[HN Gopher] OpenStreepMap 2012 vs. 2022
___________________________________________________________________
OpenStreepMap 2012 vs. 2022
Author : curiousfab
Score : 268 points
Date : 2022-09-30 13:34 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (2012.osmz.ru)
(TXT) w3m dump (2012.osmz.ru)
| cinntaile wrote:
| OSM doesn't have a layer with just satelite images like Google
| maps has, does there exist any alternative here?
| flipbrad wrote:
| Apps can easily layer that stuff over OSM, e.g. I use precisely
| such an overlay in Vespucci to edit OSM on Android.
| trillic wrote:
| MapTiler released a ~500 GB high res dataset. Not sure on the
| licensing but I believe it can be used for free with
| attribution if self-hosting.
|
| https://data.maptiler.com/downloads/dataset/satellite-2021/#...
| moffkalast wrote:
| > The tiles are generated on zoom levels 0-13.
|
| That's like 20 m per pixel at its highest zoom, completely
| useless for most things.
| Symbiote wrote:
| The download button leads to
| https://data.maptiler.com/downloads/tileset/satellite-2021/,
| which says it is $400/month.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| We have a subscription for MapTiler to do our in app maps;
| including very nice satellite imagery. This data set is
| obviously not the good stuff.
|
| For reference, I've used ortho4xp to get some satellite
| imagery based x-plane scenery. I have several hundreds of GB
| of scenery like that for a few relatively small areas, like
| my home country the Netherlands, the area around Berlin, and
| a few more places. That scenery comes in at multiple GB
| (4-6GB) for just a single rectangle on the map (1 degree
| latitude by 1 longitude degree, depending on the zoom level.
| You typically use it at zoom level 17 but you can configure
| it to go for zoom level 19 near airports, which helps when
| coming in to land. This stuff is huge. At zoom level 19, you
| can see quite a bit of detail. It looks great from a few
| hundred feet up in the simulator.
|
| What map tiler offers us looks like it is similar quality to
| that. I assume they are licensing some satellite data for
| this. Zoom level 19 resolution for the entire world is likely
| to be in the peta byte range. 500GB is probably zoom level 15
| or 16ish. Still usable but not great if you want to zoom in
| and see details.
|
| Edit. Another point is that zl 19 and better does not come
| from satellites but from air planes and isn't available
| everywhere (only in populated areas typically).
| Rygian wrote:
| (Just to clear a possible misconception: OSM is a database, not
| a rendered map. Everyone is free to render their own maps based
| on OSM data.)
|
| When we map (e.g. when we click on the "Edit" button), we use
| satellite images from providers like Bing, Maxar, ESRI, who
| have authorised their imagery to be used as base layer. Many
| countries also authorize their national orthophotography to be
| used as base layer.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Openstreetmap.org does not have a satelite baselayer that I
| can use, so I don't get what you mean.
| lucb1e wrote:
| What they mean is that OSM is not a commercial product that
| licenses satellite or aerial imagery, so the website does
| not include this (it's really just a showcase of various
| info that's in the database, not meant to be fit for any
| particular purpose, although it's surprisingly good for
| general use).
|
| However, some image sources are available under free
| licenses, or in Bing's case, a special license for drawing
| roads in OSM. Many of those can be found if you go into the
| edit mode, because the default web editor (iD) has those in
| the background layers menu.
| cinntaile wrote:
| So you can't use satellite data (of the same detail as on
| Google maps) without paying is basically the answer to my
| question if I understand you correctly?
| matkoniecz wrote:
| Yes, at least if you want global coverage and/or great
| uptime.
| MayeulC wrote:
| To spell it out clearer, though you were pointed this
| multiple times:
|
| OpenStreetMap is a database, not a website.
|
| Its purpose is to reference stuff that you can see in the
| street, not to provide a sleek map website.
|
| OpenStreetMap provides map data. They are not a provider
| of satellite data. You would have to go look elsewhere,
| and pay _someone else_.
|
| Now, the openstreetmap.org website still does a decent
| job at showing a map, though its geocoder is lacking. The
| website also lacks several features, some are provided by
| overpass (https://overpass-turbo.eu) for instance,
| https://brouter.de, etc. OpenStreetMap data is integrated
| with satellite data and much more on a lot of websites.
|
| For instance, https://www.geoportail.gouv.fr/carte has
| aerial photography imagery for France, plus a few map
| overlays, including OSM. French national geography
| institute (IGN) releases free aerial photography, there
| are other sources for other countries. If you go to
| "edit" mode on the openstreetmap.org website, you'll see
| aerial/satellite imagery too, licensed for free from bing
| and others. AFAIK, that license is only for editors, thus
| they can't have it on the main website (and that wouldn't
| be a showcase of OSM data anyway).
