Adding Pending Places

Pending Places can be submitted to BTC Map via our Submit Place APIs. This enables 3rd parties (e.g. Square, Blink, etc.) to submit Pending Places for consideration to add to BTC Map / OpenStreetMap.

When submitted via the API, these Pending Places are stored in our DB with a separate lifecycle to regular Places/Merchants. Once a Pending Place is created, an Issue is also created in Gitea with the usual location-submission label and, additionally the import/<origin> label denoting the source of the Pending Place.

These Issues should be processed by our Shadowy Supertaggers as usual, but depending on the origin/source of the submission, the Bitcoin acceptance can be treated as trusted. Trusted sources do not require direct verification of Bitcoin acceptance with the merchant, be we should of course check all other information and existing OSM element that match the Pending Place as usual.

The following are trusted sources:

Square (label import/square Issue query here)

When adding Pending Places, it is sometimes necessary to also add the payment:lightning:operator=<operator> tag to OSM. The following should be added:

If Label is import/square then add the payment:lightning:operator=square tag.

The API monitors the status of Gitea issues and will change the status of the Pending Place accordingly when the Issue is closed.

Revoking Places

Sources can also revoke Places.

If the Gitea Issue is still open, it will be closed. If it has already been processed (and likely added to OSM) then a new Issue will be created with the location-removal label.

Care should be taken when processing the removal as it may just be a Place/Merchant changing the way they accept Bitcoin. e.g. If they close their Square account and begin accepting bitcoin via a different method, we would create a location-removal Issue. Also, this may not mean the whole element needs to be removed on OSM, as they may just have ceased accepting bitcoin.