Points of interest not publishing

dexterclark1998 · 2020-07-02T23:08:34.000Z

To start out, I’ve been editing OSM for some time now with the motivation to edit local areas near me. Primary motivation being OSM’s connection with companies like Mapbox that provide services to popular apps such as Snapchat which utilizes a “Snapmap” for its users.

It’s been nice to see my edits appear on services like Snapmaps; however, I’ve been noticing some big inconsistencies in updates. Some edits appear, while other do not depending on the entity that I’ve added. In a local area near me: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/46.8531/-114.0117 I’ve added prominent neighborhoods that were missing. However, I’ve grown to notice that they never actually appear after adding them and waiting for it to officially publish. I can clearly see that labels in the area (that were likely added months, if not years ago) already appear on services like Snapchat’s Snapmap. Yet, these neighborhoods that I’ve added don’t appear to be publishing even after weeks of being submitted to OSM. Is this connected to the irregularities with tile rendering, where the further zooms such as zoom 10-12 (where these labels tend to appear on Snapmaps) don’t render as fast as closer layers? Or perhaps some other factors?

I’ve been trying to find solutions on my own to this issue and I would really appreciate help or a reasoning as to why this is happening. Thanks!

alan_gr · 2020-07-03T09:33:13.000Z

Can you clarify whether you are referring to the map as it appears in other services such as Snapmap, or also to the map displayed at openstreetmap.org?

Can you give an example of a feature you have added that does not appear as you expect, and maybe a similar older feature that does appear?

Note that there isn’t really a concept of “offically publish” in OSM. As soon as you save an edit it is part of the live data so you can consider it “published”. From that point it is up to the many different renderers to update their tiles. And there is no guarantee that any particular feature will render - there is far more data than any one map csn display. Again, if you link to a specific object you have edited, we may be able to tell if you simply need to wait or if there is some other reason it does not appear.

SomeoneElse · 2020-07-03T10:06:30.000Z

I can’t comment on Snapchat / Snapmap directly, but while some third-party users of OSM data are good at ensuring that updates to OSM appear quickly in their maps, some are not. Some “OSM-based” maps are months or years out of date, just like some maps based on other data are.

dexterclark1998 · 2020-07-03T18:25:54.000Z

alan_gr:

Can you clarify whether you are referring to the map as it appears in other services such as Snapmap, or also to the map displayed at openstreetmap.org?

Can you give an example of a feature you have added that does not appear as you expect, and maybe a similar older feature that does appear?

Note that there isn’t really a concept of “offically publish” in OSM. As soon as you save an edit it is part of the live data so you can consider it “published”. From that point it is up to the many different renderers to update their tiles. And there is no guarantee that any particular feature will render - there is far more data than any one map csn display. Again, if you link to a specific object you have edited, we may be able to tell if you simply need to wait or if there is some other reason it does not appear.

Thanks for the reply!

I’m obviously new to this service so I’ll try to explain the best I can. So, the changes to the map I’m referring to are through third-party maps such as Snapmap. I’ve seen many of my edits appear on these third-party services after around a week, but certain points of interest such as a “Neighborhood” point, never show up even weeks after being added to OSM.

So for an example, in the area I’ve been trying to map, a particular neighborhood point called “Grant Creek” shown here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/edit#map=18/46.91719/-114.03342 appears in all third-party services as it should. It’s likely this point was added months if not years ago which could explain its appearance. However, the missing neighborhood points that I’ve added to the area (such as “Rose Park”, shown here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/edit#map=19/46.85623/-114.00648) never end up appearing to third-party maps even months after being saved to OSM. That’s why I questioned the status of zoom-level tile rendering if it had any sort of relation to it, because I’ve been made aware of the irregularities with tile rendering depending on the zoom-level and area.

Are there any particular reasonings as to why this occurs? Is this just an unfortunate waiting game to see if these edits ever come into fruition on third-party maps? Or are there any actual solutions to this?

alan_gr · 2020-07-04T10:10:29.000Z

You would probably have to contact the 3rd party provider for more information. There are at least two possibilities: there may simply be a delay, or there may be something about these particular features that causes them not to br rendered. For example maybe neighborhood labels don’t appear if there is a certain density of other features in the area (NB that is just an example off the top of my head). There doesn’t seem to be a problem with your mapping - as you csn see Rose Park does appear on the standard map on this website.