7 ms·

Make your first edit to OpenStreetMap

620 points by juliantigler 7d ago

thangalin 6d ago
Of possible interest, I once used an OSM editor to help draw Voronoi diagrams on spherical surfaces in a scalable vector graphic file format to help depict planet-wide fissures from colossal collisions. https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2020/05/12/impacts-project-voronoi-diagrams/ https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2020/05/12/impacts-project-vor...
jh00ker 6d ago
How long after I make an edit will it show up on a Tesla's map? Teslas on FSD speed through my neighborhood. I noticed the speed limit was incorrect on OSM and updated it several months ago. Teslas are still seemingly ignoring the posted signs. My own Tesla still shows the old speed limit in my neighborhood.
- yellowbkpk 6d ago
  Tesla routing uses a mix of its own data and TomTom, which uses OSM. As a point of reference, I fixed a road name in OSM ~3 years ago and flagged it through TomTom's site directly ~2 years ago and the Tesla map hasn't fixed it yet.
corecoder 7d ago
Boy, the UX is horrible! > The area you tried to downlaod is too big or your request was too large. And no indication whatsoever of how big the area should be, I'm at my fifth attempt so far.
- juliantigler 7d ago
  Sorry you're having such a frustrating first experience. I'd recommend trying just 1-3 city blocks max
- sp8962 7d ago
  It's actually OK compared to your typical GIS desktop app, but naturally not the thing to recommend a beginner.
- VorpalWay 7d ago
  As a beginner use the editor built in on the website instead (called ID). JOSM is a great power user tool, but this article's recommendation to use it for your first edit is misguided.
- jmkb 7d ago
  The limit is imposed by the OSM API itself, and it's a matter of how much data is already mapped in the area you're requesting -- a max of 50,000 nodes according the API docs. Of course data density varies wildly across the planet, so you can expect to fetch a lot more acreage in rural areas than in urban ones. But there's no way to know if a particular bounding box call will succeed without trying it out. Editing software could be generally aware of high and low density locales and advise accordingly. And it could subdivide a large request into smaller ones. But the JOSM developers prefer to offer a closer-to-the-API experience. [0] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/API_v0.6#Retrieving_map_data_by_bounding_box:_GET_/api/0.6/map https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/API_v0.6#Retrieving_map_...
KolmogorovComp 7d ago
> Do NOT use search results for social media profiles This seems a bit outdated as many restaurants/shops now consider they FB/insta page as their "official" website (or rather lack of).
- boredpudding 7d ago
  There's separate tags for the social media profiles. So those can still be added.
- juliantigler 7d ago
  For social media profiles, a different tag like contact:facebook, contact:instagram, etc. are recommended! [1] https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/contact:facebook https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/contact:facebook [2] https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/contact:instagram https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/contact:instagram
  - KolmogorovComp 7d ago
    Thanks, I feel the article should have said that
    - juliantigler 7d ago
      No problem- I'll clarify this in an edit later today. Thanks for the feedback!
  - ssl-3 7d ago
    I think the complaint is focused on the notion that the instructions tell a would-be contributor what is not OK, and then do not help them to figure out what is OK. > Determine if any of the search results represent the official website for your place. Do NOT use search results for social media profiles, review sites, or other business aggregators. When in doubt, don’t use it. This zero-option style of phrasing doesn't leave any room for interpretation.
- Freak_NL 7d ago
aaronbrethorst 7d ago
Funny enough, Cafe Lolo, the business that the example edit demonstrates, replaced my favorite restaurant in Seattle, Cookweaver. The chef-owner of Cookweaver is now doing private events and in-home meals for folks who miss his cooking: https://www.cookweaver.com/omakase-menu https://www.cookweaver.com/omakase-menu
boredpudding 7d ago
I appreciate this a lot, but I wonder why the first edit is not done on the website itself. This is 15 minutes of work for a single change, while on the website you can do it in a minute.
mikeocool 7d ago
JOSM is great when you get really into, but if it's really your first edit, just use the editor on openstreetmap.org. If it's something you end up enjoying, one really satisfying thing to do is pick a small rural town and improve the map. With a few hours, it's not hard to make the OSM data more detailed and better than any other publicly available map.
0l 7d ago
I would honestly not recommend beginners use JOSM - the web based iD editor [1] is much easier to learn and will hold your hand a lot more. [1]: https://learnosm.org/en/beginner/id-editor/ https://learnosm.org/en/beginner/id-editor/
sp8962 7d ago
Oh dear. Using JOSM for your 1st edit is definitely not recommended. Doing the same with iD (the editor embedded in the OSM website) is faster and there's even a tutorial that will explain a bit about how things work.
