Discussion summary
StreetComplete is an app that helps improve OpenStreetMap through small quests, gaining popularity among users. Some appreciate its utility, while concerns about data usage by companies are raised.
What the discussion says
- Users find it satisfying to contribute to map data.
- Some compare it to other mapping tools like GuruMaps.
- Concerns about data privacy and company usage are expressed.
“It's basically Comaps but not open-source, right?”
“In principle I like it, what I don't like is that some companies will use the data only for their own benefit.”
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- Hacker News
- One thing missing on osm is pictures. Would defeats Google maps if it had some, where users would feedback and bad shots would get wiped to save space. We would get the best shots the world has to offer.by hirako2000
- by Krasnol
- OSM does have a pictures layer.
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Panoramax
I use https://mapcomplete.org/ to add images of artworks to OSM objects.
by edent - There are ways to add pictures as the tags of the OSM objects
- https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:wikimedia_commons
- https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:panoramax
- https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:mapillary
Mobile apps can use this data to either give links to them (e.g. CoMaps) or display them in the app (e.g. OsmAnd)
by jllyhill - In the app I'm developing, cartes.app, we acknowledged this lack of pictures.
We show local Wikimedia common pictures, osm tag pictures, og:image pictures of the website if any, Wikipedia article infobox pictures, Panoramax for street-view, and last but not least, any picture dropped by an ATproto place review.
Lots remain to be done, especially building the latter community of reviews.
by maelito - This is very cool, I wish there was some way to use it on a bicycle though. For example, when moving into a street it could ask (using voice) if this street is paved, and I could answer it using voice too.by hexomancer
- I love this tool.
It brought me back to mapping on OSM.
Wherever you are and need to wait for a minute, there are quests to be solved there.
I recommend SCEE for those who are already familiar with OSM mapping or are in an area where the most common tasks are already covered: https://github.com/Helium314/SCEE
by Krasnol - I've been mapping out shops, their contacts, cuisines (for restaurants), opening hours etc in my area. It's a lot of work and much of the information will actually simply not be available to me without a shop owner. So I'm trying to get some of them to update their own shop information. But I'm really struggling to find good arguments. Small shop owners often have quite stressful days already and taking even five minutes to update some information only makes sense if I can present them with a case that this will help their business.
Does anybody here know of ways that OSM data is used and products that people actually use to find businesses? I have heard rumors that Apple pulls data from OSM every now and again in areas where their own datasets are sparse. But do we have anything more meaningful or more concrete that would work in an area like France where data is not necessarily sparse in Apple's maps? (I'm saying this looking at Google Maps here in southern France where half of the shops that it displays just don't exist anymore for years...)
- For what it's worth, I use OSM for my modest project SurpriseDateSpot[1] which will randomly pick a restaurant (or other amenity) in your area! It gets a few thousand users per month :)
I've also used this project to upstream 2,000 suggested edits to OSM
by wcedmisten - You can get some info on the tag use with taginfo, e.g. https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/cuisine#projects But it is really technical and not all projects provide this info.
The most obvious place where people will look for and query this kind of data are the OSM-based map apps: OsmAnd, OrganicMaps, CoMaps, mapy.com etc. I don't know if this data is pulled into other major maps like Google's or Apple's.
by jllyhill - > So I'm trying to get some of them to update their own shop information. But I'm really struggling to find good arguments.
I did that for my business (a bakery). Spent ages on it, put in all the details I could think of. At the end of the process there seemed to be a requirement to send it you review so I did that. This was several months ago (probably six months), and it's never showed up.
I'm busy, and I have a thousand more useful things to do for my business. I'm very unlikely to try again.
On the other hand, if the process had been easier I'd probably have then gone on to adding other businesses in the area.
The actual business is listed, but with a slightly wrong name. But I can put that exact slightly wrong name into the search on openstreetmap.org right now and there's zero results.
