Two years of experience as editor for Brazilian Portuguese at weeklyOSM: some highlights from this period

did:plc:4tuge3k3comfj4nfvqnwkemn May 27, 2026

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Versão em português

On May 26, 2026, I completed two years as editor of the Brazilian Portuguese edition of weeklyOSM, which marked the return of the publication in that language after a hiatus of many years. Since I joined the team, the Brazilian edition has been published without fail, and I am grateful to my colleagues who have been my companions on this journey. As a record for posterity, I would like to highlight some events that have energized the global community, once again demonstrating the scope of weeklyOSM, which covers a wide variety of topics related to OSM and always values collaboration and openness.

I am grateful to be part of this collaborative project, which has been publishing news about the OpenStreetMap community since its inception as Wochennotiz back in 2010. If you’d like to learn more about this history, visit the EU/MychOSM Project page and tune in to the Lightning Talk I’ll be giving at State of the Map Africa 2026, taking place June 26–28. You can also review my presentation weeklyOSM-stats for the global State of the Map 2025 event, held in Manila, Philippines, from October 3–5. At this year’s event, I plan to present the updated results of the statistics and continue to take the pulse of this beloved publication of the global OSM community.

If you’d like to know about my observations — based on several years of working with mappers, developers, academics, NGOs, companies, and other stakeholders in this ecosystem, I invite you to read the chapter Overview of OpenStreetMap Usage and the Brazilian Case (in pt), available on Zenodo.org, which was published in my book from last year, Case Studies in Collaborative and Participatory Mapping (in pt), available on the Editora VIDES website.

My debut was in weeklyOSM 727, published on June 30, 2024. From that issue, I can highlight two major milestones in the OSM world: the 10th anniversary of OSMCha and Level0’s support for the HTTPS protocol, with OAuth 2.0 authentication , which became the standard authenticator for OSM. At that time, I was beginning a collaboration with the Pedagogical University of Maputo (Mozambique), an institution with which I maintain ties to this day.

Also in 2024, I would like to highlight the 15th anniversary of OpenHistoricalMap , reported in weeklyOSM 732 on July 25, 2024.

In weeklyOSM 735, on August 25, 2024, there was a report on uMap, the result of an effort by Brazilian mappers — especially ftrebien — to map roads with no access (due to blockages, destruction, or construction) on OSM during the major disaster that occurred in Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil) in 2024.

Also, a presentation of an ETL service by Séverin Ménard, as part of the Free Francophone IDE, which allows users from 28 French-speaking countries in the Global South to access OSM data, with tags in English or translated into French , as reported in weeklyOSM 749, on December 1, 2024.

In weeklyOSM 752, published three weeks later on December 22, 2024, the OpenStreetMap Operations Team announced its plan in response to the critical failure at the ISP that suspended OSM services between December 15 and 17, 2024, due to a failure in one of the routers, which affected the servers in Amsterdam and Dublin. In weeklyOSM 753, on December 19, 2024, it was reported that WaterwayMap would begin to include a data export feature. That same issue featured Unmapped Places of OpenStreetMap as its cover image, a web map created by Pascal Neis that highlights the need for improved mapping in many parts of the world.

In weeklyOSM 754, on January 5, 2025, with the start of the new year, it was announced that weeklyOSM would begin publishing regularly on the social network Bluesky. This decision reinforces efforts to prioritize open and collaborative social networks, which has always been the weekly’s philosophy.

In weeklyOSM 770, on April 27, 2025, it was reported that Minh Nguyễn had been appointed as the OSMF’s new Core Software Development Facilitator. Minh Nguyễn has extensive experience and participates in active communities within the OSM ecosystem, such as OSM US and the OpenHistoricalMap project. Nearly two months later, in weeklyOSM 779, on June 29, 2025, it was reported that a problem had occurred with the minute-by-minute update of OSM data diffs , leading the OpenStreetMap Operations Team to take the main server offline until the problem was resolved, which took approximately 16 hours between June 26 and 27.