- juliantigler 7d ago
  That's a fair point. I mainly chose JOSM for this tutorial because of its filter. As a beginner (just a few weeks ago), I couldn't figure out how to use iD's filter to show JOSM's equivalent of `name=* ((amenity=* "addr:housenumber"=*) | shop=*) -website=* -"contact:website"=*`. For this tutorial I wanted something better than than "click around the map until you find a place without a website." That felt like it'd be a frustrating and inefficient first experience. Is there a way to make that filter in iD?
  - nutjob2 6d ago
    I think your tutorial would have more impact if you had a super short intro making a quick mod using the web page. The existing stuff is excellent for those who get a surge of dopamine from updating the map and want more power and control. The web editor is far from ideal but the app has a greater learning curve. Even installing it can be onerous. I used the web editor recently to add a street and path and to fix some names. It was about as clunky as the Google Maps web editor which I used for the same updates.
- biglyburrito 6d ago
  Yeah, I got as far as "Search for an Official Website". Didn't know what the hell I was looking at or for, and uninstalled JOSM.
- nutjob2 6d ago
  Tried to run JOSM, it tells me that "This app cannot run on this machine you have macOS 10.14.6 and it requires 10.11". Just use the web page. It works, it's not hard to use and it's immediate when you have the urge and motivation to fix something on a map.
_russross 7d ago
I started contributing to OSM recently after a bike trail was built near me. The arial imagery typically takes years to refresh around here so I walked it a few times to capture GPX tracks and then drew the new path. It was exciting to see my contribution percolate out to various apps that depend on OSM, and meanwhile Google and Apple have both ignored my edit suggestions and deny the path exists. So I have a fairly fresh newcomer's perspective and here's what I suggest to get started: keep it simple and start local. As others have noted, skip the complex mapping app and go straight to the website for feature edits, or download a simple mobile app like Every Door and focus on businesses and landmarks near you. Go on a walk around your neighborhood and look for old/incorrect/missing businesses. There may be errors near you about places you actually care about, and it is really gratifying to fix those. There were restaurants near me that were missing, shops that had changed hands, etc., that were easy fixes but years overdue. I captured some basics (names, posted hours, the phone number posted on the door, etc.) with Every Door, and then later logged into the main OSM website and fine-tuned the entries. I got into a pattern of fixing one or two entries every evening when I went out for a walk and pretty soon my walking route was all up-to-date. Then I started paying attention to things like stop signs and cross walks and found a whole new kind of little, incremental edits that nobody else was doing. It's been fun, I've made useful contributions, and my laptop is still Java free.
- raybb 7d ago
  Every Door is definitely one of the easier ones and I like it but dang I wish the dev could get more funding to make it a nicer UX. Between the glitchy raster tiles and need to click load data all the time I feel it gets tiring fast. I've considered building a separate app that's similar but oriented around the idea of using voice of pictures to update things (with AI extracting and formatting the data for you to review). But alas making yet another tool isnt ideal.
  - ManuelKiessling 6d ago
    Isn’t that a door (haha) opened by our supreme new AI coding overlords: that now it’s possible to take the Every Door source code (it’s on Github), and throw it into a coding agent with the instruction to „improve <ux shortcoming of your choice> without breaking functionality“, and with some iterations and human validation that yes, the UX is now indeed better, play the changes back with a PR?
ricardobayes 7d ago
How does OSM prevent trolling or vandalism? Since many (most) courier companies rely on OSM for their database a bad "joke" could prove very frustrating to many people.
- maxerickson 7d ago
  The main method of prevention is blocks on users that make malicious edits. Obviously that doesn't prevent all malicious edits. The larger users of the data are doing some degree of validation of changes before showing them to users.
- mpol 7d ago
  Just like Wikipedia, people follow changes. If there is vandalism, it often gets reverted within a few hours. If there's a mistake (relation broken for example) it can take a few hours longer to fix.
- speedgoose 7d ago
  I once encountered a joke building that was so large, I remember in the magnitude of 500km2, that you couldn’t edit it in the web editor. You had to download a desktop application to delete it. It was in a place of the world that is unlikely to be popular within the OSM community.
  - sellyme 6d ago
    Fortunately it's fairly easy to query the database for that kind of thing and a few editors periodically go through the most implausibly-sized common features, so anything too egregious will get noticed eventually. The last time I saw a collection of "biggest objects" for various tags it was mostly things that were just subtly mistagged (e.g., an entire forest being tagged as a single tree) rather than vandalism.
