watmildon/smallcitymastodonbot

Posting towns in the USA with a population less than 1000 that are undermapped on OpenStreetMap.org

SmallCityMastodonBot

The repository for code and data file backing the @[email protected] account. Takes a json file of OpenStreetMap place nodes and a Mastodon token and finds a random unmapped town to post about. The post includes an image that is the current state of Carto rendering at the time of posting.

All of the cool things the bot does have come from community ideas. Please let me know what else you'd like to see!

Mapping

As with all of OSM, map whatever you like! Add buildings, check roadways for alignment to aerial imagery, draw landuse areas, use street side imagery to add detail etc. If you want to make it easier to other folks to collaborate or appreciate your great work feel free to add #UnmappedSmallTownUSA to your changsets.

Bot replies

If you do some mapping and would like the bot to generate an updated screen shot, respond to the top level town post (ex: here) with any message that contains "I mapped it!".

The bot tries to get updated tiles from the OSM tileservers but sometimes may need a little help. If you discover that the bot hasn't managed to pull new tiles you can help it along:

• navigate to the town on osm.org
• scroll to zoom 16
• reload the page without caching (ctrl+f5 on Windows, shift+command+r on Mac)
• post a new "I mapped it!" reply

Current settings

The bot is set to post a new town once a day around noon PT. It will scan for posts needing replies every hour. If you discover that either of these is not happening, please file a ticket here or ping me on Mastodon.

Development Notes

The overpass query to generate the townsList.json looks like:

[out:json][timeout:60];
{{geocodeArea:"United States"}}->.a;
(
  node["population"]["place"](if:(t["population"]<"1000"))(area.a);
);
out body;
>;

smallcitymastodonbot's Issues

Message replies based off notifications feed not full feed

Currently the bot pull the whole feed looking for things to respond to. This is more work than is needed but was simplest to get going. Before the feed gets too big, it'll be nice to get it using the Notifications API and only looking at things since it last run.

Detect if post is over the 500 character limit

Currently there's no limit about how large a post can be generated from any given bot config. Should have some handling for that, probably just detect and fail.

Add State information to the post

The posts just have the town name but adding states seems very reasonable.

Thank you

Hi there,

I just wanted to say thank you for your work making this. I saw it posted on lemmy here and am so impressed. What a great idea for a bot. What a nice following you have that seem to be taking action each day to map these places. I doubt if you'll ever hear it but I'm sure some of these people wake up one day and boom their place is suddenly mapped (on whatever app) and they're surprised and delighted!

I think it would be cool if you did a 1 year review with before and after pics of every place you posted. Show them all on a little webpage or something. I think that would be a hit!

PS: You should add a little short description and link to website on the sidebar of github so is just a tiny bit easier for people to know what it is.

Respond to "I mapped it!" posts and/or scan for mapping on previous entries.

Add query type "ratio"

Taking ratios of two query counts allow a bit of normalization. For example a town may have 50 addresses in it but if it has 1000 buildings, it likely still needs some mapping.

• Extend the json object to take a new query type with two tag parameters, including a threshold for what counts as "mapped"
• Add query type to program and handle the ratio comparisons
• Adjust posting opt out so it looks at all queries that have thresholds
• Add documentation to readme.md

Refactor bot to serve multiple accounts

• Move strings post text to a config file.
• Move queries to config
• Add config section for Town file generation overpass query
• Add config section for which Town file to consume
• Consume api token from separate non-repo file.
• Write doc into readme about how to properly format a config entry for a new bot.

Investigate bot response to edited posts

This post had the "I mapped it!" edited in after the fact and the bot doesn't seem to have found it.

Add NAD availability info to the post

For areas that are participating in the National Address Database should have that information included. Check if addresses are present, etc.

Deploy bot to send replies more rapidly than once a day

Add screenshot of current map on OSM

I really love seeing the before + after mapping comparisons, but I never remember to take the before image whenever I map anything. It'd be cool if the bot also posted a screenshot of what it looks like on OSM when it makes the post.

Biggest complexity would probably be getting the right zoom level for the screenshot, but really anything would be helpful.

Post monthly stat updates

It might be fun for the bot to scan all the towns and post updated and combined building/landues/roadway stats for everything on the first of the month.

Get refreshed tiles for replies

We currently get stale tiles. I have asked in a few places including here: openstreetmap/operations#908

This is necessary for completion of #3