|
| I agree it's a bit of a shame that the openstreetmap.org
| doesn't do a better job of showcasing the wealth of data,
| and it could be more user friendly. There are a lot of
| other websites that provide the same data, represented
| differently. https://osmand.net/map for instance.
| https://www.qwant.com/maps has vector maps and is quite
| good too!
| Rygian wrote:
| Yes it does, when you go in edit mode :-)
| tn890 wrote:
| aaomidi wrote:
| Maybe don't blacklist an entire TLD then.
| tn890 wrote:
| Since it's Russian owned, a lot of malicious actors have
| found .ru to be a safe heaven, this is more of a security
| thing than anything.
| aaomidi wrote:
| No, it's security theater.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| I've found that about 80% of the bullshit my search
| engine crawler finds is on Russian and Chinese IPs
| (especially the Alibaba Cloud).
|
| Not that there isn't legitimate content, but there seems
| to be very little effort put toward policing the bad as
| long as it primarily targets a western demographic.
|
| This is not by any means a new development.
| shakow wrote:
| Don't forget the Bayes theorem: lot of crap comes from
| ru/cn domains <=/=> most ru/cn domains are crap.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| If I'm interested in reducing the amount of crap, it's
| only the left hand of that inequality I care about.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| The majority of English-language ru/cn domains being crap
| seems like a safe bet. I'm sure lots of legitimate
| businesses in those countries have such domains, but
| those websites aren't relevant to an English speaker not
| living in those countries.
| MayeulC wrote:
| Oh wow, I was looking for your search engine a few months
| back, but couldn't recall the name, and my searching
| turned up nothing, even here on HN somehow.
|
| I just came across the open-sourcing blog post. Thank you
| for doing this. Search is something I'm quite interested
| in. Is there a public mailing list somewhere to discuss
| marginalia-related stuff? I'll probably look into
| contributing at a later point (I've also always wondered
| how good sqlite+webtorrent would do fare a search engine,
| for instance -- not saying I'll make a PR for that, but
| I'd be curious to investigate stuff like that).
| tn890 wrote:
| Since .ru hosts a LOT of malware that's running wild, and
| I don't particularly care to view anything on .ru, we'll
| just agree to disagree.
|
| Good arguments btw.
| andrepd wrote:
| You don't particularly care to view anything on .ru, but
| you're complaining that you can't open a website (which
| you'd like to view) which is on .ru. What a bizarre thing
| to say.
| orbital-decay wrote:
| _> and I don't particularly care to view anything on .ru_
|
| Why complain about it then? Seems like a non-issue.
| EGreg wrote:
| Um... OK?
|
| Did you blacklist .sa since 2014 too?
|
| https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/yemen
| moolcool wrote:
| That seems like a you problem
| sbaiddn wrote:
| You're complaining that a site that you went out of your way to
| block doesn't load?
| aeyes wrote:
| Because anybody in any part of the world can contribute and use
| OpenStreetMap. The developer of this tool just happens to be
| from Russia.
| 88840-8855 wrote:
| lol
| lallysingh wrote:
| I prefer OSM to Google Maps when looking at maps. You get better
| maps with more detail. But, I have to back to GM to find anything
| with an address. The business database on OSM is poor, and I
| don't think the system for estimating the location of an address
| on a street has been particularly good either.
|
| They were terrible years ago on GM, so this is part of the
| evolution. But I can see how OSM will end up better than GM, like
| Wikipedia over Encyclopedia Brittanica, but it needs a bit more
| to get there.
|
| Btw: the online process to make changes on OSM is wonderful and
| encouraging.
| SergeAx wrote:
| On the other hand, when I need to find a nearest trash
| container in a new location - OSM is always there for me.
| dont__panic wrote:
| Google is on a warpath of advertising to the detriment of its
| base products. Nowhere is this more apparent to me than Google
| Maps, mostly because there isn't a great alternative if I want
| to find businesses near me.
|
| Everyone who can help OSM should. There's no reason OSM can't
| be a wikipedia-quality product, to the point where close
| source, advertising-beholden alternatives can't meaningfully
| compete. Add businesses in your town today! Add business hours
| if you can! Fix any errors you see. And try to switch to OSM
| for everything you can. Every little bit helps.
| aqfamnzc wrote:
| There are a lot of problems that still need to be solved with
| OSM to make it on par with GM's overall utility. (I say that
| as a very active local OSM contributor and data consumer)
| Reviews, geocoding, political issues within the OSMF, and
| incomplete address information to name a few. Some of them
| can be solved by having more active local mappers, but others
| I don't have an easy answer for. Hopefully these are growing
| pains, as I desperately want to see OSM succeed.
| playingalong wrote:
| A comparison of current Google Maps with current OSM would be
| interesting too. I bet people would be shocked with how much
| details there are mapped.
| [deleted]
| smcn wrote:
| This is blowing my mind, I had no idea it was as good as it was.
| I always remembering it being slow, empty, and just not really
| usable.
