Join the discussion
Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.
- Hacker News
- I've been using the app "StreetComplete" on Android, I have found it to be a really seamless and easy way to add extra details to OpenStreetMap while roaming around.by elliotpage
- +1. https://streetcomplete.app/ is really easy to get into.by ktpsns
- JOSM aside, I think it's great to target people that read HN with this article. They are likely tech savvy and as much as OSM tries to make it easy for less tech savvy folks to contribute, it's just not really feasible without third party apps like StreetComplete. I recently tried to teach my dad, who was interested but completely overwhelmed, even by the iD editor, and the whole idea of the data model. Which is a shame because he knows so much about the area where he lives.by bwnkl
- Seeing the amount of complaints in this comment section, I sure start to question the average savvyness of the average HN reader.
Yes, josm is an ugly java tool but this did not prevent me from doing a lot of mapping back in the days.
by Zopieux - Boy, the UX is horrible!
> The area you tried to downlaod is too big or your request was too large.
And no indication whatsoever of how big the area should be, I'm at my fifth attempt so far.
by corecoder - Sorry you're having such a frustrating first experience. I'd recommend trying just 1-3 city blocks maxby juliantigler
- It's actually OK compared to your typical GIS desktop app, but naturally not the thing to recommend a beginner.by sp8962
- As a beginner use the editor built in on the website instead (called ID). JOSM is a great power user tool, but this article's recommendation to use it for your first edit is misguided.by VorpalWay
- The limit is imposed by the OSM API itself, and it's a matter of how much data is already mapped in the area you're requesting -- a max of 50,000 nodes according the API docs. Of course data density varies wildly across the planet, so you can expect to fetch a lot more acreage in rural areas than in urban ones. But there's no way to know if a particular bounding box call will succeed without trying it out.
Editing software could be generally aware of high and low density locales and advise accordingly. And it could subdivide a large request into smaller ones. But the JOSM developers prefer to offer a closer-to-the-API experience.
[0] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/API_v0.6#Retrieving_map_...
by jmkb - I appreciate this a lot, but I wonder why the first edit is not done on the website itself. This is 15 minutes of work for a single change, while on the website you can do it in a minute.by boredpudding
- I recently purchased some very rural land with a cabin that I put on AirBnB. The address is a different road than the driveway is and all the maps took drivers around 1 mile away with no way to find the actual driveway. I had to go through the process of fixing this on Google, Apple, and open street maps. OSM was by far the easiest and my updates propagated within minutes. Google was the second easiest but still took me deep into the “feedback” menu and then a week or two of waiting. Apple was by far the worst as I had to sign up for an Apple business account, upload incorporation docs, and then go through multiple rounds of back and forth with some approval agent.by doctoboggan
- Another option for apple would have been to just wait for a few months. They are downstream of osm but updates are slow. Likely your "propagated within minutes" was misleading. Almost no app, certainly not a mainstream app your customers might use, is reading osm live. They're all days to months behind on periodic batch updates.by mayneack
- After you create an OSM account, there is also https://maproulette.org, which has tons of little tasks to fix, grouped into challenges, and many of them can be done using just the aerial photos, from the comfort of your seat.
Then there is also mapping for humanitarian purposes, https://tasks.hotosm.org/, which has mapping projects prepared by disaster response teams, and you can help by updating maps of areas recently affected by disasters. E.g. recently there was a lot of mapping in the area hit by the August river flood in Nepal.
by pferde - There's something a bit weird about OSM. We have the infrastructure and the idea to have a wikipedia-like map. It's insanely cool. But it's super hard to make any edit except through StreetComplete and people get asked the type of bushes they see in their street. I think the biggest priority would be to map all stores, their type and their opening hours. Right now there's nothing more reliable than Google Maps for this which forces people to use the Google Places API if they want a reliable product. I think we should have an app somewhere that is more user-friendly and focused on what most people need from a business perspective.by Einenlum
- I made this: mapcomplete.org/shopsby pietervdvn
- Every door is more focused towards opening hours. Streetcomplete is indeed alot of 'what type of road is this?'by dddw
- You can change the type of "mission" you get on street complete, but it definitely needs more sensible defaults.by RobotToaster
- JOSM is great when you get really into, but if it's really your first edit, just use the editor on openstreetmap.org.
