I'm not affiliated, I just think it's cool. It's very satisfying to complete quests in your local area.
[0] I can't, but my fiancee used the words "impossibly smug"
Video has clips of the bridge falling and aftermath: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53628580
Google actually fucks up royally when a road below the level of a motorway/freeway is closed and formally withdrawn from public use, but still sees some traffic (by people illegally using it and people with legitimate goals like construction workers). There is a road near me where this is the case. Google will happily route cars over a road where one of the two lanes is in use as a soil depot for the nearby housing developments, and gates on both sides block the road. Those gates are shoved aside or bypassed by driving through the grass by a handful of simpletons. A bit of observation during a walk there showed me two cars passing there illegally; a postal worker and a power utility guy. Two types of road users who likely use Google Maps quite a lot, and drive up the virtual traffic there.
On OpenStreetMap this road is simply closed and limited to private use (i.e., the construction workers hauling soil), and has been for a number of years now.
What I told him was you guys be nuts to be spending your time to improve Google's product.
Some assholes worked out it was pretty profitable to (for example) create a '24 hour emergency locksmith' pins all over the country, with no real physical presence, then pass the business on to a real locksmith a few towns over, while taking a cut.
Once people find it's profitable to provide fake user contributions and you have to start policing them, I imagine the value of user contributions drops significantly...
Google has satellite views, they run their own network of vehicles to gather streetview data at a planetary scale, they follow every Android user (with Google Services installed) to know popular locations, new and closed businesses, likely opening hours, travel times, and more. They (at one point) pushed users to update store information, and then (from everything I've heard) charge out the ass for embedding a Google Map view.
I am ecstatic that we have a free-as-in-beer, donation and corporate sponsorship funded, open-for-all map that not only can go blow-for-blow with this absolute behenoth, but in this case actually won.
So while "smug" may be overselling it, "thrilled" would not be
Bit of an ironic one to leave out though, considering my preferences with most of the software I use and enjoy.
By the way, not even government agencies have good geo data, even when they should. I needed up to date address information for work, so I bought a map from my local county assessor's office. In my mind, the assessor should have the most recent data on properties, as their main mission is to collect taxes annually. I was wrong. Their data is about 4 to 5 years wrong, with whole "new" subdivisions missing from their inventory. Google Maps kind of has them on the map; I believe that their geolocation data comes from real estate platforms when new houses are on the market. OSM is about 10 years behind in my area. I am submitting edits as I find them.
If someone has a better idea on where to find address data, please let me know.
https://www.transportation.gov/gis/national-address-database...
Other people do other things, and that's great too.
I have been focusing on adding POIs throughout the US. Probably only a few tens of thousands so far though.
This is exactly why I contribute to OSM and add/remove/fix my favorite restaurants, bars etc. in the city I live in. I feel like I'm doing three nice things at a time: helping local companies, making travel better for tourists, and sticking it to $the_man[1]
[1]: whatever corporation is currently responsible for sucking up data on what beer I drink, what pizza I eat, and what clothes I wear, so they can cross-references it with my haircut, circle of friends and lidar-scanned calves measurements from my robo-vacuum while i'm taking a shit to sell me keyrings and usb-cables from china
Besides, the app is such a wonderful gateway drug to OSM that even if the only benefit at the end of the day from most mappers were road surfaces and building levels, there's still a few people who become good mappers beyond StreetComplete. I started with SC in March 2021. By now nearly no quests remain in my village, nearly every building has proper building and roof colours, I have far more changesets by now with JOSM and I strive for at least one changeset every day.
I won't touch bus routes, though. They're scary.
I find it's not one of the other, it's "Why not both?"
e.g. new coffee shop opened down the road? I'll take a picture of it on my phone, go home and open https://www.openstreetmap.org/, click "edit" and add it, along with info from the phone photo (Shop name, Address, phone number, and a website if I can find one).
The next time I'm nearby, StreetComplete will prompt me for other key info such as opening hours.
They compliment each other.
On the one hand, the full OSM experience is much richer than StreetComplete.
On the other hand, StreetComplete is a gateway drug to it, and also a useful accessory to it.
Having a dog means that I can record updates and additions as I walk varied routes around the area.
Updating the map later using its Web interface is very satisfying and much more worthy than doomscrolling through social media (which I don't really do anyway).
From my point of view this is easy. But as we have seen by the experience of how bad restaurant websites are, this is a significant barrier for these businesses.
I'm not knocking them: I couldn't run a restaurant; it's just different skills and experience. It's on the software people to make the software easy enough for restaurant people to use.
Google maps was a one minute process and it was reflected in the map after about an hour. OSM stayed outdated for weeks.
From this experience I am tempted to conclude that OSM needs to make mapping easier.
motor_vehicle:conditional=no @ (date range)
highway=construction
construction=tertiary
opening_date=2025-01
So basically, your edit should have been visible on the map around a minute after making it, but was apparently reverted later. Unless you actually destroyed something I'd say that's not very typical. Reverts are somewhat rare and contributors are trusted to some degree.
As for specific tagging situations, there's probably always something to improve. StreetComplete works really well for keeping track of what's there, other apps have their own niche, and there may not be one that specifically targets road closures.