    - yellowapple 6d ago
      > e.g., an entire forest being tagged as a single tree If that forest's dominant tree happens to be a quaking aspen then technically speaking it might not have been mistagged. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)
KolmogorovComp 7d ago
Is there any software that can take raw footage from 360deg cameras that are now sprolling, identify businesses without websites, opening hours etc, and pre-fill them? With the user only having to validate. A foot-carried google street car if you want.
- Krasnol 7d ago
  You can actually add a "streetview" level to the editor by adding the mapillary plugin and you can add material for others on the free and independent version: https://panoramax.fr/ https://panoramax.fr/ mapillary got bought up by meta.
- rightnutwingjob 6d ago
  sprolling ?
- florkbork 6d ago
  https://alltheplaces.xyz/ https://alltheplaces.xyz/ is a better version of this idea - grabs snapshots of structured data where the business has made an effort to publish it. Street view imagery is better for attributes on the actual street - mapillary did it first, with automated feature extraction for street signs etc, others have followed.
doctoboggan 7d ago
I recently purchased some very rural land with a cabin that I put on AirBnB. The address is a different road than the driveway is and all the maps took drivers around 1 mile away with no way to find the actual driveway. I had to go through the process of fixing this on Google, Apple, and open street maps. OSM was by far the easiest and my updates propagated within minutes. Google was the second easiest but still took me deep into the “feedback” menu and then a week or two of waiting. Apple was by far the worst as I had to sign up for an Apple business account, upload incorporation docs, and then go through multiple rounds of back and forth with some approval agent.
- mayneack 7d ago
  Another option for apple would have been to just wait for a few months. They are downstream of osm but updates are slow. Likely your "propagated within minutes" was misleading. Almost no app, certainly not a mainstream app your customers might use, is reading osm live. They're all days to months behind on periodic batch updates.
  - seb1204 6d ago
    Months behind is not fair. Apps like Komoot, OSMAnd or CoMaps have monthly refresh cycles. Others are shorter and yes there are longer (mostly obscure) update cycles such as apple maps, Uber, https://transportnsw.info/ https://transportnsw.info/
    - mayneack 6d ago
      In my experience, the bigger the app, the longer the update cycle. They likely have a QA and integration process to deal with how osm combines with other sources. Something like osmand is basically just an osm wrapper, so they can be fast.
      - reddalo 6d ago
        I think bigger apps are also slowing down updates to prevent vandalism from appearing to a wide number of users.
elliotpage 7d ago
I've been using the app "StreetComplete" on Android, I have found it to be a really seamless and easy way to add extra details to OpenStreetMap while roaming around.
- ktpsns 7d ago
  +1. https://streetcomplete.app/ https://streetcomplete.app/ is really easy to get into.
Krasnol 7d ago
Don't make your first edit(s) around the place you live.
- llsf 7d ago
  Any good reasons, why not do our first edits around the place you live ? Privacy issue ?
  - seb1204 6d ago
    Most likely the parent was relating this to revealing where you live and the privacy aspects. Yes indeed one could figure out where I went for holidays by my OSM edits but then any FAAG or similar would know that already by any social media interaction I might have had during the holidays. My bigger OSM edits are rarely during the actual holidays but rather before or after.
yegle 7d ago
One thing to note: OSM edits are associated with your account. Do not use your regular user name, or people can easily identify where you live since people tends to edit nearby locations. If you accidentally did that, I believe there's a way for the admin to scrub that for you.
- nradov 6d ago
  There are much easier ways to identify the approximate neighborhood where most people live.
  - seb1204 6d ago
    You can define a location of your choice in your profile for example.
- dvdkon 6d ago
  I'm not too concerned about my place of residence, since the state already publishes my full address online. But OSM edit history also shows the various places you visit, with timestamps too. I still haven't decided if I want to do something about that or not. It's certainly something new contributors should be aware of.
cantalopes 7d ago
I was put off by co tributing to osm at first when someone brought up that 300mb java monster application at first actually. Luckily i found there's an online editor and did my first edits there. I would definitely not recommend josm for a newcommer
- xigoi 6d ago
  I’d also recommend StreetComplete, which makes contributing to OSM as easy as playing Pokemon Go.
  - biglyburrito 5d ago
    Doesn't support iOS, unfortunately.
    - xigoi 5d ago
      I’m guessing unpaid volunteers don’t want to pay a huge yearly fee just to be allowed to publish their app.
celsoazevedo 6d ago