|
| This is incredible work and I'm sorry that I held such a negative
| opinion of it for so long!
| mpol wrote:
| I held the same negative opinion, until about 2018. Then I
| thought "enough is enough" and started contributing in my area.
| This in the hope and expectation that other area's will have
| volunteers working who started out with the same emotion in a
| somewhat catalysing effect (is that a word?). Now I am quite
| proud of maintaining shops and bars in my city, at least I
| think I am the person who updates those the most :)
| specialist wrote:
| Is this a manual process, generally?
|
| I was wondering if someone(s) consume data feeds from local
| govts. Stuff like permitting, licensing, change-of-address.
|
| I ask because it seems that I'll idly spot a business, while
| driving around, that I'm sure didn't turn up in a search. (I
| mostly use Apple Maps.)
|
| Then I thought "surely adding new listings could be
| automated".
|
| My next thought was "well, just because it's in the database
| doesn't mean Apple, Google, Yelp will show it".
| openmapsguy wrote:
| Almost everything is manual unless an import for an area is
| happening. Imports require a bunch of documentation and
| notifications before the data gets pulled in. The data is
| typically for building and addresses from the government.
|
| Adding together OSM's rules are stacked against imports,
| the vocal anti import contingent and specialized software
| knowledge needed means that few imports happen.
| Maxburn wrote:
| Left blank white square. Right OSM map.
|
| Is this a prank or broken? What year did OSM come out?
| akgerber wrote:
| The tiles on the left map from 2012 load extremely slowly,
| presumably due to traffic.
| crimsoneer wrote:
| Honestly, OSM is a damn triumph.
| specialist wrote:
| Emphatic agreement. I was doing CAD & GIS in the 80s. We
| certainly foresaw this stuff. Even so, I'm just gobsmacked by
| the number and quality of all the map & GIS systems.
| breck wrote:
| Don't believe what you read in the newspapers, this gives me hope
| for our world.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| Do believe what has been accurately reported. Also, have hope
| for the world.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _Do believe what has been accurately reported._
|
| Believe things if you believe them to be true.
| AlexTrask wrote:
| If this gives you hope you must check the humanitarian
| openstreetmap team. They are so great https://www.hotosm.org/
| [deleted]
| hashtag-til wrote:
| I wonder how to go about to collaborate to the OSM ecosystem with
| code. Does anyone know what are the cool projects within OSM in
| C/C++? (i.e. not web stuff)
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| Two C++ projects I'm involved in that you might enjoy:
|
| https://github.com/systemed/tilemaker
|
| https://github.com/Project-OSRM/osrm-backend
| mvexel wrote:
| Not necessarily cool perhaps but a critical piece of OSM
| infrastructure is osm2pgsql[1].
|
| Also important tools in OSM land are osmium[2] and imposm[3]
| but the latter I think is Go not C++.
|
| [1] https://osm2pgsql.org/ [2] https://osmcode.org/osmium-tool/
| [3] https://imposm.org/
| uneekname wrote:
| osm2pgsql makes it surprisingly easy to spin up your own tile
| server using OSM extracts
| westnordost wrote:
| The most accessible general-purpose map app for end users
| (Android and iOS) is written in C/C++. This is pretty high on
| the cool and useful scale: https://organicmaps.app/
|
| Both map renderers Tangram-ES and Maplibre-GL -
| https://github.com/tangrams/tangram-es and -
| https://github.com/maplibre/maplibre-gl-native are also written
| in C/C++.
|
| Finally, most routing software, such as OSRM or Valhalla are
| written in C/C++.
| mattficke wrote:
| Take a look at Tippecanoe, which is under active development
| again[0]. The original developer, Erica Fischer (who is
| wonderful to work with), has a fork[1] where new work is
| happening.
|
| [0] https://felt.com/blog/erica-fischer-tippecanoe-at-felt
|
| [1] https://github.com/felt/tippecanoe
| enf wrote:
| Thank you!
| durkie wrote:
| Woohoo! This is fantastic news
| cancan wrote:
| (Co-founder of Felt here) Thanks for the kind words! We are
| lucky to have Erica on our team. If you ever want to talk
| maps, my email is can@felt dot com!
| apetresc wrote:
| Here you go:
| https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Category:C%2B%2B
| hashtag-til wrote:
| Yep, I got there like 1 minute after asking this FAQ. Thanks.
| idealmedtech wrote:
| There's lots of mentions of Maps.ME, which is no longer
| open source. The spiritual successor is called Organic Maps
| N19PEDL2 wrote:
| I use Maps.me as my main map and navigation app as I
| don't like that Google knows where I go, and I can say
| that it's a very good alternative to Google Maps. However
| I have to say that now I'm a little worried because it's
| Russian-owned. Happy to know that there's an open-source
| alternative.