[1] https://github.com/orgs/streetcomplete/projects/1 [2] https://every-door.app
I'll second that and I'd add the tip to install its companion app StreetMeasure too in order to measure things like the width of a street or the length of other things.
When on holidays or a weekend trip visiting places I often use StreetComplete to add missing data while walking around with my wife. And recently in the South of France I had to answer questions about the width of rather small streets in an old town center where my guesses wheren't very good. Then StreetComplete suggested that I use StreetMeasure and I got much better estimates.
A good companion to Go Map!! (which is a nearly full-featured OSM editor app) is https://every-door.app/, which is great for on-the-go stuff.
I remember when OpenStreetMap was new. I added a short missing footpath in my neighborhood at the time. It was a shortcut between homes. Today that same path even displays a very slight 1° turn. Amazing.
What also works is Wikimedia Commons. There's a good mobile app. You can take pictures of a POI, upload them and later associate them with that object in OSM (or via Wikidata).
The wikimedia app could be improved a lot to support OSM. It is a bit of a hassle to take a picture, upload it to commons, then add both categories and concepts, then open an OSM editor, find the object, and add the wikimedia_commons tag.
It would be much more helpful if you could search for an object in OsmAnd/organicmaps etc, take a picture, have it uploaded to wikimedia providing default categories based on OSM tags, and then have it added to OSM. It could also help create wikimedia categories if necessary.
A lot of the images are too dark or low-contrast, so another nice feature would be to auto-adjust the image for brightness (maybe make this a user-level default).
Probably the best generic "frontend" for OSM is Organic Maps, which however is confined to Android and iOS. I think if there would be a web version of Organic Maps, this could greatly accelerate OSM adoption.
They also have iOS [2] and Android [3] apps. I can't speak for the iOS app, but the Android one lets you download offline maps in a very space efficient way, similar to Organic Maps.
1. https://en.mapy.cz/zakladni?x=-2.2989613&y=53.1629710&z=8
2. https://apps.apple.com/cz/app/mapy-cz-maps-navigation/id4114...
3. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cz.seznam.mapy...
This is something Google and Apple Maps really nail, I hope OSM can too at some point.
So if I could respectfully amend your request, I'd say I hope some third party can really nail this at some point. Organic Maps is pretty good, but I still need Google maps for a number of things. But even if that doesn't ever happen, the free OSM data is invaluable in a large number of GIS contexts.
(I'm an opinionated OSM contributor since 2007. :)
I agree in theory but OSM does have a human consumable map. I think it’s in the projects interest for that default to be as good as it can be, rather than rely on third parties.
A lot of people have niche interests that they want implemented in the map, but that just looks busy to everybody else.
Google doesn't always properly demarcate built-up areas, doesn't show forests, mistakes large-scale "Nature parks" for regular city parks and shades everything inside them in green, including complete towns and villages…
A useful collection of links for non-technical users is hidden inside the streetcomplete app [1] (which itself is one of the most remarkable apps built on top of OSM). To find it, open the "my profile" view and then the "bookmark" icon). The list is unlocked gradually using some gamification (as a reward for completing quests). The complete list (for the impatient :-) is available here [2]
[0] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/List_of_OSM-based_servic...
[1] https://f-droid.org/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplete/
[2] https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/blob/a09ae2...
In either case, I've heard quite some people being in love with Qwant Maps.
And I try to get to build specialized maps with https://mapcomplete.org
Features I would want most from a web frontend for OSM:
* Smarter search in the local area that is currently focused, with possibility to search for generic terms like "atm", "bus stop", "bakery", etc.
* Display of shops/restaurants/markets/etc with additional information like opening hours (which are available in OSM, I've added a ton of it through StreetComplete and often wondered why I even bother as no one will ever see them). I can easily live without reviews, they are easily gamed and would need a ton of moderation.
* Public transport information. There's currently work ongoing in Organic Maps to support this.
* Navigation, yes, to some degree. I think this area is actually already quite well covered through services like Komoot, for instance. For car navigation, you probably will never beat Google Maps because of the available current traffic information there.
Also addresses in the current view are more important when you search.
Turn-by-turn navigation is also possible ... in the browser. See https://github.com/graphhopper/graphhopper-maps/pull/279
(I'm the developer)
If you want actual FOSS, you need to be aware of which libraries to avoid (i.e. don't touch anything Mapbox with a bargepole anymore - to be honest, their anti-union, anti-open agenda put me off a few years ago regardless of the license change, which is a shame because they used to do really good work).
(I'm the developer)
OsmAnd and OrganicMaps are fortunately quite powerful and full-featured.
OSM has been an absolute necessity when out hiking in the sticks, and knowing that someone has done work to map this trail out without expectations from me. It's also led to many useful derived maps like public toilets and parking and accessibility. I've always made it a point to try and contribute back whenever I can.
Having contributed quite a lot to OSM, I can say though that it was generally a lot better for hiking tracks than Google maps.