This seems to be a very powerful way to contribute to OpenStreetMap, but I'm not sure if it's the right option for a new user. I have over 2k contributions and most are from the Every Door app ( https://every-door.app/ https://every-door.app/ ) on my phone. If adding new data is too "scary", then maybe use StreetComplete ( https://streetcomplete.app/ https://streetcomplete.app/ ) which essentially asks questions about missing or existing old data. I've added buildings, fixed layouts, etc, but that came later, after I better understood how things work.
- wingmanjd 6d ago
  I've taken StreetComplete with me on walks around my neighborhood and on a few vacations. It was really easy to submit data for missing items.
  - Loic 6d ago
    I did my first contributions last week with it. Really easy and the UI is simple and nice.
raffael_de 6d ago
it's much easier than that. just go on osm.org, create account, click edit and then ... DONT edit ... but complete the tutorial offered right there ... then edit. anyway, it's fun to keep the neighbourhood up-to-date.
ligarota 6d ago
Downloading a whole binary to do an easy edit in ID editor Crazy stuff, definitely not for beginners
fitsumbelay 6d ago
w00t. L-U-V this
mjlhkl 6d ago
I do not recommend JOSM to a new user. The iD editor in openstreetmap.org is much more user friendly than JOSM. The target audience for JOSM is power-users and experienced mappers.
bwnkl 6d ago
JOSM aside, I think it's great to target people that read HN with this article. They are likely tech savvy and as much as OSM tries to make it easy for less tech savvy folks to contribute, it's just not really feasible without third party apps like StreetComplete. I recently tried to teach my dad, who was interested but completely overwhelmed, even by the iD editor, and the whole idea of the data model. Which is a shame because he knows so much about the area where he lives.
jkingsman 6d ago
Contributing to OSM was super cool. I've had an issue where my home snaps to the nearest road, which is in fact fenced off from us, rather than the road that our cul de sac connects to (which was not well marked in OSM). Last week, I went in and in about ten minutes used the visual editor to paint in the driveway, read a quick wiki page on how to correctly label driveways, and then submitted it. I got a pleasant jump scare the next time I doordashed some food and saw the little driveway squiggles I added on the map in the doordash app, and then again for lyft -- such a cool feeling! Would highly recommend the web editor -- what's proposed here looks super comprehensive but way more difficult to use for a first timer.
neilv 6d ago
On iPhone, so far "Go Map!!" works well for my simple edits, which are things I notice while walking on the sidewalk. https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Go_Map https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Go_Map!! (The double exclamation marks in the name drove me away initially, so I tried 3 others first, none of which worked well on the iPhone for my edits, but then "Go Map!!" seemed to just work.) For edits that can be done from desktop, the OSM official Web site's editor was pretty good -- complicated, but seems to work, and has a nice interactive tutorial mode.
earth-tattoo 6d ago
[flagged]
- matkoniecz 6d ago
  See https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Lake_Ontario https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Lake_Ontario for OpenStreetMap documentation page on that topic. > The name of the lake became politically contentious in August 2026, especially on maps. As OSM is not a consumer-facing product per se, the OpenStreetMap Foundation's longstanding policy regarding geopolitical disputes is to prioritize the on the ground rule by default but also record information about notable alternative claims, so that data consumers such as renderers and geocoders can choose what to present to end users. > As of September 2026, the Lake Ontario relation has tags indicating its many names, most notably: (linked page has nicer table) > name Common name in the local language Lake Ontario English is the most commonly spoken language in both the US and Canada. > name:en Common name in English globally Lake Ontario This name remains overwhelmingly popular both in the U.S. and abroad and so far continues to be used by most news and print media. > name:fr Common name in French globally Lac Ontario Traditional name (in the other official language of Canada). > official_name:en-US English name preferred by U.S. federal government agencies Lake America Official U.S. federal government position per GNIS and GNS, as ordered in Executive Order 14422. The order is only binding on the U.S. federal government, but the name is very unpopular according to opinion polling, particularly in local areas bordering the lake, and so far rarely used in news or print media.
nobody42 6d ago
https://streetcomplete.app https://streetcomplete.app - basic task-based, on-the-ground, app for Android https://every-door.app https://every-door.app - intermediate on-the-ground app for smartphones https://rapideditor.org https://rapideditor.org - AI-assisted mapping in browser https://www.hotosm.org https://www.hotosm.org - task-based mapping in browser https://josm.openstreetmap.de https://josm.openstreetmap.de - advanced editor for desktop (this post) https://www.comaps.app https://www.comaps.app - actually use the map with ability to make minor changes
