====== Community ======

OpenTrafficMap is an open project run by volunteers. This page covers how to take part, who is behind it, and where to find the code.

===== Contributing =====

==== Run a receiver ====

The most valuable contribution by a distance. The map can only show live data where a receiver is nearby, so every new location extends what the project can see — and a location nobody covers yet is worth more than a better antenna somewhere already covered.

  - Get a receiver, or build one: [[en_alt:receivers|Receivers]]
  - Put it somewhere useful: [[en_alt:placement|Placement & Outdoor]]
  - Name it and put it on the map: [[en_alt:your_node|Your Node]]

==== Report what you receive ====

If you pick up something interesting — a new city, an unusual sender, infrastructure that was not known to be live — add it to [[en_alt:coverage|Coverage]]. The conventions for entries and the difference between a documented deployment and a sighting are explained there.

==== Improve this wiki ====

Register a wiki account and edit. Corrections, missing details and new pages are all welcome, and the gaps are marked: search for **TODO** to find the places where somebody's knowledge is missing rather than somebody's writing.

A few conventions:

  * Long pages with sections, rather than many small pages. If something is a paragraph, make it a section.
  * Plain, factual language. No marketing tone.
  * Say where a number comes from. Measurements, prices and dates age; a source lets the next person check.
  * Prefer linking to a repository or a datasheet over copying its content, except where a short summary genuinely saves the reader a trip.
  * **Images: give them a height of 420 pixels** by writing %%{{:your_image.jpg?0x420|caption}}%%. The leading zero means "no fixed width", so the image is scaled proportionally to that height — it is not cropped. Equal heights make images sitting next to each other line up, and uneven widths do not bother the eye. Readers can always click for the full-size original. Only depart from 420 with a reason: a very wide panorama would become wider than the text column, and a picture that is the subject of its page may deserve more room.

==== Develop ====

Firmware, hardware and the map are developed in the open at [[https://codeberg.org/opentrafficmap|codeberg.org/opentrafficmap]]. The receiver hardware and firmware are described on [[en_alt:receivers|Receivers]]; alongside them you will find the decoding side — [[https://codeberg.org/opentrafficmap/cits-to-json|cits-to-json]], a C-ITS parser written in Rust, and [[https://codeberg.org/opentrafficmap/cits-wireshark-bridge|cits-wireshark-bridge]], which decodes via tshark and produces JSON.

===== Language policy =====

**This wiki is written in English.** C-ITS is a European technology, the deployments span several countries, and the people building receivers are not all German speakers.

One deliberate exception: the [[:impressum|imprint]] stays in German, because it is a legal text under Austrian law.

===== Non-profit & finances =====

OpenTrafficMap is run by a registered **non-profit organization**, and everyone involved works on a voluntary basis.

Receivers are passed on **at cost** — we do not make a margin on the hardware. The organization holds a bank account, which is what makes it possible to accept payment for orders and to receive donations at all.

**TODO:** Donation details — bank account, or whatever channel is preferred — are not documented anywhere. If donations are welcome, this is the place to say how.