| sorenjan wrote:
| OsmAnd
| teddyh wrote:
| Important clarification: OsmAnd~, installed from F-Droid.
| Do not install OsmAnd straight from the default app
| store.
| yaddaor wrote:
| Or do, if you want to monetarily support the developers
| in a convenient way.
| lucb1e wrote:
| The biggest help one can probably be to the project is to
| create or improve user-facing software. OsmAnd is still clunky
| and ugly to the average person coming from FAANG Maps, for
| example. The iOS version is even worse. Some alternative apps
| exist with better UX, but they're often missing features. There
| are also some web projects out there that aim to be a google
| maps website replacement, but none of them are quite there.
|
| It could also be a niche thing, like if you make an app that
| shows the nearest defibrillator or other emergency facilities
| that people might need in a pinch. Any area gaining good
| coverage of this type of data would immediately have an app to
| turn to. With adoption also comes the influx of new
| contributors.
| benbristow wrote:
| OSM needs some form of gamification adding to it.
|
| Google Maps app is great, lets you gain points by adding
| information & photos & reviews etc. They even send you a free
| bespoke pair of socks or a badge if you're active enough. So fun
| to add photos and then see how many views they get (I posted one
| of a chippy in Scotland (for Americans that's Fish & Chip 'Thick
| French Fries' shop) which got over 1.4 million views - mental).
| The location history feature suggests things to contribute which
| helps too.
|
| Would be good to have something similar to make contributing fun.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > I posted one of a chippy in Scotland (for Americans that's
| Fish & Chip 'Thick French Fries' shop) which got over 1.4
| million views - mental
|
| Do they protect against self promotion somehow? seems like it
| would be an easy way to market something to a huge audience. I
| mean something like giving a completely legit review then
| dropping a link to your website or something.
| jxramos wrote:
| I concur completely. I was having my young son learn how to use
| the computer focused on input devices and simple UI
| interactions by having him annotate buildings and pools in OSM
| for a few random towns friends live in. I thought he'd very
| much more enjoy this if it was gamified in some way. He did it,
| got the hang of the UI, but then it grew tedious so he moved on
| to something else.
| BetaDeltaAlpha wrote:
| Web3 is on it https://hivemapper.com/
| mkaszkowiak wrote:
| Pokemon Go upon release encouraged people to contribute to
| OpenStreetMap in my area, as Pokemon weren't spawning in
| incorrectly tagged areas :)
| alias_neo wrote:
| I thought Pokemon used Google Maps like its predecessor,
| Ingress?
| mkaszkowiak wrote:
| If I remember correctly, at first Pokemon Go used Google
| Maps to display the actual map, but it still used OSM data
| for the spawning algorithm. Later on they made the switch
| to only use OSM.
| Tostino wrote:
| The changes to Google maps api pricing made it entirely
| unsuitable for a whole lot of apps.
| alt227 wrote:
| This is the main thing I hate about google maps. I refuse to do
| free work for google in return for 'fun'.
| martyvis wrote:
| That isn't the main return for me. It is knowing that you
| have contributed to the community corpus of knowledge that is
| almost impossible to come otherwise. For instance I had the
| to visit a data centre that I had previously been to but was
| under a new owner. The pin had Equinix but not the site code.
| Once I confirmed it, I submitted the edit for it to become
| Equinix SY6. It apparently has since been used thousands of
| times.
|
| I also enjoy adding a food shot or a representative photo of
| places I have enjoyed as a small reward and enticement for
| others to do likewise.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| Try thinking of it as work done to help other real people.
|
| I found the "Emergency" door of a local hospital hard to find
| IRL, so I added a photo of it from the driveway POV. Another
| sort of real person you can help are the web-clueless owners
| of local small businesses.
| ibz wrote:
| I tried to look at it that way, but... it only helps other
| people until Google decides to drop that particular
| feature, after which all your work is gone forever.
| alt227 wrote:
| Instead of supplying a mega corp with some free information
| to increase their monopoly on directions, maybe you could
| have just mentioned to the hospital staff that they could
| do with a new sign pointing to the door?
| martyvis wrote:
| I think the point of having the online map accurate is so
| people can plan better ahead of time. We had this exact
| situation recently when my MIL needed to go to get CT
| scan in a hospital campus but my wife wanted to plan
| ahead which of the many entrances she should drop her off
| at. The actual hospital web site is a labrynth of the
| type that government bureaucracies excel at.
| jxramos wrote:
| there is some aspect there about how web-savvy business
| owners can be and how easy it is to bring business to them.
| It'll be great to see that playing field fleshed out in
| time.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Personally I just use it for me. Even if they made it so that
| nothing is shared, and it bookmarks my edits I'd be happy. I
| don't want to keep a separate override list.
| crazygringo wrote:
| This is definitely one of the trickiest ethical questions for
| me -- and it applies not only to Maps updates, but also
| writing Amazon reviews, and so forth.
