StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time(streetcomplete.app) |
StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time(streetcomplete.app) |
https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/issues/5421
My guess is no because of the developer linking too below (and how it's always existed this way for iOS)
I wonder why this needs to be an app at all, instead of web based.
AMA I guess
But yes, the development force remains mostly French for now. Waiting for more European contributions...
On other fronts, like hiking trails or public infrastructure, you'll find OSM much more accurate, especially around the world (I hear that Google is comparatively good on their home market). If you want things like trip planning, nautical maps, road avoidance, and tons more features: OsmAnd can do basically everything but the sheer feature count also clutters the UI. I have no problem with it but others say they prefer CoMaps and other apps for the simpler tasks, so just be aware of the different pros/cons and enjoy :)
On the walk to our cabin, a little outside of town, I was checking something on OSM, might have been just learning to use it and read it (it has some learning curve when switching from G-maps).
To my surprise, I saw a shortcut/walking path exiting from the road we were walking on. Already used such paths twice that day for a nice shortcut that didn't show up on G-maps. But there was nothing there.
I told my friend that I'd like to check what this strange hacker map is showing. When we looked again, we noticed that there actually was a trail uphill, what at first sight seemed to just be a forested hillside.
As we went up, the trail started to be more evident. We climbed for a couple minutes, went past a cabin with no road leading to it (pretty normal in Norway), and a few more minutes after it we arrived at a semi-top, with a big boulder and a picturesque view out from that viewpoint.
Very cool memory on the last day of the holidays, made possible thanks to somebody marking that trail on OSM.
I've been on a number of orienteering or rogaining events where the maps look familiar, and it turns out they have used my OSM data. It's been great to see something lasting come from that mapping effort. (It's also a nice bonus in such events to be that familiar with the map and its covered area!) I suspect some local bush fire brigade members might also be looking at OSM, as a number of the fire trails I mapped seem to have had names added.
Google Maps only showed some car only roads and tunnels leading back to the city. But OSM showed a walking path comming down from one of the parking areas.
And indeed, it was there and we arrived back down in the city in a few minutes, avoiding lengthy backtracking.
Someone dedicated can still easily find it.
Basically, I am never confident I am editing OSM correctly. Am I supposed to manually draw out sidewalks, or tag the road as having a sidewalk? After adding sidewalks in my area, StreetComplete is now asking me if roads have sidewalks, which I clearly see on the map. Reminds me of editing the various Wiki pages. There's several ways of documenting something, only one way is correct, and it's undocumented.
edit: after playing with StreetComplete more, I noticed you can mark sidewalks as displayed separately. This is tagged as "sidewalk:both=separate" on the road. Whether this is the right way to do things I do not know
It's very intuitive and makes you learn just how detailed and specific map data can be. Can't say much about missing features since I don't event know what can be done.
Recommended experience, it's like playing Pokemon Go without the evil part :)
Is that a new feature? I have over a thousand contributions on StreetComplete (casually using it during walks) and somehow I never noticed that button.
Feel free to contribute that, if you think it's so easy! Just make sure what you're scraping is also correct.
I wonder if there are any other FOSS apps or websites with gamification that are for a good cause, like StreetComplete.
thats only if you use duolingo exclusively without things like reading news in the language (which is common unfortunately).
its a problem with their specific design using a weird hybrid of spaced repetition with traditional separate lessons. you only learn a couple words for each section but if they decide you know a word they never repeat it again so its easy to forget.
if they made it harder with more open questions and removed combos/perfect lessons to compensate it would be a lot more effective. non linear with multiple paths would also be great, like you decide you want to learn more grammar so you click on that instead of vocab exercises.
the addictive and social pressure parts are the whole point. its giving people motivation to learn and well designed interactive tools are always better than passively reading textbooks [1]. even the ui is made with lots of animation, colors, positive messages to make you feel good every time you get something right.
if streetcomplete added daily progress bars and fireworks every time your edit gets accepted it would probably have a lot more users. ive actually been thinking about making a new anki frontend with this type of addictive ux. that would be more effective and more general than duolingo but lose some of the features like open questions. would need to integrate a llm to fix that.
https://hackaday.com/2020/08/21/microsoft-flight-simultors-d...
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...)
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
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.
- 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)
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Panoramax
I use https://mapcomplete.org/ to add images of artworks to OSM objects.
On the flip side, panoramax can be used as an open source StreetView. Different sites for different purposes I suppose
I wonder why we can't get folks to drive around and collect it, then use AI/automation to fill in great swaths of information automagically.