In weeklyOSM 796, dated October 26, 2025, the publication celebrated seven consecutive years of the Portuguese-language edition, made possible by the collaboration of Nuno Masa and Elizabete. Also in that issue, it was announced that the full version — a compilation of the seven modules of the OpenStreetMap Mapping Training Course , promoted by the IVIDES.org and its company, IVIDES DATA, is now publicly available. Currently, the number of registrants has already exceeded 500 people, reaching various countries around the world, especially within the Portuguese-speaking community, with a reach extending overseas.

The following month, in weeklyOSM 797, on November 2, 2025, the HeiGIT Institute announced the Climate Action Navigator , an interactive dashboard that allows users to model and visualize CO₂ budgets so that cities can stay within global warming limits (e.g., +1.5°C), in accordance with the Paris Climate Agreement. Initially, the solution was limited to a few cities in Germany: Berlin, Bonn, Hamburg, Heidelberg, and Karlsruhe, but HeiGIT currently has plans to expand to other countries around the world. The following week, in weeklyOSM 798, François Lacombe (aka InfoReseaux) and Andrien Pavie reported on the update to Podoma , an engine for generating statistics on thematic contributions to OSM, which has enabled the monitoring of project collaboration worldwide. The engine is at the heart of some OSM-FR community projects, but has a global reach, such as MapYourGrid. In the same issue, Daniele reported that the project had been adapted by OpenStreetMap Italy, where it is called Progetto del mese.

In weeklyOSM 805, on December 28, 2025, on the eve of New Year’s Eve , the WD-NearbyItem web map, created by rphyrin, was featured. It displays Wikidata items in the vicinity of a location.

In weeklyOSM 809, dated January 25, 2026, the beautiful poster of the map of lighthouses in Japan was featured as the highlight image. It can be reproduced using the workflow created by Mashford Mahute, utilizing the QGIS and the QuickOSM plugin. The following week, in weeklyOSM 810, MapToPost was featured, which can be used to create custom posters.

In weeklyOSM 811, on February 8, 2026, OSM Kids! was featured — a charming web map that shows amenities geared toward children. In the same issue, it was reported that TrickyFoxy published a retrospective highlighting all the feature additions to better-osm-org made throughout 2025.

In weeklyOSM 815, on March 8, 2026, it was reported that the StreetComplete app would begin displaying a message on Sundays with a link to the current issue of weeklyOSM. In that same issue, it was reported that the OSMF board had formally submitted comments on a proposal by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) to standardize the Overture Maps Foundation’s Global Entity Reference System (GERS). The following week, in weeklyOSM 816, it was announced that OpenSeaMap would now feature vector tiles.

In weeklyOSM 822, on April 27, 2026, it was reported that stricter blocking rules are now being enforced on Overpass servers due to issues with mass access and large data requests.

In weeklyOSM 825, dated May 17, 2026, the incredible six-year journey of David Smith and Andy Allan in designing the OSM-based map for Pedometer++ , a walking tracker for Apple watchOS, was reported. And in weeklyOSM 826, published the following week, I would highlight osmprj, whose main maintainer is Travis Hathaway — a new command-line tool (alpha version) for managing OSM data with PostgreSQL, based on osm2pgsql and osm2pgsql-themepark.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Also in 2024, I would like to highlight the 15th anniversary of OpenHistoricalMap , reported in weeklyOSM 732 on July 25, 2024.

Also, a presentation of an ETL service by Séverin Ménard, as part of the Free Francophone IDE, which allows users from 28 French-speaking countries in the Global South to access OSM data, with tags in English or translated into French , as reported in weeklyOSM 749, on December 1, 2024.

In weeklyOSM 805, on December 28, 2025, on the eve of New Year’s Eve , the WD-NearbyItem web map, created by rphyrin, was featured. It displays Wikidata items in the vicinity of a location.

In weeklyOSM 811, on February 8, 2026, OSM Kids! was featured — a charming web map that shows amenities geared toward children. In the same issue, it was reported that TrickyFoxy published a retrospective highlighting all the feature additions to better-osm-org made throughout 2025.

In weeklyOSM 822, on April 27, 2026, it was reported that stricter blocking rules are now being enforced on Overpass servers due to issues with mass access and large data requests.

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