|
| On the one hand it's free work benefiting the corporation...
| but on the other hand it's genuinely helping sometimes
| thousands of other people. I benefit massively from reading
| Amazon reviews, and it feels good to give back. But it is
| also a contribution that further entrenches Amazon (or Google
| Maps), it's not like Wikipedia where contributions can be
| used by anyone.
|
| What do we do when we can help other users, but doing so also
| supports corporations for free? Although then again, I've
| never paid a dime for Google Maps and use it daily, it's
| literally a major part of my life -- so does _getting_ the
| product for free also play a role?
| alt227 wrote:
| I appreciate your viewpoint, and in some ways I agree.
| However I see it mostly from a competitors point of view.
| If you were to start up a new directory/mapping service,
| you would need to set up a team of people paid to gather
| this information for you.
|
| For example if you wanted to put in your new directory
| whether company A has a car park at their premesis or has
| disabled access etc, you would need to pay somebody to
| either go there and perform a survey or call them up and
| ask them. Googles monopoly enables them to just ask the
| question to everybody that has ever been there and get the
| data returned back into the system automatically and free.
|
| I see this as anticompetitive and so I choose not to
| participate.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Yeah, this makes me think further and it feels like one
| solution could be legislation that declares companies
| never own user-supplied content -- that when users submit
| data like Amazon reviews or Craigslist posts they become
| public domain. Competitors are free to scrape them
| however they can.
|
| It's harder for map corrections though, as the user-
| presented data mixes commercial and user-supplied data.
| Maybe legislation should require regular data dumps of
| all user-supplied content much like Wikipedia makes
| available in XML form? Then no scraping is even required.
| stevage wrote:
| Agreed. Overall I see it as a net negative to society if
| Amazon succeeds so I don't help.
|
| Contributing to Stackoverflow is my one exception.
| dewey wrote:
| I also want to hate it, but in reality I recently uploaded my
| first picture and then get monthly updates on how many
| hundreds of people have seen it and I have to admit the
| gamification works :(
|
| On the topic: I think it would be a good idea for OSM if done
| in a good and non-technical user-friendly way.
| mvexel wrote:
| This is a pattern that OSM could adopt. OSM data is used by
| about half of FAANG and countless smaller companies and
| organizations directly and indirectly (through Mapbox for
| example), so your contributions are seen by millions if not
| billions, depending on where you are.
| mcv wrote:
| In my experience, OSM data is usually better than Google Maps.
| The only problem is that Google Maps has the better app.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Most of the contributions to OSM are commercial now. Most of
| the big names except from Google have people working on
| improving the maps.
| eMerzh wrote:
| sorry but that is simply not true... I think there are areas
| where it can be, probably those more remote, or where there
| are less contributors but at least in western europe, the map
| is built and maintained by individuals like me. Maybe helped
| with external datas but still carefully handpicked and
| integrated by individuals
| mvexel wrote:
| The statement is at least partly true. Nearly all big
| corporations and many smaller ones have people on the
| payroll contributing to OSM. And there are entire countries
| where paid / commercial editing makes up the majority of
| contributions to OSM. See this post from last year that
| breaks it down: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Jennings
| %20Anderson/diary....
| diggernet wrote:
| Hang on... I can get _paid_ to edit OSM instead of just
| doing it for fun? Where do we find those jobs?
| mvexel wrote:
| I maintain a website called MapRoulette which is not pure
| gamification but breaks down map contributions into small
| tasks. It has some elements of gamification (badges,
| leaderboard).
|
| For more task-based editing with gamification elements check
| out StreetComplete, an Android app.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| if people don't know it -- MapRoulette is massively
| successful and a giant contribution to Openstreetmap
| ryandrake wrote:
| I also used to have a lot of fun with the KeepRight tool.
| Something oddly satisfying about taking a small geographic
| area and completely removing all flagged "problems". Feels
| like taking an ugly .C file and fixing all the warnings and
| lint errors. Only problem with KeepRight is I found it had
| a lot of false positives.
| int_19h wrote:
| The concept is great, but the map on the site is very buggy
| on the desktop (Edge 105). Trying to zoom in with mouse
| wheel, it often randomly zooms out and in again. Trying to
| pan when dragging while zoomed in and near task markers, it
| will often pan back after releasing the mouse, and in one
| case, I've seen it pan back and forth between two points on
| the map in what looks like an infinite loop. It seems that
| it's trying to do some kind of snapping to the markers, and
| ends up fighting the user and/or itself.
|
| Also, the markers disappear entirely past a certain zoom
| level. When that happens, zooming out one notch does not
| cause them to reappear, either - I had to do like 4 levels
| before they'd show up. The worst part is that it also happens
| when you click on a marker and the map auto-zooms on it.