EDIT: some people do similar things:
- https://wcedmisten.fyi/post/dashcam-to-openstreetmap/
EDIT2: and maybe it goes the other way:
- https://teslamotorsclub.com/2019/11/04/tesla-owners-can-edit...
Some editors like OsmAnd also let you do that. In OsmAnd you can enable the OSM development plugin (it's pre-installed, more like a setting to unlock expert options than a plugin) and use "Edit POI" to add or update website information
Or simply use the website at https://osm.org/edit
StreetComplete doesn't ask for websites specifically. It's pretty restrictive in what they'll allow as 'quests' to avoid overloading new users
OSM is fantastic. I wanted a free, unencumbered map that matches the site's theme for ride sharing, billeting, and the venue location. The solution wasn't trivial, but at least it was possible. Couldn't imagine doing that with Google Maps.
There's a little (i)nformation icon on the bottom right but it doesn't seem to do anything. If this is OSM then attribution is required. It's how we make people aware of the noncommercial project (considering we barely have budget for servers, running ads is a bit hard) and it also tells people where they can add corrections
The legalese is here if you want https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright but in short, OSM maps need to show something like "©OpenStreetMap Contributors". There's debate whether an (i) fold-out icon is enough since the license technically stipulates that anyone interacting with the material must also be aware that it's OSM data and not literally everyone will click that. Personally I find that clause too restrictive, and the use on your website so minimal... but that's the legal terms. Nobody ever got sued by the OpenStreetMap Foundation. Do with the information as you see fit :P. Personally I'm already happy that you found it suits your purposes well!
That being said, I agree with you and would like to see more ways to access the tool!
Some,I really don't care to answer, like "the Telephone pole, is it made of wood or steel ?!"
Who cares honestly.
Also I am sure this is used for data science.
[1] CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48808928
Site updated at 2024-03-03
It's a shame because it seems very useful.
Incidentally, I think for crossings StreetComplete now only asks about the actual crossing nodes, so no more duplicate quests.
It can be confusing for roads where both sides are separated or where there is a traffic island in the middle. There you have two crossing nodes (and sometimes even the footway leading over the road). But in general, I think it is very hard to actually cause trouble with StreetComplete. Furthermore, not every single quest has to be answered, although they typically only exist if there is an obvious correct answer the vast majority of the time (to not annoy users).
I've mostly stuck to using Organic Maps to add individual businesses, that's a very easy thing to do. Drop a pin, name, phone number/website/hours/whatever, submit.
This is the case for the majority of users. The rules are complex and not always obvious or clearly defined. The world is complex, unfortunately, and so is describing it accurately.
One of OSM killer features for me is finding drinking water along the route when I'm hiking/biking/exploring. Unfortunately, there isn't a single, consistent label used for all sources of drinking water. So I have to check amenity=drinking_water, man_made=water_tap, amenity=fountain, one after the other.
I think StreetComplete has missions to add the label drinking_water=yes to all of those, so the situation might improve in the future.
There is the path across the road, usually from one sidewalk to the opposite, which is meant for pedestrians, and there is the node where this path touches the road, which is meant for car drivers.
Yes, the system could be improved by grouping these somehow, maybe using relations (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Relation ), but that would add complexity to any navigation or rendering application using OSM data that wants to process information about crossings.
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/>
For example, if I use Google Maps to drive to a new neighborhood and then take a bunch of notes about the new neighborhood, my notes are not subject to the terms and conditions of Google 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.
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.
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.
Likely you can report such occasions to local authorities via online form. Of course every city/county would have their own.
Someone apparently decided it needed to be "more modern", making it nearly unusable for quick reports like traffic light problems while I was stopped at the light. Every page was a separate request to a server, slow JS, etc.
They've since improved the flow and performance, but it still asks me for contact information before I can submit it. Fortunately they haven't started server-side validations yet, so I can still submit bogus info.
Just let me tell you your traffic light is out! Why is this so hard?
It's easy to blame Google, but then again they kept a record of what they did and you can see it for yourself.
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?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36566783
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44364090
Banned from Google Maps, banned from Instagram...
> 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.
Can you give the name and location? I can look it up to see if there are any errors.
> 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?
That's the part that annoys me the most. Counterintuitively the map at openstreetmap.org is NOT intended to be an interactive common user web-map, a Google map alternative. It is a non-interactive map for the mapping volunteers to get feedback on whether their changes to the OpenStreetMap database were correct. While you can still right click on a feature, select "Query feature" and look at the raw text, you are better look up your business on something like mapy.com or an app like CoMaps (that use OSM data to create a Google map alternative) to understand what would the users see.
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.