- Gigachad 6d ago
  I wish Streetcomplete had an ios app. The ios editors are all far too cluttered and hard to use on mobile. I've almost been considering making my own editor like streetcomplete but as a web app so it's cross platform.
  - choroid 6d ago
    There's progress being made on an iOS app for StreetComplete. https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/issues/5421 https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/issues/5421
    - Gigachad 6d ago
      Oh that's awesome, Looks like I'll just wait and see then.
  - habi 6d ago
    Are you aware of https://mapcomplete.org/ https://mapcomplete.org/ ? Web-based and thematically focused.
    - ninalanyon 6d ago
      One of the great things about StreetComplete is that it works perfectly offline.
  - 6d ago
pferde 6d ago
After you create an OSM account, there is also https://maproulette.org https://maproulette.org, which has tons of little tasks to fix, grouped into challenges, and many of them can be done using just the aerial photos, from the comfort of your seat. Then there is also mapping for humanitarian purposes, https://tasks.hotosm.org/ https://tasks.hotosm.org/, which has mapping projects prepared by disaster response teams, and you can help by updating maps of areas recently affected by disasters. E.g. recently there was a lot of mapping in the area hit by the August river flood in Nepal.
fizwidget 6d ago
I hope the author reconsiders recommending JOSM to beginners. iD, StreetComplete, MapComplete…almost anything except JOSM would have been a better starting point.
MollyRealized 6d ago
As a side note, there is an Android app called StreetComplete [1] which creates 'quests' for you that let you contribute to OSM in a fun way. [1] - https://streetcomplete.app/ https://streetcomplete.app/
reassess_blind 6d ago
Surely if they want any chance of having relatively up-to-date meta data on their map, making edits needs to be more user friendly than this.
dakial1 6d ago
So, I read the article, downloaded JOSM and start making edits on my neighborhood (including adding new poligons, buildings, etc). Soon I thought "This would be easily done by an AI" and searched for it and found META's Rapid (https://rapideditor.org/ https://rapideditor.org/) which does an ok job finding buildings, but really could go further and suggest the tags as well.
- MRPockets 6d ago
  I am a long-time OSM contributor and I will just point out that much of the OSM mapping community have very strong opinions on automated/AI mapping. I mostly stay out of those discussions but be aware that automated edits will likely get reverted if you aren't very careful to follow the guidelines. No idea if Rapid enforces "proper" AI mapping or not.
- bulder 6d ago
  Automated building tracing is okay sometimes, but actively harmful other times. I know that at least in my region, Rapid footprints are all meters offset from the real location, because when they were building their dataset they weren't checking the satellite imagery offset. In general it's probably better to see if you can find an official map, and check if its license terms are compatible[1] with OSM. [1] https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2017/03/17/use-of-cc-by-data/ https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2017/03/17/use-of-cc-by-data/
ecommerceguy 6d ago
Thank you so much for this tutorial, I've made my fist OSM updates. As a former gis guy, this is awesome!
sage981 6d ago
Starting with a website tag is clever because it gives newcomers a bounded edit and leaves a source for later phone and hours updates.
zergrush 6d ago
im using OSM in my app but its not clear how much usage i can get before i get rate limite ?
Einenlum 6d ago
There's something a bit weird about OSM. We have the infrastructure and the idea to have a wikipedia-like map. It's insanely cool. But it's super hard to make any edit except through StreetComplete and people get asked the type of bushes they see in their street. I think the biggest priority would be to map all stores, their type and their opening hours. Right now there's nothing more reliable than Google Maps for this which forces people to use the Google Places API if they want a reliable product. I think we should have an app somewhere that is more user-friendly and focused on what most people need from a business perspective.
- dddw 6d ago
  Every door is more focused towards opening hours. Streetcomplete is indeed alot of 'what type of road is this?'
  - krzyk 6d ago
    StreetComplete also asks about opening hours, but you need to have a POI added first (AFAIR StreetComplete allows adding POIs also)
    - matkoniecz 6d ago
      > AFAIR StreetComplete allows adding POIs also yes. Click on left circle in top-right, select orange icon ("Places" layer)
- RobotToaster 6d ago
  You can change the type of "mission" you get on street complete, but it definitely needs more sensible defaults.
- pietervdvn 6d ago
  I made this: mapcomplete.org/shops
qurren 6d ago
> the Java OSM editor app Java? No thanks. I don't want that monstrosity of system-hogging, clunk, slow, 1990's UIs on my system again.
dostick 6d ago
The article describes a case that is a perfect candidate to be automated by LM. You don’t have to have real-world knowledge for that. Would be interesting to see what involves contributing a real thing that’s not found on the net - a fence, footpath, etc. Or contributing a bus stop.
