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Is OSM good at keeping up-to-date with commercial data? I always thought it wasn’t so good, but maybe I’m wrong

beardyw 2y ago
We seemed to be talking about trails. Maybe I misunderstood.
jbaber 2y ago
No. Even though I navigate with Osmand regularly, I must use Gmaps to find stores' existence, address, hours, phone number, url. Gmaps is the yellow pages. Osmand is a map.
- ihatehn 2y ago
  OSM can have those details it just takes a local community on top of keeping things updated. Even Google often relies on users for that stuff.
  - hk__2 2y ago
    > OSM can have those details it just takes a local community on top of keeping things updated. Even Google often relies on users for that stuff. Google has an infinitely-larger community; a local community is not sufficient in dense areas where businesses are opening and closing every day. France has the third largest OSM community and yet some neighborhoods of its largest cities are full of outdated businesses.
    - SamWhited 2y ago
      Interestingly, in Atlanta I've had the opposite experience. In town OSM always seems to be better (Google has a lot of outdated open hours and the like). Outside of town in the cheaper burbs which is the only place I can afford to live though few people are editing OSM and it's pretty out of date. That being said, I switched to Organic maps years ago. For 90% of places I go, it turns out I go to them repeatedly day-to-day, so I added them to the map the first time and update them when I go there and the hours have changed. Then they're on the map the rest of the time when I need to look up hours or what not so I rarely have anywhere around here that I go to that's not on the map anymore. When I do, I add it and next time it's on there and it works well enough 99% of the time.
      - lolc 2y ago
        You highlight a function of OSM that is hard to get across to people: I can fix the map! For example, bicycle routing in my area was unreliable, because it would try to route me over rough trails. Just adding a few tags improved the experience dramatically. And then it was fixed not only for me, but everybody else too. Meanwhile, other people fixed other annoyances, and the map works better across many areas. Google instead decides to hide things that interest me, and shows sponsored places I don't care for. I have zero recourse.
        hk__2 2y ago
        > Just adding a few tags improved the experience dramatically. This works for routing, but doesn’t apply to businesses: for the bare minimum you have to add one or two tags (type + name), to make that more useful you have to add the opening hours and ideally the website. Now multiply this by 60,000 (the number of businesses in Paris, France). By the time you’ve finished your neighborhood some businesses you checked last month are already closed and some new ones already opened. Go on holidays? Too bad, you have to start over again when you come back. Trust me, I’m contributing almost every day and I can’t keep the pace.
        lolc 2y ago
        Yeah the idea that I should keep up with all the shops in the larger area is scary. Luckily, I'm not alone. All I can say is you're doing a good thing by adding regular updates. And I think even partially complete OSM is helpful. If I add just one ATM, that can already help somebody looking for one. That might even be me, when I know it's there somewhere, but not exactly where.
        SamWhited 2y ago
        Don't do all the businesses in Paris, just do the ones you frequent the most. Google doesn't have all the businesses in Paris either (or at least, in Atlanta I run into ones that they don't have too or that they have but it's completely wrong, at an old location, etc. fairly frequently).
    - hnrepostsold 2y ago
      not infinitely larger lol community size absolutely does not matter, it's the activity. a local active community of 2 active persons for every 260 residents is sufficient
      - zaik 2y ago
        I'd say it's closer to 5 active contributors for a population of 100000.
        hk__2 2y ago
        In Paris we have ~100 contributors with >100 edits for a population of 2M and 60.8k businesses. Most notes are fixed under a day, infrastructure changes are quick as well, but businesses are often out of date because they change so often that some people don’t take the time to update them.
        LtWorf 2y ago
        To be honest business owners should figure out that they need to update it themselves.
      - hk__2 2y ago
        > a local active community of 2 active persons for every 260 residents is sufficient That would be huge. For a city with 2M inhabitants, that would mean 8k active contributors. Remember that there are ~40-50k active OSM contributors in the whole world.
    - BehindBlueEyes 2y ago
      I don't know, sometimes all it takes is one or two very committed community members, like in cebu city.
- LtWorf 2y ago
  Well add the information yourself…

We seemed to be talking about trails. Maybe I misunderstood.