|
| EDIT: just realized that for that last problem, what happens
| is that a single combined marker (the one that shows a
| number) is broken up into individual markers. The problem
| there is that those individual markers often end up outside
| of the viewport, and so it looks like the combined markers
| just disappeared.
| Rygian wrote:
| I do not oppose.
|
| But personally, I have a ton of fun just mapping for the sake
| of it. Seeing my contributions rendered is a satisfaction.
| ibz wrote:
| Same here. I think mapping is fun and it should be done by
| people who love doing it.
|
| Doing it because you get a pair of socks or some smiley
| clippy character telling you something cute is very
| different.
| fragmede wrote:
| No it's not. We're talking about a silly pair of socks or a
| quirky avatar message, not, y'know, actual amounts of
| money. You can't pay rent or buy food or taxes with a pair
| of socks. Someone doing mapping for free, with the hopes of
| getting a pair of _socks_ is much closer to this
| hypothetical mapping purist than a 3rd party contractor
| that doesn 't care about cartography and is just doing it
| for the paycheck.
| pwg wrote:
| > OSM needs some form of gamification adding to it.
|
| Take a look at StreetComplete [1]. It is gamification of
| updates to OSM.
|
| [1]
| https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplet...
| petesergeant wrote:
| Every time I see this I seriously consider buying a cheap
| Android device to play with it
| [deleted]
| Grimburger wrote:
| The last time I submitted a few months worth of my travels at
| once after doing a hundred or so of these
| challenges/questions and got a bunch of notifications
| lambasting me for not updating the moment I did instead of
| later. Honestly didn't realise you had to manually submit,
| thought it just happened automatically.
|
| Was a really rude intro to the _community_ and reminded me a
| lot of SO or Wikipedia with its gatekeeping.
|
| I've never submitted a single thing since then. If that's how
| you treat newcomers then I want nothing to do with you.
| aqfamnzc wrote:
| I've seen some gatekeeping in the OSM community as well. In
| this specific case, this is also (in my opinion) due to bad
| tooling. Basically the easiest way to keep an eye on an
| area is to use a tool that shows changesets whose bounding
| box includes a certain area. So you could make a single
| tiny edit in both NY and LA, the bbox would ping a huge
| swath of the US. This happens all the time, actually. It's
| annoying, but the way I see it that means we need a better
| way to see changesets that actually affect a specific area.
| jxramos wrote:
| yah the change set visualization could indeed use a lot
| of love. I think it would be worth it, something like
| beyond compare's image diff could be a good start in the
| right direction
| https://beyondcompare.gitbook.io/project/other/how-to-
| compar...
| osmsucks wrote:
| Funny, I've had a similar experience, and stopped
| contributing because of it. My case was even more egregious
| as autosubmit _was_ enabled on StreetComplete, but
| unbeknownst to me at the time such submissions are batched,
| so if you edit local places that you're visiting (vacation)
| and places far away that you're intimately familiar with
| (home), it can still end up in one big changeset that spans
| an enormous geographical area... After that I had a couple
| of folks breathing down my neck and nitpicking every change
| -- and one of them tried to support their snark with
| http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/crybaby.html, which is
| possibly the stupidest writeup I've ever seen -- no, thank
| you, I can take my contributions elsewhere.
|
| OpenStreetMap has strict demands on how contributors should
| structure their changes, but has no way to enforce them.
| The best it has is having someone review your changesets
| _after_ they've been already submitted, when it's too late
| as the "damage" is done. Start implementing a technical
| solution to problem, instead of disciplining the ones who
| are volunteering their time trying to curate your dataset
| for you.
|
| (Also, if StreetComplete is a repeat offender, start a
| conversation with its devs instead of reprimanding users.)
| yaomtc wrote:
| It does happen automatically, pretty sure it's always
| worked that way. Maybe you experienced a bug?
|
| > The user's answer is automatically processed and uploaded
| directly into the OSM database.
|
| https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/
|
| Of course uploading a few months of changes all at once is
| going to cause issues, naturally some will conflict with
| other changes that have been made in the meantime.
| infthi wrote:
| There is a setting that disables autoupload. Some people
| may want to minimise the number of edits made from their
| account, and some people may not want to leave a trace of
| locations they've visited together with exact timestamp
| they've been there.
| [deleted]
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| i've been using streetcomplete for a long time now, i just
| keep the mobile data on and it keeps uploading fixes and
| stuff as we go.
| mcv wrote:
| This is terrible. I have no experience with it myself, but
| if OSM wants community contributions, they need to make
| sure that people feel welcome to contribute. Lambasting
| people for getting something wrong is not helpful. Thanking
| them and advising them how to do it better next time would
| be much better.
| pwg wrote:
| > Thanking them and advising them how to do it better
| next time would be much better.
|
| Thanking them and advising _is_ the recommended way to
| handle this.
|
| Unfortunately, as happens in all large crowdsourced
| areas, some don't adhere to the recommended ways and "do
| their own thing", often to the detriment of the project
| as a whole.
