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Contact channels
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For other uses of the terms "Contact" and "Communication", see
Contact (disambiguation)
The OpenStreetMap community uses a variety of different contact channels to communicate with fellow mappers. These communities are open to anyone no matter your experience, gender, race, or nationality. Questions and discussion from entities ranging from individuals to governments or companies are welcome. Their friendly and experienced communities are here to help you and each other work together on this global project!
The content of this page is organised mostly by type of channel. Links are then provided to lists of topical or local groups. So you can pick your favorite medium, and see if the people you need are on there. Towards the end of this document, there are some hints on finding local groups.
The
OSM Community Index
collects roughly the same information in a different format, which makes it easier to reuse on a map (e.g.
) or to filter them by country or type of channel (e.g.
). The same info is also showed to any mapper using
the web editor
as they save their changes. The channels that people use to communicate vary a lot between different regions. Local communities can provide an ordering based on their relative importance in the local community.
Contents
Official community forum
Mailing lists
Realtime chats
3.1
Matrix
3.2
XMPP
3.3
IRC
3.4
Signal
3.5
Telegram
3.6
Discord
3.7
Slack
Social networks
openstreetmap.org
5.1
Notes
5.2
Personal messages
5.3
Changeset discussions
5.4
Diaries
Wiki
Blogs
Real life
Systems administrators
10
OpenStreetMap Foundation
11
Data Working Group
12
Local communities
13
Q&A
14
See also
Official community forum
Main article:
Community forum
The OpenStreetMap Community forum (
link
) is a place to discuss OSM related topics with contributors worldwide, including help and support,
proposals
, foundation news, technical updates, and more! You can join the forum with an existing
OpenStreetMap account
. French contributors can be found on
forum.openstreetmap.fr
Mailing lists
Main article:
Mailing lists
Mailing lists were a common way to communicate prior to the introduction of the community forum. Many have now been closed to new messages with further
discussion
(at August 2025) to close more due to lack of use. They allow for communication via email. To use them, you "subscribe" to each list that you are interested in by using your own email address. Each list has an email address associated with it. Any messages that are sent to the list are distributed to all subscribers. Archives are often public, so past discussions are searchable.
See
Mailing lists
Realtime chats
Realtime chats offer quick access to services you may already have access to and accounts for. You can easily join and use them. Ask questions to multitude of online users in dedicated chats.
Real time chats are especially good match for mappers who want to get help with some problem - do not hesitate to ask for help if you are stuck.
Matrix
Main article:
Matrix
Matrix
is an open standard protocol and decentralized network that offers features similar to Discord and Slack.
XMPP
Main article:
XMPP
XMPP
is an open standard protocol and decentralized network that offers features similar to Discord and Slack.
IRC
Main article:
Internet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat
is a real-time text chat. Sometimes there may be fewer users and conversations often get deeply technical, but newbies should feel free to come and ask questions - someone will be always willing to help.
Signal
Main article:
Signal
Signal (messaging app)
is a messenger that also has groups and bots.
Telegram
Main article:
Telegram
Telegram (software)
is a messenger that also has groups, channels, and bots.
Discord
Main article:
Discord
Discord
is a real-time, multi-platform messaging, voice, and video application that consists of groups of members and bots in "servers" that have text or voice/video "channels" for dedicated topics of discussion.
The
OpenStreetMap World
Discord Server is a global community for mappers new and old, where members in dedicated channels can for assistance, discuss tagging, imagery, projects, development,
Tile servers
hosting, join mapathons, and much more.
The
Open Historical Map
team have a dedicated channel to discuss their project, along with
OpenGeofiction
Slack
Main article:
Slack
Slack (software)
is a very similar service to Discord where there are dedicated channels for discussion.
In addition, the
OSM United States Slack
workspace is particularly active and is popular with OSMers from around the world.
Social networks
@OpenStreetMap
. See
List of OSM centric Twitter accounts
for other accounts.
OpenStreetMap
. See
List of OSM centric Facebook accounts
for other accounts.
