this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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Today I found out that it's actually a lot easier to contribute to Open Street Map than I thought. There are some serious gaps in house addresses in my area and I was painstakingly using the built in browser editor in the browser.

But, you can use a FOSS app (available on fdroid) called StreetComplete that makes it a lot easier to help out filling in the gaps in your local map data.

It's really fun - kind of like Pokémon Go but you are actually making an impact 😁

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[–] [email protected] 116 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I'm addicted to Streetcomplete. I'm 20.000+ edits in. I make about 100 with ease on my commute to work.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago

You are a hero

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I installed it. Judging by the mass of blank info, I guess I'm the only person around here using it lol. 😳

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I became nr 10 or so in my country just by adding nearly everything SC can ask in ... a 10 block radius around my house.😁

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I am never getting lost in my own neighborhood again!! (Me irl)

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

iOS apps generally require a $100 yearly fee to post to the app store and if they submitted a waiver as a nonprofit apple would probably take years to accept it.

Also apple has a tendency to quietly kill and/or stall small apps that pose a threat to features they incorporate into their os from what I've heard.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ugh yeah the small 4-person worker cooperative I'm part of has been trying to get Apple to let us enroll in their developer program for literally weeks now. Every time we clear some other nonsense requirement, there's a new one right behind it; and we haven't even gotten to the "pay $100 for the privilege of undergoing this process" part yet.

I can't believe Apple ever managed to build an application ecosystem around their products when they are so unfriendly to developers.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

What? If you’re going to pay for it you just sign up and pay… If you don’t have your company registered before attempting that that’s on you. And if you’re really desperate you could just use a personal developer account which you can set up in like 1 minute. Not sure how this is an issue for you.

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[–] merde 11 points 1 year ago (7 children)

once you complete every quest on your commute, what do you do?

parallel streets βœ…

and then?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago

Just did around 150 contributions, looks fun so I might complete more quests tomorrow

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Is there an open street map based map app that shows live traffic? I'm trying to get my grandfather to switch to open source, and he says it's the one feature he needs.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (4 children)

MagicEarth has got a live traffic layer for you.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Magic earth is great

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

No, unfortunately not. Getting traffic data would mean users volunteering to share location data, would need a centralized system to process everything, and would need a critical mass of users sharing said data to be anywhere near useful. The other possibility would be to pay for data from a provider like Google under an enterprise license that doesn't require sharing data back, but I don't know if that is even an option.

For now, I use both on my phone. I use OSM when biking or walking, I use Google Maps when driving, and I use my local transit web app when taking transit. I plan to switch my Pixel phone to GrapheneOS and to sandbox Google services that I still need. That being said, the ultimate way around needing traffic information is to try to live in places and in such a way that driving is not very necessary, but I know that is a huge ask for a lot of people.

EDIT: To be clear, MagicEarth does have live traffic as @[email protected] pointed out and is based on OSM, but is not itself open source.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

time for some kind of anonymizing location data sharing service, peer to peer or federated protocol? that might be interesting, or sketchy, not sure which.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

kind of like PokΓ©mon Go but you are actually making an impact

I caught the whole first generation + my favorite Celebi. How's that for an impact?

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I use Organic maps, and it's easy to add and edit places with.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

MapComplete is more about tagging.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

I didnΒ΄t realize editing OSM is so easy. I just logged in, did a short tutorial and fixed one intersection where a week ago the app told to do an illegal turn. Awesome!

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Solid recommendation! "Contribute missing data" sounds like a chore, but this app is super fun

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

There is a "road" near my house in OSM that does not exist and OSM is always trying to route me though it, which is very annoying. Is there any way to mark them for removal? StreetComplete doesn't seem to have that capability.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

You can always long press on a problematic place and leave a freeform note. A more experienced mapper can then fix the issue.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm contributing at my level. But, when I see all the errors, issues and missing object around me, it's a full time job for at least one months.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Maps.me and organicsmaps apps are great too to edit osm. You can also replace google maps and its navigator which is great because if you don't find something on maps.me, you can immediately add it.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Street complete is amazing. I've been obsessed with it for a couple years. I never would have made hundreds of OSM submissions without it. Whenever I'm bored, sitting in some place waiting, instead of doom scrolling, I pull out up and see if there is anything I can contribute to the area

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Very glad I saw this. I've been getting increasingly fed up with Google Maps. Their map in my area is full of annoying errors, such as routing you through roads that haven't existed for a decade, or along private roads that are not open to the public. And no matter how many times I report them, nothing ever gets fixed. Going to give OSM a try and hopefully make the switch for good. Already saw that the map in my area is in much better shape than Google's.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

I don't really know or use Open Street Map, so I wonder:

Can everyone just manipulate the map data? Is there some sort of control mechanism or is it easy to incorporate fake data?

I'm asking because this seems to be a really fallible concept, where people with malicious intents would have an easy way to disturb Open Street Map.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, but similar to Wikipedia (where the same holds true) the forces fo good and honest seem to prevail.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I recently contributed a business change and got a message a few hours later that I had made a mistake and a small explanation on how to fix it.

This probably depends on the area, but at least changes in my area seem to be monitored by good people.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

It is a wiki. While anyone can add fake data, there are monitoring tools to make sure that if someone does that, others will notice and remove it again.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh heck yea! My neighborhood is better mapped on OSM than Google Maps even now! Very fulfilling to see.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My shed is mapped in OSM.

Meanwhile Google maps has not got the shed and has the entirety of my property about 10 ft east of its actual location. Essentially terraced up to a neighbouring property even though it's not connected to that property and there is an alleyway.

But I suppose I could say that doesn't really matter for street navigation, which is what Google maps is actually for.

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[–] cloudy1999 11 points 1 year ago

I've was doing the same until yesterday, then I found StreetComplete. Since then, it's so much easier to enter addresses. So much easier to add addresses while out walking than to carry a notepad or memorize numbers.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is my pastime whenever I don't have anything to do online. It's fun to point something on OSM and remembering the establishments you've walkthrough.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Personally I think a great combo is mapping stuff out with the phone where you can survey the place and have GPS, and then sending those changes to a computer to polish in JOSM if needed (e.g. when you're building new ways and want to make their geometry nicer) which is a lot more powerful editor and more comfortable than doing it on a touchscreen.

But whichever editor you prefer, I concur that mapping is very fun and also useful. :)

(And a lot more straight forward than trying to make a change in Apple or especially Google Maps...)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

StreetComplete is awesome and so easy to use.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

This is a blast, thanks for the recommendation

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I just started using it but I made a mistake on one of my submissions. Is there any way to undo or edit a submission made in the app?

Edit: There is an undo button on the bottom left in the app.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

OMG! I just tried it and its actually fun. Thank you so much :)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

And rember Pokemon Go uses osm for their data so you are making an impact on them too.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago
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