| mvexel wrote:
| As someone who belongs to the OSM community, I am sorry
| that you had this experience. Gatekeeping is an unfortunate
| byproduct of a crowdsourcing project, it seems.
|
| I hope you reconsider and try again. Many of us are
| actually here to help.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > Honestly didn't realise you had to manually submit,
| thought it just happened automatically.
|
| in my experience, you don't have to manually submit in
| streetcomplete, and it does happen automatically.
|
| > a few months worth of my travels
|
| Was this travels in your local neighbourhood, going home
| daily, or one trip to another country or in a very rural
| area? I'm asking if you had constant data connectivity,
| intermittent, once daily, or none during that time?
|
| It sucks to have a bad first experience from a Gatekeeping
| community. Of course, as newbs, we try to move slowly with
| small changes first to test the waters. That worked for me,
| sorry that it did not work for you. I also take the point
| that was raised about not editing based off months-old
| data.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| > Honestly didn't realise you had to manually submit,
| thought it just happened automatically.
|
| It happens automatically in default configuration.
|
| You can enable manual upload in settings if you want, but
| then, well, you need to upload it manually.
|
| I am contributor to StreetComplete - so maybe I will add
| feature to start reminding about upload if edits are old.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| This thing is so much fun! I love wandering around a new area
| and filling in the details.
|
| One thing I wish it had was the ability to add an entirely
| new building. I'm currently living in a town that is
| experiencing massive growth and I'll often see a structure
| that's still a vacant lot on osm, and I don't think you can
| add it with StreetComplete.
| pwg wrote:
| > One thing I wish it had was the ability to add an
| entirely new building.
|
| If you want to add an entirely new building on the go,
| there is Vespucci:
|
| https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.blau.android/
|
| But, honestly, adding a building on a phone sized screen,
| while quite possible, is much more easily done with either
| of the two desktop editors:
|
| JOSM, Java based: https://josm.openstreetmap.de/
|
| iD, Web based, this is the editor available from the "Edit"
| button from the OSM website: https://www.openstreetmap.org
| betamaxthetape wrote:
| The easiest thing to do for such cases is to add a note,
| perhaps with a picture of the building if you're
| comfortable.
|
| There must be folk who dedicate their time to searching the
| OSM database for unresolved notes, because whenever I leave
| a note on StreetComplete mentioning an inaccuracy (e.g: a
| path where there isn't actually one, a driveway marked
| incorrectly as a road, etc.) I get an email alert a few
| days later notifying me that the note has been resolved -
| often by someone who lives in an entirely different country
| (and who can use the information I provide in the note plus
| the satellite imagery to resolve the note).
| benbristow wrote:
| Android-only :(
| marssaxman wrote:
| Thanks for the reference! I've just installed StreetComplete,
| and expect it should provide a good excuse to take some walks
| around the neighborhood.
| betamaxthetape wrote:
| This is exactly what I have found! StreetComplete
| encourages me not only to take regular walks, but also to
| explore new areas local to me that I haven't previously
| visited (since, after a while, you need to move to a new
| area to find 'quests' that you haven't already completed).
|
| I have discovered lots of places in my local area thanks to
| StreetComplete!
| [deleted]
| escapecharacter wrote:
| With the title in the typo (OpenStreepMap), I was expecting a map
| of where Meryl Streep was sighted
| w0mbat wrote:
| You mean typo in the title? This is getting silly, I hope I
| don't make any mistaks in muy comentt.
| mvexel wrote:
| Some background from the guy who maintains this site at
| https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Zverik/diary/399925.
|
| There is a script (disclaimer, that I wrote) to set up a couple
| of docker images so you can create / host something like this
| yourself: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/mvexel/diary/399939.
| It requires downloading of a "full history" OSM data file for the
| region of interest.
| cavisne wrote:
| It's interesting to look at the local edits on osm. In my area
| it's mostly from Amazon and Lyft, based on proprietary imagery.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| There's a few ways for volunteers to trace proprietary imagery
| and data into OSM with the permission of the owners of the
| images.
|
| I'm guessing you're talking about private, proprietary imagery?
| agumonkey wrote:
| Wonderful improvements.
| GeorgeHoneywood wrote:
| A while ago I made something a bit like this, but it is an
| animation of all the years between 2007 and now.
|
| https://maps.honeyfox.uk/
|
| It only works in my town in the UK, so don't try scrolling the
| map too much.
| uwagar wrote:
| how do i turn on english names for places that are labeled in
| local language?
| karussell wrote:
| It is not possible with raster tiles, but the OSM database
| might still have the name in English.
|
| (You can have a look into vector tiles like from MapTiler or
| their open source project openmaptiles.org)
|
| I just found this example (has nothing to do with openmaptiles
| as far I can see):
| https://js.protomaps.com/examples/multi_language.html
| spiekerooger wrote:
| It actually is possible with raster tiles as well - see e.g.