Then I can manually zoom to the location (which is correct), see my business, tap on it... And nothing. It doesn't open. So given all of this, why would I bother with openstreetmaps as a business owner?
by esperent - Are there other similar apps to stimulate soft "crowdfixing" ? I'm sure there are plenty of other aspect of society that would benefit from a light way to know where someone can contribute or notify so other can fix things (forest dumps, random trash). Homeostatic apps to ensure our surroundings are close to a good state :]by jnpnj
- hmmmm .... this prompted me to visit google street view in an area I lived in for 5+ years. When I was there it was a homeless haven. Hundreds of tents and hundreds of people lived there. Now when I go back and look at all the old photo dates, all the homeless have disappeared, as if they were never there. But the homeless were there when I was there.
It's easy to blame Google, but then again they kept a record of what they did and you can see it for yourself.
by marking-time - > forest dumps, random trash
Likely you can report such occasions to local authorities via online form. Of course every city/county would have their own.
by ivanjermakov - I upload street view pictures to Mapillary, which again can be used to automatically infer info into OSM (like signs etc)
But I feel very few OSM mapping apps use street view / have it as a feature. But for me it's the main feature I use Google Maps for. Like checking road conditions or finding nice places to camp when bikepacking. Which is why I also upload my stuff to Google (cars can't access most of these areas), but I'd prefer open alternatives.
by matsemann - Reminds me of when Microsoft released a new Flight Sim, and people immediately started spotting buildings and things that were out of the norm in the game, which in turn started getting reported to OSM for corrections.
https://hackaday.com/2020/08/21/microsoft-flight-simultors-d...
- Just downloaded and made 15+ small contributions in the vicinity of my area. Very well built app. Super simple to use. And gamification is top-notch. Recommended.by freakynit
- Is your area already well mapped? I opened up the app to find more than 5000 tasks within a 20 minute walk of my placeby timoshishi
- I naively thought that Duolingo's gamification was for a good cause, helping you learn a language by addicting you, but now I know it's not only an extremely ineffective way to learn a language, but they're an advertising/social media/data broker company, which makes the gamification unethical.
I wonder if there are any other FOSS apps or websites with gamification that are for a good cause, like StreetComplete.
by Cider9986 - It sucks that Google is probably using OSM data to check what they are missing and adding it to their maps, but we can't do vice versa. OSM should change their license to something like if you use our data, you have to make yours open as well.by earth-tattoo
- > It sucks that Google is probably using OSM data to check what they are missing and adding it to their maps
No way they are doing this deliberately globally. My city has a lot of pedestrian stairs interconnecting roads, and not a single one is on GMaps. If you navigate on foot, it will send you on walks 2x-3x longer than necessary.
OSMand and CoMaps reliably find the shortest way. And can tell you the pavement type, number of steps, stroller ramp and hand rail situation of every single one of those stairs.
Google has a really hard time adding roads without frequent car traffic, I think.
by pbmonster - They probably do. I’m thankful for every contributor because each edit makes my Tesla that much betterby ronnier
- Change that to definitely. I added a brand-new road on OSM and a week later it was on google maps.by GreyStache
- If google does that, then they do a poor job at that. In Europe OSM is way more detailed and up to date than Google Maps.by krzyk
- > It sucks that Google is probably using OSM data to check what they are missing and adding it to their maps
If only. Maps are still super broken around where I live. I personally mapped everything in OSM (which thankfully is used by most third party services these days) a couple years ago, but Maps is still people's primary source for routing and traffic related stuff.
- The license seems to already require this: https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright/
Maybe I am misunderstanding the summary, but it says: "If you publicly use any adapted version of this database, or works produced from an adapted database, you must also offer that adapted database under the ODbL." <https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/summary/>
- Great app. There is also https://every-door.app/ that gives you slightly different set of tasks and allows you to place POI easily. I recently mapped a lot of trash cans and benches around my neighborhood while walking with my dog.by TeddyDD
- oooo what a fantastic idea. I have always wanted to map as many clothes donation boxes as possible.by didip
- The UX is really bad. POI loading is taking 10+ seconds to update, then any zoom or pan reorders the list of locations. Most of the missing info (around me) is just phone numbers and hours of operation, which are boring and should be trivial to collect automatically.by deckar01
- StreetComplete lets you place trash cans and benches too (among other things) using the "Things" overlay. IMO Every Door has a much more complicated UI, though it's also more of a full featured editor than StreetComplete. (Though still less so than something like Vespucci.)by Ajedi32