- mavamaarten 6d ago
  No. If you're making maps and building a database of facts, I think the possibility of hallucinations is actively harmful.
agile-gift0262 6d ago
I use the Street Complete app, which shows missing data around me. It's fun and satisfying to add many details that no other map has, like accessibility of crosswalks or street lighting.
w22oop 6d ago
I send update about defibrylitors and after half year still it not apear in map sorry this is not profesional
- matkoniecz 6d ago
  1) is map style you looking at showing AED at all? No map style shows all OpenStreetMap data. 2) have you made edit or created a note? Many notes are waiting for years for volunteer to verify them
tiznow 6d ago
I was just thinking about this as I just started using Overpass QL to help a friend with a project.
slim 6d ago
I'm conflicted about OSM. Historically maps have essentially had a military use. Volunteering to give otherwise unattainable level of detail about a potential future war zone, is not right. Some details should be kept away from maps. That's what I read in TAZ by Hakim Bey
LelouBil 6d ago
I started contributing via StreetComplete a couple of months ago, and then using iD, it's amazing this kind of thing can exist and work, just like Wikipedia. Now I'm looking into automated edits, because in my region there's a lot of open data published by the government/local cities about locations of various types of features, like bicycle holders or bus stops, and it would be nice to keep that updated automatically.
- pietervdvn 6d ago
  Be very careful with "automated edits". We have a bit of a collective trauma and doing it completely right takes a ton of work. See https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import/Guidelines https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import/Guidelines
swiftcoder 6d ago
I've made a bunch of edits just through the website, because my rural village was not very accurately reflected on OSM. I've added all the missing footpaths, fixed a couple of intersections, and added building footprints for all the houses. I'm not sure anyone but me cares, since most people use Google maps. But it's satisfying to have accurate maps for myself at any rate.
rosieletters 6d ago
[flagged]
rafram 6d ago
The online iD editor is powerful enough for even pretty complex/big edits in my experience, with good basemap options and intuitive controls. I don’t see any need to download JOSM.
- ponkipo 6d ago
  Exactly my thoughts. Advising to download and use JOSM to a novice OSM mapper to make their first edit there (to add a single tag, of all things) instead of iD is nonsense to me, just totally unnecessary overkill. I don’t even understand how article author decided it’s a good idea, to be honest.
maelito 6d ago
We added a simple place editor to https://cartes.app https://cartes.app that includes the website attribute. We're convinced most users (shopowners too) want to read and write in the same app.
- pietervdvn 6d ago
  Perhaps we should start working together and start reusing the questions from mapcomplete into cartes.app
  - maelito 6d ago
    That would be great ! We're starting closer collaboration with Comaps this month. What are these questions on your side ? A text more friendly than ID ? Or a selection of inputs based on the place type ?
mightysashiman 6d ago
Elephant in the room question: how isn't OSM not pretty much in sync with major proprietary maps services using a crawlers that replicates what they find?
- slazaro 6d ago
  I'd assume legality. You can't just copy stuff you find in other services, especially in OSM where the data submitted has to conform to their license.
aembleton 6d ago
I've read through these comments, and one useful app that has not been mentioned is Vespucci: https://vespucci.io/ https://vespucci.io/ It's not got the best UX, but it does let me edit anything from my phone. This means that I can easily check and/or edit the tags for a path or a track. For example, recently I was on a track that had steps. These weren't on OSM, but I could modify the track on Vespucci to add them. Easier to do on my laptop, but I'd forget to do them by the time I got home. The other OSM apps, I can recommend but have been mentioned are CoMaps (https://www.comaps.app/ https://www.comaps.app/) for viewing and route finding and Street Complete for easily updating data. Street Complete (https://streetcomplete.app/ https://streetcomplete.app/) has got a bit more powerful recently as you can now add things like toilets, bins, and benches
everystreetsf 6d ago
[flagged]
BiteCode_dev 6d ago
I recently made a app to privately share places to eat with friends and got to use osm data extensively. It's extremely dev friendly, they have a daily planetary diff you can download and just update your local copy. A lot of data is missing or is obsolete in the south of France, so I created an account to contribute. It got banned as spam, so I contacted them to ask what was wrong. A human answered in the following hour and they restored my access immediatly. They have a better dev experience and support than google.
jwynot 6d ago
Why not Apple Maps if you don’t like Google
el_blargos 6d ago
[dead]
vinesh_walks 6d ago
[flagged]

