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Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap

andreagrandi.it

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Re: Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap

#41

Post by SchemaLoad »

greyb wrote: post #32
Aurornis wrote: post #3

In summary: Because OSM requires work and care to be put into the data submission plan, which isn’t worth it. A project like OSM would be bombarded with spam and junk submissions if it didn’t have these barriers to submission. Understandable.

>A project like OSM would be bombarded with spam and junk submissions if it didn’t have these barriers to submission. I'm not sure about this. The barriers to submissions are honestly more likely to cause object and amenity level data to become out of date. Google is able to have such an up to date place database because it relies on a large quantity of crowdsourced submissions, and employs consensus to figure out th…

Having out of date public book boxes isn't really that big of a deal, at least compared to the massive amounts of broken entries, duplicates, and incorrectly licensed data that would end up from free and unrestricted bulk imports.

As it is today you can largely expect OSM POI data to be incomplete or out of date unless you have someone particularly keen on keeping your local area up to date. OSM is best used as a background map layer for your own custom applications, like embedded maps in apps showing your own data overlayed. Rather than an alternative to the google maps app.

Re: Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap

#43

Post by ygra »

boredatoms wrote: post #17
zx8080 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can make an OSM account, go to the website, click, add a thing, hit submit, done. Someone will review it. I will share an unpopular opinion: thil will only make a freeworkforce for those projects who profit from using OSM. And the OSM has surprisingly unreliable data quality for walking around even in the popular tourist places like Tokyo or Kyoto, or New York. I've tried, and it's so worse than GMaps (or Bing)…

> No work hours of Starbucks, no local dining cafe, no menu contributions. This moves the goal posts of OSM

Well, those things can be added:

    - opening_hours=*
    - amenity=cafe
    - website:menu=*
But they can easily become outdated again. Still, local QA via StreetComplete, MapComplete, EveryDoor and a multitude of other apps is always needed.

Re: Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap

#44

Post by ygra »

nemomarx wrote: post #25
zx8080 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can make an OSM account, go to the website, click, add a thing, hit submit, done. Someone will review it. I will share an unpopular opinion: thil will only make a freeworkforce for those projects who profit from using OSM. And the OSM has surprisingly unreliable data quality for walking around even in the popular tourist places like Tokyo or Kyoto, or New York. I've tried, and it's so worse than GMaps (or Bing)…

This is kinda what StreetComplete is supposed to help with, right? it asks me questions about opening and closing hours of cafes and things. I would assume that tourist places don't have many locals going by and updating them and tourists don't want to fill in info on that kind of app, but that's mostly an adoption question. If more people contributed more info would be mapped.

Yeah, StreetComplete helps both with adding the data in the first place and then keeping is current, since it will also ask those questions again after a while (which also gives an opportunity to check whether a feature still exists). What's less visible there is whether a cafe exists at all – it's not as good to add missing objects as it is for filling in details of existing objects, at least for the casual user.

Re: Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap

#45

Post by mips_avatar »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #40
mips_avatar wrote: post #7

I appreciate OSM for maintaining a higher data quality bar than other projects (Overture places are mostly junk outside of USA), but it's also just artificially limiting itself by not allowing streamlined paths to data contributions.

It is streamlined for individuals, and I have no interest in it being streamlined for anything else. I'd rather no data than bad data. There is no seperate baby & bath water. If a bulk source of data contains an unknown mix of good and bad data, that is all one big single item of bad data that is of no use to anyone.

I’m grateful that a principled group of people run OSM. Much like I’m grateful that a principled group run Wikipedia. But the rigidness has costs that I don’t think are being appreciated.

Re: Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap

#46

Post by mips_avatar »

gopher_space wrote: post #33
mips_avatar wrote: post #7

I appreciate OSM for maintaining a higher data quality bar than other projects (Overture places are mostly junk outside of USA), but it's also just artificially limiting itself by not allowing streamlined paths to data contributions.

It seems like the path is streamlined once they know who you are. This sort of feels like a generational thing but I would have flown over.

Like I have a list of a few hundred osm places websites that are clearly scam sites. I should be going one by one and filing them manually but I found this via a spam filter and it’s very robust. I should have a way of getting these scam sites reported to osm.

Re: Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap

#47

Post by moring »

farfatched wrote: post #18
sampton wrote: post #10

OSM needs a way to ingest "signals" instead of edits.

Yes, the data source is clearly useful, so not having it is a loss. But an edit is large enough a privilege to require all these checks. Perhaps it's not that OSM that needs a signal, but perhaps it's that there's an opportunity for an open map that has many signals, of which OSM and Book Corners are examples.

This can probably be added to the toolchain pretty easily when non-OSM "signals" are converted to OSM format first. All you need then is an OSM data merging tool, all other tools will then get the same data format as before.

Re: Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap

#48

Post by rixed »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #41
greyb wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A project like OSM would be bombarded with spam and junk submissions if it didn’t have these barriers to submission. I'm not sure about this. The barriers to submissions are honestly more likely to cause object and amenity level data to become out of date. Google is able to have such an up to date place database because it relies on a large quantity of crowdsourced submissions, and employs consensus to figure out th…

Having out of date public book boxes isn't really that big of a deal, at least compared to the massive amounts of broken entries, duplicates, and incorrectly licensed data that would end up from free and unrestricted bulk imports. As it is today you can largely expect OSM POI data to be incomplete or out of date unless you have someone particularly keen on keeping your local area up to date. OSM is best used as a bac…

I wouldn't use gmap as a benchmark for up to date POIs, at least in some European countries. And I'm not talking about inaccurate opening times; but about places that closed during Covid but are still on the map.

Re: Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap

#49

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

greyb wrote: post #32
Aurornis wrote: post #3

In summary: Because OSM requires work and care to be put into the data submission plan, which isn’t worth it. A project like OSM would be bombarded with spam and junk submissions if it didn’t have these barriers to submission. Understandable.

>A project like OSM would be bombarded with spam and junk submissions if it didn’t have these barriers to submission. I'm not sure about this. The barriers to submissions are honestly more likely to cause object and amenity level data to become out of date. Google is able to have such an up to date place database because it relies on a large quantity of crowdsourced submissions, and employs consensus to figure out th…

Google employs _engineers_ to figure out the truth. If an import pipeline is causing problems, a higher-up can just say “stop doing that or we’ll stop your pay cheque”.

OSM doesn’t have that option. If it didn’t have these guardrails in place, a million CS students will see some open-looking data (or not even that, maybe something scraped) and throw it into OSM with a cursory Python script, resulting in an almighty mess. We need the process because we don’t have Google’s leverage of “we pay you”.

Re: Why Book Corners won't sync contributions back to OpenStreetMap

#50

Post by progbits »

Maxious wrote: post #13
sampton wrote: post #10

OSM needs a way to ingest "signals" instead of edits.

OSM has the notes feature which sounds like what OP should have used > Example of a valid and useful note can be "a new road was constructed here" or "this shop is closed and does not exist anymore". https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Notes

Mapy.com does this and I often see and resolve these notes on streetcomplete. It's nice setup, they provide a suggestion and location, it takes little effort to check if you are walking by and just reply to the note. Some enthusiastic editor (can be you back home, but it's annoying to do on a phone screen) then can make the edit and resolve the note.
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