Reddit
@OpenStreetMap@en.osm.town
. See
Mastodon
OpenStreetMap
Category:Wikipedians who contribute to OpenStreetMap
on Wikipedia
en
openstreetmap.org
Notes
If you see something missing or something wrong on the map, you can add a "note". This is pinned to a particular location on the map and should relate to a specific problem/omission in the map data at that location. It can be a good way to contribute local knowledge, although editing the map directly is even better. Notes can have some discussion and replies are sent to your email address but only if you "sign in" on the website before adding the note. See
Notes
For bug reports for the OSM website, please create a New Issue on
openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/issues
GitHub
Personal messages
When you are on someone's user page (
www.openstreetmap.org/user/[username]
), then you can use the link "send message" to send a message (you have to log in) to this user (who will be able to respond to your mail, but neither you nor the other will see the real e-mail addresses). You can have a look in the user's recent edits there to see if the user is active currently.
How to get to someone's user page?
If you know a username, type in the URL manually in your browser's address bar:
www.openstreetmap.org/user/[username]
by replacing [username] with the mapper's username.
There are various ways you might discover a mapper's name. In the
Map Data layer
and
Changeset
history displays, you can list users who have edited in an area or a specific object.
Find other users via tools which are showing
nearby users
Changeset discussions
Main article:
Changeset § Changeset Discussions
If your query is about a single changeset, you could use the
Changeset discussion
feature to discuss it.
Diaries
You can view and create
User Diaries
to see and share community members' OSM experiences!
Wiki
Main article:
Wiki help
Each wiki page has an editable "Talk page". These are primarily intended for discussion of the contents of the 'main' wiki pages to facilitate improving the information, but can also function as a small, focused forum around that topic. Creating discussions and replying to people using wiki edits may seem strange until you get used to it. Activity is pretty low, typically used for internal discussion about page itself—general questions about for example tagging are likely to be answered by a single person or not at all.
The wiki also allows you to contact
individual users
more directly in two other ways: On their user talk page (the talk page alongside their user page) you can leave a message which is also publicly viewable. Others can see your conversations and join in. Or you can privately email wiki users via the "mail user" link which appears on the left while view their user page. This only appears if users have not disabled this feature. Technically, every user must provide an email address to edit here.
This wiki offers a platform for the
proposal process
, which is one of multiple ways to introduce and discuss new features (tags).
Some countries offer a landing page for their country on the wiki. Try searching your country or region, perhaps combined with "wikiproject".
Users can create a
user group
to organize meetings of local mappers.
Blogs
Main article:
OSM Blogs
There is an
OpenStreetMap Foundation blog
and other various
OSM Blogs
Real life
It's mostly the easiest way to meet people and talk to them
User groups
Mapping parties
Local chapters
Press Contacts
Conferences
Systems administrators
For technical issues with user accounts please contact
support@openstreetmap.org
for assistance.
For policy issues involving technical matters with OpenStreetMap's servers or systems, please contact the
Operations Working Group
at
operations@osmfoundation.org
For user accounts see
Accounts#Quickstart
OpenStreetMap Foundation
The
OpenStreetMap Foundation
has its own wiki on
wiki.osmfoundation.org
Data Working Group
If you need to talk to someone about copyright violation, vandalism, or some sort of dispute, contact the
Data working group
via
their contact methods
Local communities
Different local communities are organised in different ways. Some of them have a website, some use a forum, others a mailing list. There's country
specific mailing lists
local chapters
and local
user groups
. Many also have a
local Twitter account
, and some have a presence on
Meetup
. Many of these local channels are grouped by country or region in the
OSM Community Index
map interface
). There's also a map of
wiki user groups
Q&A
A question-and-answer website at
exists but has been closed to new content since March 2024. Please use the community forum if you want to ask OpenStreetMap questions and/or help answer them.
See also
Contacting the OpenHistoricalMap community
Retrieved from "
Categories
Pages using main with deprecated parameters
LinkedIn group
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