| the local chapter work in France (
| https://www.openstreetmap.fr ) or Germany (
| https://www.openstreetmap.de ) or the osMap project with 10
| different language versions (
| https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/osMap ). All those are
| produced with raster tiles.
|
| But you are right as this approach does not scale well in
| regard to using it for all languages out there. So a vector
| tile stack is a better approach for just switching languages.
| karussell wrote:
| Yes, I meant switching languages is not possible. Of course
| you can pre-generate your raster in many languages...
| snorthpole wrote:
| Try https://www.osmap.uk - OSM with English labels globally.
| tezza wrote:
| Scrolling around Broadway I see Avery Fisher Hall
|
| is now David Geffen Hall
| chiubaca wrote:
| plugging a lil data viz i did while a go that plots the latest
| OSM edits on a map in real time-ish along with a nice chime...
|
| https://musical-osm.netlify.app
|
| I'm always surprised by how active it is whenever I visit it. OSM
| is such an amazing project.
| HanClinto wrote:
| For everyone else who is waiting for the page to load, here is a
| screenshot of the data comparison:
|
| https://imgur.com/gallery/iQpmXO9
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| That's hardly the total of "the data comparison" - you can
| scroll it anywhere. I found my local area, halfway around the
| world.
| laurent123456 wrote:
| It's down. What is it supposed to show?
| curiousfab wrote:
| HN hug of death :(
|
| It showed/shows a side-by-side view of Open Street Map 2012 vs.
| 2022.
|
| See https://shtosm.ru/all/verni-mne-moy-2012/ (or translated:
| https://shtosm-ru.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x...
| )
| moffkalast wrote:
| I still don't quite see what the point is, both pictures seem
| very similar in terms of detail density, but with slightly
| different proportions.
|
| OSM editing is usually done over satelite imagery these days,
| so I would imagine the old one must've been very far off in
| some areas.
| Zverik wrote:
| The story of mapping is different for every corner of the
| world. E.g. in the blog post there's a pic where we mapped
| the city approximately due to absence of satellite imagery.
| In this post
| https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Zverik/diary/399925 it
| shows that some regions like Africa were nearly empty ten
| years ago, before the Humanitarian OSM Team lauched their
| operations. And in 2012 the focus was mostly on basic map
| features like roads and rivers, while now we're adding
| final building outlines.
| betamaxthetape wrote:
| It is a side-by-side comparison of OSM data from 2012 (left)
| and the current OSM data. In my local area the difference is
| massive: the 2012 data has some roads but that's about it, no
| buildings, house numbers, etc. That's all present on the 2022
| version (disclaimer: partly because I spent several months
| walking around mapping things with the StreetComplete app [1]).
|
| For me it isn't down, just taking a very long time (multiple
| minutes) to load the 2012 data.
|
| [1] https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete
| capableweb wrote:
| Is there something like StreetComplete for iOS?
| Zverik wrote:
| There are few editors for iOS, but all quite good. Try
| Every Door (https://apps.apple.com/app/every-
| door/id1621945342) and Go Map
| (https://apps.apple.com/app/id592990211).
| habi wrote:
| Every Door is by Zverik, and it's very good!
| Semaphor wrote:
| I can't open it, but here it's the opposite :( OSM used to be
| amazing, better than google, now it's horribly outdated. It
| shows several stores in my street that have closed over 6
| years ago.
|
| I actually found StreetComplete a few days ago and have
| started fixing issues, at least for my neighborhood.
| Varyag wrote:
| Cool. you're being the change you wish to see in the world
| :)
| pwg wrote:
| > now it's horribly outdated. It shows several stores in my
| street that have closed over 6 years ago
|
| OSM is mostly volunteers, and if no one has happened by on
| your street in the last 6 years, then no one has noticed to
| update the map.
|
| > I actually found StreetComplete a few days ago and have
| started fixing issues, at least for my neighborhood.
|
| This is the expected outcome, locals fixing local issues.
| Given a sufficient amount of that, and you have a better
| map than googles offering. Of course, as you discovered, if
| no one is around to make the fixes, the data also goes
| stale.
| beej71 wrote:
| Well done on fixing those issues. I've been updating stores
| in my area, too.
|
| And OSM is the only map that shows the new roundabouts near
| my house. I just put them in yesterday after riding my
| bicycle around them several times to get a track.
|
| _We_ are OSM! If it has shortcomings, we 've no one to
| blame but ourselves.
| eliaspro wrote:
| When looking at these then/now renderings, one needs to take into
| account, that only very little of the actual data is rendered on
| those maps.
|
| The database contains an incredible level of detail which can be
| used in completely different contexts and I'd say what's rendered
| is roughly only 1/10th of the data
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-09-30 23:00 UTC)