![]() What is the best way to get involved? Are you looking for remote support or trying to get locals as your primary mappers? It’s not everyday we face these problems, but mapping in Ukraine has these challenges, and every single mapper finds his own answer.Ĥ. Is it morally right to map a combat zone? Is it right to map military objects? Is it right to map infrastructure? It can be used by both civilians, including volunteers, and by combatants. Then there’s the actual warzone, which raises questions on its own since combatants from both sides are known to use OSM. ![]() The “core OSM community” on both sides is, on the other hand, much more calm and tends to find compromises in what they do, which gives me great hope and inspiration. Then there’s Crimea, which obviously becomes a target of information war, not only in media, but also in maps, leading to edit warring (which subsequently often leads to broken state borders since most “map combatants” are only vaguely familiar with OSM mapping. Then there’s the occupied territory where Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages are repressed, including in geographical names. There’s a demarcation line which OSCE tries to keep demilitarized, and which is literally dangerous to live in, let alone map. The unique challenge that pops to mind almost instantly is, of course, the war. Lots of geographic objects are renamed every month, and Ukrainian OSM users, in addition to mapping them, take place in public discussions. While there is currently little progress, a window of opportunity is still there, and I’m very excited about any and all examples of such cooperation.Īnother interesting feature is the ongoing decommunization. It may seem tedious to some, but it’s also a great time to push OSM further and establish useful ties and cooperation with new government structures, getting official gov data and integrating OSM-based FOSS solutions on the global level. Yet another great opportunity I see is a total rebuilding of the government structures. While traditionally strong, it’s new to mapping, but already uses OSM in several tasks, albeit one always wishes for more. I suppose some people can tell about it much better than I, but to name a few, it’s the local volunteer network. That led to streets being mapped with relations, which, while questionable in terms of data structure, allows maintaining localization quite easily.Īnother pleasure is that Ukraine has lots of talented programmers and web designers, who, while divided and quite anarchically “organized”, come up with different great ideas. Ukraine is a big multinational pot rich with the history of strife, so many places have names in at least two languages. Official language in Ukraine is Ukrainian, but Russian, Crimean Tatar, Polish, English, German and even Greek are also present. One unique pleasure of Ukrainian OSM is its multi-lingual nature. What are the unique challenges and pleasures of OpenStreetMap in the Ukraine? What aspects of the projects should the rest of the world be aware of? Which is great - you can quickly see the changes and feel that you make a difference.ģ. On the other hand, quality of the map varies greatly, there are lots of places to map and improve, even inside Kyiv. It has several great mappers, but not enough novices to develop properly. The community in UA is currently fractured and hard to get together (yes, I’m talking about you, mapping-party-haters!). ![]() Several well-known instruments, like Leaflet, are created by Ukrainians, yet OSM still remains a thing for enthusiasts, which is sad. Ukraine has a great potential in OSM, being one of the leaders in IT outsourcing. Unfortunately the project currently lacks publicity and media support, moving forward mostly due to local fans and their initiative. OSM in Ukraine is greatly underdeveloped. What would you say is the current state of OSM and the OSM community in the Ukraine? OSM was the only choice at the time, so you may say it was fate :)Ģ. My participation in the project started when I first visited Kyiv and was looking for an Android map that could work locally on a standalone device without internet connection. I’m a heavy mapper. Part time programmer novice, part time amateur FOSS evangelist with interests in local history, culture, street art, urban trips, bicycles, design and industrial zones, it was only natural I got interested in OSM. Hi, I’m Kilkenni, a Ukrainian mapper from Kyiv. Who are you and what do you do? What got you into OpenStreetMap? After last week’s interview about the OpenStreetMap community in Morocco, today we turn our focus to Eastern Europe and speak with an OpenStreetMapper from the Ukraine.ġ. ![]()
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