I added my first doorbell camera on #OpenStreetMap today with @MapComplete, and I would advise others to do the same in their area!

Doorbell cameras are a growing surveillance measure many are still unaware of. On OSM, there's a tag to mark a camera as being a doorbell camera: camera:type=doorbell. They're especially easy to add via MapComplete.

#OSMTaggingTips

Did you know it's possible to indicate “anti-homeless” benches on #OpenStreetMap?

There's an annoying (and in some places, growing) trend of adding seat separators to benches, to prevent (often homeless) people from lying on them. An OSM key exists to tag this: seats:separated=*! It's a simple binary key (yes/no) but nevertheless adds useful information IMO.

The key is undocumented on the wiki but in use: according to Taginfo, there's 2281 uses worldwide (interestingly, they're all seats:separated=no!) and 803 in Belgium (where I live). That also means I uploaded the first ever bench tagged with seats:separated=yes today (it's in Tielt train station, BE).

#OSMTaggingTips

Given the density of this network, it's becoming increasingly difficult to avoid these government tracking devices. The fact that they're not just number plate readers means cyclists and pedestrians are not exception to the surveillance!

The first step to avoiding the eyes of the State is knowing where they are, and therefore it's important to have an accurate and complete dataset of surveillance cameras.

On #OpenStreetMap, surveillance cameras are represented by the man_made=surveillance tag; additional information can be represented by a variety of tags, which are well described on the OSM wiki.

Next time you pass one of these cameras, consider adding them to OSM! #MapComplete has a nice theme for surveillance cameras, which makes it easy to add them to OSM: https://mapcomplete.org/surveillance.html.

#OSMTaggingTips

Surveillance under Surveillance

Surveillance cameras and other means of surveillance

Gender-neutral (also referred to as “unisex”, “genderless” or “gender-inclusive”) bathrooms are useful (in some cases even necessary) for non-binary and other gender-diverse people. On #OpenStreetMap, the designated gender for bathrooms is represented by the male=*, female=* and unisex=* keys, but whether or not bathrooms are gender-segregated can also be tagged unambiguously with gender_segregated=*.

Consider adding this information when mapping toilets, it helps us non-binary folks massively 

#OSMTaggingTips