Their wiki is really good also, so feel free to take a peek. https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contribute_map_data
But there are a bunch of more “expert” features, such as the overlays, which allow for more focused QA work. And there's also a way of recording a GPX trace for missing paths or streets that will be added as a note for others to add to the map (or yourself, just not from the same app). Just long-press the screen and you can start such a recording.
With the places or things overlays you can also add new POIs in a limited way. It's still not a full-fleded editor (and as mentioned before, I think it shouldn't be), but there are now ways of doing more edits that were not possible previously, while not altering the interaction that much.
I've noticed StreetComplete focuses on details to fill in an already existing street layout, which makes it feel like there are clearly separated stages to the mapping process. First get the basic layout down, then fill in more details like zoning and buildings, and then more details. I like the idea of that so far.
One story I heard was that the Chinese government intentionally makes its published maps inaccurate by basically offsetting it by a few meters. I'm not sure if this is still current. I'm not sure of the reasoning. It's not like it would stop an invasion if the highway was a few meters from where you thoguht it was. Anyway, to counter that humans basically had to adjust the published maps by overlaying them onto satellite photos to remove the error. AI helps with this but it's still labor intensive.
IN addition to being labor-intensive, there are so many disparate data sources that you need to match up. Much of that data conflicts. The likes of Yelp and even Foursquare exist primarily by selling location data.
Even something like listing the opening hours of a business is incredibly labor intensive. Google has (had?) a system where an AI would call the business to ask their hours of operation. I think they had to modify it to say it was an automated call.
Oh you want directions? I guess you need accurate direction data for roads. You probably need to know where bike paths are. Different locales can define a bike path differently. In some places bikes can share the road with cars. In others they can't.
You want to integrate public transit? Well, every place is going to have a weird API.
It's a good example because something that seems so simple involves a ton of labor and integrating thousands of data sources.
Disclaimer: Xoogler.
It’s still current but much more complex than this, and offsets can be of more than 500 meters (that’s not just a few). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_dat...
I still don’t think it makes much sense currently. I would guess any opposing army would get coordinates for a strike from satellite imagery, and not from maps (let alone Chinese ones)
Which is famously something OSM does _much_ better than Google.
The answer there likely dives too much into personal preferences to be a "one size fits all" answer.
Both are available on f-droid, so just try both and pick the one you prefer:
Osmand: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.osmand.plus/
Organic Maps: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/app.organicmaps/
Organic Maps is a better starting point IMHO.
Do you know of an OSM app that can do this is offline mode?
I downloaded streetcomplete on the suggestion of someone else on this thread, and that was immediately my intuition.
(Overture is a "standardized" version of OSM, except for the Places data where they use Microsoft and Meta data)
Any recommendations for acquiring the place website URL through an API or ethically scraping it at scale? I’m specifically wondering about options that wouldn’t involve Google Places.
And maybe Overpass will work for you: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Overpass_API
If you want regional extracts, you can simply download them from Geofabrik at https://download.geofabrik.de/
I hope some day a truely open data set is compiled - b/c honest I find the attribution requirement doesn't even serve the function of giving the authors/contributors any kudos
There are a number of exceptions. A few CC-BY datasets can be used in OSM because the owner is fine with an entry on a Wiki page is sufficient attribution; Bing and Esri allow their aerial images to be used and only require the changeset to mention the source; etc. But each of those is a separate agreement.
I can’t find a supermarket using google maps in a new country, the search function usually fails and I don’t even know if I should use English, my native language or the destination’s language to find places. A more oldschool and less dynamic map allows to look for basket or cart symbols.
Honestly it is a bit surprising that there hasn't been like a government programme or a crazy billionaire wanting to improve their image somewhere that would launch a rideshare cubesat and have it continuously record an actually open source dataset for all.
OSM could do a better job acknowledging these partners, but honestly Steve Coast is right it is the people of OSM that matters. The companies and government are only a very small part of OSM.
I'm trying to build a somewhat generic map view, which features many thematic maps (e.g. shops, restaurants, bicycle pumps, toilets, ...)
Most data comes from OpenStreetMap, but it also allows to make changes, upload pictures, show wikipedia or make reviews with mangrove.Reviews
Take this link for example: https://mapcomplete.org/food.html?z=16.1&lat=51.400908130317... .
The restaurant "Kefi" is incorrectly located on an entirely residential road. I believe it is probably supposed to be "To Kefi", which you can see here on Google Maps: https://www.google.com/maps/place/To+Kefi+(Greek+Restaurant+...
I've tried dragging the icon, right-clicking it, or left-clicking it and looking in the popoup menu for a location field to edit, but no luck.
Maybe that could be a useful task for some AI? Pass it a photo of the data and a location and let it generate the needed additions to OSM ...
- StreetComplete - gamification of adding missing properties for existing objects. Consider it as most basic and limited
- https://every-door.app/ - the best option to update and add amenities (shops, restaurants, etc) on the go.
- iD browser editor available at https://www.openstreetmap.org/ - you will need at least this complexity to add objects with geometry (linear or area)
Every door is a better one but still not as simple as Google Maps. I do believe we need an OSM wrapper which has as simple UI as Google maps.
Is there any or I have to use the python3 one that to avoid to pull an abomination of c++ or rust compiler?