Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the "evil" part?
Probably https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/06/pokemon-go-players-unwitt...
how am i just hearing about this, wow
StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time
91–100 of 209 posts
Re: StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that factual details aren't copyrightable in the first place, so no amount of licensing will prevent organizations with enough money to pay a lawyer from understanding this and using the data as they see fit. And on the flip side, those organizations can pay those same lawyers to write scary boilerplate to make it seem like their map data is “proprietary” and therefore “protected by copyright” even tho…
Maps Traditionally have a few intentional errors because those are copyright, in turn meaning if one is found you can sue for copyright violations.
I know that's the common story, but I have never seen any actual court cases confirming that theory; certainly the recoverable damages from such copying such an error would be minuscule.
Re: StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
I naively thought that Duolingo's gamification was for a good cause, helping you learn a language by addicting you, but now I know it's not only an extremely ineffective way to learn a language, but they're an advertising/social media/data broker company, which makes the gamification unethical. I wonder if there are any other FOSS apps or websites with gamification that are for a good cause, like StreetComplete.
> an extremely ineffective way to learn a language 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 fo…
In my opinion, gamification that makes one addictive is very unethical.
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.
Re: StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time
#94I was once on a trip in Åndalsness, one of the most scenic places in Norway. Fjords, mountains, you know it.
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.
Re: StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time
#95Thank you for the reminder! I got out of the habit of checking StreetComplete since my previous neighborhood was well populated in OSM, but having just moved, I should check it out again.
When you are out of quests in your area, check the overlays! (Button to the left of the menu)
Re: StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time
#96Earlier 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.
Well, sort of. That'd be very bluesky. What's closer, actually, would be a desktop version, or rather, a version for Linux mobile like postmarketOS (would run like a desktop app in a JVM, but for a mobile target, the layout and UX wouldn't need to be changed.
Re: StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time
#97Are there other similar apps to stimulate soft "crowdfixing" ? I'm sure there are plenty of other aspect of society that would benefit from a light way to know where someone can contribute or notify so other can fix things (forest dumps, random trash). Homeostatic apps to ensure our surroundings are close to a good state :]
hmmmm .... this prompted me to visit google street view in an area I lived in for 5+ years. When I was there it was a homeless haven. Hundreds of tents and hundreds of people lived there. Now when I go back and look at all the old photo dates, all the homeless have disappeared, as if they were never there. But the homeless were there when I was there.
It's easy to blame Google, but then again they kept a record of what they did and you can see it for yourself.
Re: StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time
#98Is there something equivalent for iOS?
> ANDROID WILL BECOME A LOCKED-DOWN PLATFORM IN XXX My guess is no because of the developer linking too below (and how it's always existed this way for iOS) https://keepandroidopen.org I wonder why this needs to be an app at all, instead of web based.
It works offline, for one. A lot of datais kept persistently in a SQLite database.
Re: StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time
#99I was once on a trip in Åndalsness, one of the most scenic places in Norway. Fjords, mountains, you know it. 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…
One of these viewpoints maybe ?
Re: StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time
#100One 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.
In the app I'm developing, cartes.app, we acknowledged this lack of pictures.
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.