If it's something you end up enjoying, one really satisfying thing to do is pick a small rural town and improve the map. With a few hours, it's not hard to make the OSM data more detailed and better than any other publicly available map.
by mikeocool - https://streetcomplete.app - basic task-based, on-the-ground, app for Android
https://every-door.app - intermediate on-the-ground app for smartphones
https://rapideditor.org - AI-assisted mapping in browser
https://www.hotosm.org - task-based mapping in browser
https://josm.openstreetmap.de - advanced editor for desktop (this post)
https://www.comaps.app - actually use the map with ability to make minor changes
by nobody42 - I wish Streetcomplete had an ios app. The ios editors are all far too cluttered and hard to use on mobile. I've almost been considering making my own editor like streetcomplete but as a web app so it's cross platform.by Gigachad
- Oh dear.
Using JOSM for your 1st edit is definitely not recommended.
Doing the same with iD (the editor embedded in the OSM website) is faster and there's even a tutorial that will explain a bit about how things work.
by sp8962 - Yeah, I got as far as "Search for an Official Website". Didn't know what the hell I was looking at or for, and uninstalled JOSM.by biglyburrito
- That's a fair point.
I mainly chose JOSM for this tutorial because of its filter. As a beginner (just a few weeks ago), I couldn't figure out how to use iD's filter to show JOSM's equivalent of `name=* ((amenity=* "addr:housenumber"=*) | shop=*) -website=* -"contact:website"=*`. For this tutorial I wanted something better than than "click around the map until you find a place without a website." That felt like it'd be a frustrating and inefficient first experience.
Is there a way to make that filter in iD?
by juliantigler - Tried to run JOSM, it tells me that "This app cannot run on this machine you have macOS 10.14.6 and it requires 10.11".
Just use the web page. It works, it's not hard to use and it's immediate when you have the urge and motivation to fix something on a map.
by nutjob2 - This seems to be a very powerful way to contribute to OpenStreetMap, but I'm not sure if it's the right option for a new user.
I have over 2k contributions and most are from the Every Door app ( https://every-door.app/ ) on my phone.
If adding new data is too "scary", then maybe use StreetComplete ( https://streetcomplete.app/ ) which essentially asks questions about missing or existing old data.
I've added buildings, fixed layouts, etc, but that came later, after I better understood how things work.
by celsoazevedo - Thanks, I was on the fence but downloaded StreetComplete yesterday and made a couple edits in my neighborhood. Still need to install StreetMeasure and some parts of the UX I still need to get used to. I was surprised by the low number of contributors in my country though.by A_Venom_Roll
- I've taken StreetComplete with me on walks around my neighborhood and on a few vacations. It was really easy to submit data for missing items.by wingmanjd
- I started contributing to OSM recently after a bike trail was built near me. The arial imagery typically takes years to refresh around here so I walked it a few times to capture GPX tracks and then drew the new path. It was exciting to see my contribution percolate out to various apps that depend on OSM, and meanwhile Google and Apple have both ignored my edit suggestions and deny the path exists.
So I have a fairly fresh newcomer's perspective and here's what I suggest to get started: keep it simple and start local. As others have noted, skip the complex mapping app and go straight to the website for feature edits, or download a simple mobile app like Every Door and focus on businesses and landmarks near you. Go on a walk around your neighborhood and look for old/incorrect/missing businesses. There may be errors near you about places you actually care about, and it is really gratifying to fix those.
There were restaurants near me that were missing, shops that had changed hands, etc., that were easy fixes but years overdue. I captured some basics (names, posted hours, the phone number posted on the door, etc.) with Every Door, and then later logged into the main OSM website and fine-tuned the entries. I got into a pattern of fixing one or two entries every evening when I went out for a walk and pretty soon my walking route was all up-to-date. Then I started paying attention to things like stop signs and cross walks and found a whole new kind of little, incremental edits that nobody else was doing.
It's been fun, I've made useful contributions, and my laptop is still Java free.
by _russross - StreetComplete as well !by LelouBil
- Every Door is pretty cool but for iOS I prefer GoMaps more.by ni5arga