Live data from Hacker News

StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time

streetcomplete.app

41–50 of 209 posts

Re: StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time

#41
post #4

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.

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.

The thing is that the best way to get the phones and opening hours is to walk in person and look them up. Any source for the automated collection is way more likely to be outdated/wrong than what the sign or the person behind the counter tells you. And can also have non-permissive license not compatible with the OSM license.

Re: StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time

#42

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.

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.

Re: StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time

#43

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.

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)

Re: StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time

#44
I enjoyed the simulated phone screenshots, particularly the choice of House of the Trembling Madness, a great beer stockist and drinking establishment on Lendal in York. I would like to think that the name in the input field is deliberately slightly wrong, ready to be fixed by someone. (It's "House of the Trembling Madness" rather than "The House of Trembling Madness".) Gamification at another level :-)

Re: StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time

#45
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be nice if they made a web app, that would make it work on iOS but also desktop and every other platform with a web browser at the same time

I agree! It seems like their work on the iOS app would bring them a lot closer to web app support as well. In the iOS tracking issue, they say the main changes are moving to Kotlin Multiplatform and Compose Multiplatform, which both support web as a target.

I'll take a look and see if I can help out. Thx.

Re: StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The thing is that the best way to get the phones and opening hours is to walk in person and look them up. Any source for the automated collection is way more likely to be outdated/wrong than what the sign or the person behind the counter tells you. And can also have non-permissive license not compatible with the OSM license.

Raw Information cannot be licensed, and I am not sure why OSM sticks to the policy that it can.

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.

Re: StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time

#47

Does it have to be a mobile app? Id love to do this when im bored at work but i dont wanna make it seem like im just sitting on my phone.

You can edit OSM from its main site [0], although there's a much steeper learning curve when using the site (as you have far more freedom and it's not super easy to figure out the standard way to tag some situations).

[0] https://www.openstreetmap.org/

Re: StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time

#48
post #44

I enjoyed the simulated phone screenshots, particularly the choice of House of the Trembling Madness, a great beer stockist and drinking establishment on Lendal in York. I would like to think that the name in the input field is deliberately slightly wrong, ready to be fixed by someone. (It's "House of the Trembling Madness" rather than "The House of Trembling Madness".) Gamification at another level :-)

Just through your comment I found out that they have different screenshots for all their localization settings. Cool!

Re: StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time

#49
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

Post reply on HN