No. Even though I navigate with Osmand regularly, I must use Gmaps to find stores' existence, address, hours, phone number, url. Gmaps is the yellow pages. Osmand is a map.

ihatehn 2y ago
OSM can have those details it just takes a local community on top of keeping things updated. Even Google often relies on users for that stuff.
- hk__2 2y ago
  > OSM can have those details it just takes a local community on top of keeping things updated. Even Google often relies on users for that stuff. Google has an infinitely-larger community; a local community is not sufficient in dense areas where businesses are opening and closing every day. France has the third largest OSM community and yet some neighborhoods of its largest cities are full of outdated businesses.
  - SamWhited 2y ago
    Interestingly, in Atlanta I've had the opposite experience. In town OSM always seems to be better (Google has a lot of outdated open hours and the like). Outside of town in the cheaper burbs which is the only place I can afford to live though few people are editing OSM and it's pretty out of date. That being said, I switched to Organic maps years ago. For 90% of places I go, it turns out I go to them repeatedly day-to-day, so I added them to the map the first time and update them when I go there and the hours have changed. Then they're on the map the rest of the time when I need to look up hours or what not so I rarely have anywhere around here that I go to that's not on the map anymore. When I do, I add it and next time it's on there and it works well enough 99% of the time.
    - lolc 2y ago
      You highlight a function of OSM that is hard to get across to people: I can fix the map! For example, bicycle routing in my area was unreliable, because it would try to route me over rough trails. Just adding a few tags improved the experience dramatically. And then it was fixed not only for me, but everybody else too. Meanwhile, other people fixed other annoyances, and the map works better across many areas. Google instead decides to hide things that interest me, and shows sponsored places I don't care for. I have zero recourse.
      - hk__2 2y ago
        > Just adding a few tags improved the experience dramatically. This works for routing, but doesn’t apply to businesses: for the bare minimum you have to add one or two tags (type + name), to make that more useful you have to add the opening hours and ideally the website. Now multiply this by 60,000 (the number of businesses in Paris, France). By the time you’ve finished your neighborhood some businesses you checked last month are already closed and some new ones already opened. Go on holidays? Too bad, you have to start over again when you come back. Trust me, I’m contributing almost every day and I can’t keep the pace.
        lolc 2y ago
        Yeah the idea that I should keep up with all the shops in the larger area is scary. Luckily, I'm not alone. All I can say is you're doing a good thing by adding regular updates. And I think even partially complete OSM is helpful. If I add just one ATM, that can already help somebody looking for one. That might even be me, when I know it's there somewhere, but not exactly where.
        SamWhited 2y ago
        Don't do all the businesses in Paris, just do the ones you frequent the most. Google doesn't have all the businesses in Paris either (or at least, in Atlanta I run into ones that they don't have too or that they have but it's completely wrong, at an old location, etc. fairly frequently).
  - hnrepostsold 2y ago
    not infinitely larger lol community size absolutely does not matter, it's the activity. a local active community of 2 active persons for every 260 residents is sufficient
    - zaik 2y ago
      I'd say it's closer to 5 active contributors for a population of 100000.
      - hk__2 2y ago
        In Paris we have ~100 contributors with >100 edits for a population of 2M and 60.8k businesses. Most notes are fixed under a day, infrastructure changes are quick as well, but businesses are often out of date because they change so often that some people don’t take the time to update them.
        LtWorf 2y ago
        To be honest business owners should figure out that they need to update it themselves.
    - hk__2 2y ago
      > a local active community of 2 active persons for every 260 residents is sufficient That would be huge. For a city with 2M inhabitants, that would mean 8k active contributors. Remember that there are ~40-50k active OSM contributors in the whole world.
  - BehindBlueEyes 2y ago
    I don't know, sometimes all it takes is one or two very committed community members, like in cebu city.
LtWorf 2y ago
Well add the information yourself…