I’d heard of Streetcomplete as a way to contribute to openstreetmaps, but figured I didn’t need it because I could just contribute through organic maps.
If you haven’t tried Streetcomplete, you should. Not only does it make edits very easy, it also gamifies the process by creating little quests for you to complete and achievements. As you’re out for a walk, you can click on a quest bubble to add a street address, information about road surfaces, lighting, and a lot more. If you’re with others, you can enable team mode to split up the quests between yourselves. Can’t believe it took me this long to find this app.
This might be best suited for Off Topic since were not discussing the privacy of the app.
I can appreciate that this solves a huge problem to populate data for privacy respecting apps like Organic Maps over Google/Apple. That didn’t seem like the intent of the topic though.
Yeah I do agree with Brian still though.
Tbh I have countlessly tried streetcomplete but for some reason I always end up uninstalling it, At this point it’s kinda like playing Niantic’s AR game except I guess voluntarily but still to answer the questions you would need to be in the place, But more power to people who can do that.
I think it just needs further gamification and attachment to “activity logs” similar to GitHub tracks your contributions.
Having this attached to Hubzilla or Peergos activity streams would be super valuable in that it provides a way for you to build a profile of who you are and what you care about, why people can trust you or employ you and ultimately gives you an economical advantage similar to the existing software engineering field.
Don’t just gamify it, make those internet points provide real economical incentive!
Tagging @ianopolous so he sees all the ways I want to use his incredible platform!
I seldom go for a walk so I don’t really have many opportunities to use the app. The few times I have used StreetComplete it did feel rewarding to help out a much need project.
The link between voluntarily contributing to OpenStreetMap and the focus of this discussion forum is tenuous at best.
That said, there are a number of phone apps that can be used to add or edit OSM data and I happen to use GoMap! on my iPhone. It does not gamify the process (I can make my own games to keep active as a mapper).
Now that my town is pretty well mapped I generally use Go Map! only to add or update businesses. I figure for the average person using apps like Organic Maps or OsmAnd the most important thing is to be able to find where they want to go and then be able to navigate to it. So streets and speed limits are high on my list to get fixed. And then street addresses and “points of interest” (i.e. stores, etc.). Those are fairly easy edits using GoMap! For more tedious things like adding buildings, land cover, turn lanes, turn restrictions, etc. I find a desktop based editor like JOSM a better choice.
I found when I moved to a new town that using a phone based app to add to OSM gave me a reason to take a daily walk. Each day I focused on a different neighborhood where I walked the streets adding addresses, verifying street names, adding speed limits, etc.
It gave me daily exercise, helped me learn the new town, and made it easy for people using OSM based navigation apps to get around the town. Three wins for one activity was the way I viewed it.
Getting back to a focus on privacy, I’d recommend that if you do this local survey to not start in your own neighborhood. And when you get to mapping your own neighborhood you make sure your “change set” includes a lot more than just your home and street.