I've also used this project to upstream 2,000 suggested edits to OSM
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Go_Map!! also has some kind of 'quests' built in, and the StreetComplete is planning to porting SC to iOS: https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/issues/5421
I have yet to get into it myself (I already have established workflows in StreetComplete and other editors) but from the demo that the author gave on CCC ~1.5 years ago it seemed perfectly usable back then already
So, any measure that aims at keeping users engaged (as the duolingo icon for example) should be viewed cautiosly.
Also, specifically with apps with which people provide real data, the more they see it as a game, the more the system will be gamed. When users start to guess, without really confirming it on-site, this leads to outright incorrect data.
What's fine, in my book, is to make the experience more gratifying, more "fun". That's probably what you meant, with firework animation etc.. The progress bars however already fall somewhat in the former category.
By the way, edits are accepted immediately. There is no verification step by the community (just like in wikipedia), all the more important it is that people don't start seeing it as a game first and as a way to contribute to a libre map second.
It's important to keep some mysteries despite precise maps.
That's why I'm at the same time fascinated by 3D "splats", but also worried to be spoiled.
They're great for places we already know (inspect your roof's shape for instance), but they spoil discovery.
I used it to reconstruct a 3D mesh of a bouldering wall. It worked perfectly. No gaussian splatting involved. I think the boundary between virtual and real world does get thinner by the day
This kind of cheating usually works extremely well, from my observation.
Anyhow, Google owns Waze and data goes back and forth between there and Google Maps. They're like two heads of the same snake, so it's implicit that the same thing also works on Google Maps.
[1]: https://www.waze.com/discuss/t/closures/374712#p-2273808-aut...
We got back on Google maps after a few weeks and haven't had any problems since. We never got back on Instagram and had to make a new account, although to be honest we've barely used it since our business pretty much all comes from Google maps.
[0]: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposal:Time_capsule
You can use https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Any_tags_you_like on OpenStreetMap. Many of the used tags are simply "in use" and not formalized with a proposal.
Google Maps does not hold the rights to which opening hours Bob's Bakery keeps. If someone entered them from Bob's Bakery their site onto Maps, you are free to type it off of Maps onto OSM. Legally anyway. OSM themselves still hold the policy you can't, so you should adhere to that.
Looking at that, Google is only allowed to protect its content with database rights for 15 years after publication, with "substantial additions" getting the same 15 years from the moment of their publishing. I bet there is an interesting legal argument in if modifying opening hours or location of a PoI is considered a "substantial addition", because otherwise any PoI (including businesses) added up to July 2011 would be fair game now :). Not that OSM has the financial means to fight off a behemoth like Google.
Tbh, even then, OSM itself states: "The project is not an exercise in copying maps while trying to avoid copyright traps. We create maps without copying at all! That is the challenge we have set for ourselves.", so the point is moot.
I do wish Apple would just incorporate OSM's PoI data. Right now their's is complete garbage compared to Google Maps and OSM, missing vast swathes of info (or being woefully out of date) in almost all cities.
[0]https://intellectual-property-helpdesk.ec.europa.eu/regional...
Interesting though that there's this different (15 years) term where normal copyright is just about forever. That's going to come in handy somewhere for datahoarder me I'm sure :D
Maybe it's a useless nuance, but I don't think Pokemon Go gamers should feel/evil or even that they should be careful the next time they try to entertain themselves.
It gives hope that Google/ESRI won't always be the dominant mapping platform, however OSM is still missing a lot of local businesses which the delivery platforms don't need as urgently as house numbers so there's less focus there.
Are they? I get the impression that only consumer-facing stuff is Google, to give people a familiar color scheme¹ as well as allow terribly formatted search queries to still work (if google can do one thing it's search). However, anything using geo data in a back-end fashion seems about evenly split between government base maps, OpenStreetMap, and a collection of misc providers that Google is one of
¹ conversely, I struggle to find my home town on Google Maps. It's all about vague, washed-out shapes, besides the bright shop icons and, nowadays, advertising pins. It's a matter of what you're used to so I can very much understand that the average consumer, who's less familiar with maps than me, is totally lost when getting Carto as a map
Full list: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Organised_Editing/Activi...
It's more surprising at this point that Google isn't getting in on the fun, at least taking the good bits and calling their own data a 'separate layer' so they don't have to contribute anything back. (And of course no Chinese companies, since accurate maps are illegal there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_dat...)
Where it's lacking is business info since this has to be entered manually and changes much more often than streets or buildings change.
Open-source software and data are obviously public goods I support. I was just pointing out that the only "evil" parts here are rent seekers reselling this data and the military... not the people assembling the data (players).