please delete How_To_Lisa_Armstrong_Eye_Pencil_From_Scratch --Svensson (talk) 11:15, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

You can request by placing {{Delete}} on that page (I did this) Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 11:26, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Resolved: thanks for a report, flagged for deletion Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 11:26, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Wrong Link for Earth Day Submissions

Resolved

I think the link under the News section is incorrect as it links to the Call for participation in moderation subcommittee instead of Celebrating Earth and Space in Maps. Is it okay if I make this change? --IanVG (talk) 15:48, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Sure. maro21 18:57, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Fixed. maro21 19:57, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Improving mobile view

Currently the main page layout is using <table> tags but it does not scale properly on the mobile view. I tested display:flex on User:Kioska Journo/draft, there is still room for improvements but it looks better on small display. Any remarks ?--Kioska Journo 15:59, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Just that I am thankful for trying to improve it! OSM Wiki in general is quite bad on mobile devices so any improvement is nice Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 22:12, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

 Support - Could an admin update Main Page with the flex syntax from User:Kioska Journo/draft to improve mobile view, please? --Chris2map (talk) 15:06, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Resolved: --Tigerfell  (Let's talk) 14:01, 27 March 2022 (UTC)