620 points by juliantigler 7d ago

Of possible interest, I once used an OSM editor to help draw Voronoi diagrams on spherical surfaces in a scalable vector graphic file format to help depict planet-wide fissures from colossal collisions. https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2020/05/12/impacts-project-voronoi-diagrams/ https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2020/05/12/impacts-project-vor...

jh00ker 6d ago

How long after I make an edit will it show up on a Tesla's map? Teslas on FSD speed through my neighborhood. I noticed the speed limit was incorrect on OSM and updated it several months ago. Teslas are still seemingly ignoring the posted signs. My own Tesla still shows the old speed limit in my neighborhood.

yellowbkpk 6d ago
Tesla routing uses a mix of its own data and TomTom, which uses OSM. As a point of reference, I fixed a road name in OSM ~3 years ago and flagged it through TomTom's site directly ~2 years ago and the Tesla map hasn't fixed it yet.

corecoder 7d ago

Boy, the UX is horrible! > The area you tried to downlaod is too big or your request was too large. And no indication whatsoever of how big the area should be, I'm at my fifth attempt so far.

juliantigler 7d ago
Sorry you're having such a frustrating first experience. I'd recommend trying just 1-3 city blocks max
sp8962 7d ago
It's actually OK compared to your typical GIS desktop app, but naturally not the thing to recommend a beginner.
VorpalWay 7d ago
As a beginner use the editor built in on the website instead (called ID). JOSM is a great power user tool, but this article's recommendation to use it for your first edit is misguided.
jmkb 7d ago
The limit is imposed by the OSM API itself, and it's a matter of how much data is already mapped in the area you're requesting -- a max of 50,000 nodes according the API docs. Of course data density varies wildly across the planet, so you can expect to fetch a lot more acreage in rural areas than in urban ones. But there's no way to know if a particular bounding box call will succeed without trying it out. Editing software could be generally aware of high and low density locales and advise accordingly. And it could subdivide a large request into smaller ones. But the JOSM developers prefer to offer a closer-to-the-API experience. [0] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/API_v0.6#Retrieving_map_data_by_bounding_box:_GET_/api/0.6/map https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/API_v0.6#Retrieving_map_...

KolmogorovComp 7d ago

> Do NOT use search results for social media profiles This seems a bit outdated as many restaurants/shops now consider they FB/insta page as their "official" website (or rather lack of).

boredpudding 7d ago
There's separate tags for the social media profiles. So those can still be added.
juliantigler 7d ago
For social media profiles, a different tag like contact:facebook, contact:instagram, etc. are recommended! [1] https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/contact:facebook https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/contact:facebook [2] https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/contact:instagram https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/contact:instagram
- KolmogorovComp 7d ago
  Thanks, I feel the article should have said that
  - juliantigler 7d ago
    No problem- I'll clarify this in an edit later today. Thanks for the feedback!
- ssl-3 7d ago
  I think the complaint is focused on the notion that the instructions tell a would-be contributor what is not OK, and then do not help them to figure out what is OK. > Determine if any of the search results represent the official website for your place. Do NOT use search results for social media profiles, review sites, or other business aggregators. When in doubt, don’t use it. This zero-option style of phrasing doesn't leave any room for interpretation.
Freak_NL 7d ago

aaronbrethorst 7d ago

Funny enough, Cafe Lolo, the business that the example edit demonstrates, replaced my favorite restaurant in Seattle, Cookweaver. The chef-owner of Cookweaver is now doing private events and in-home meals for folks who miss his cooking: https://www.cookweaver.com/omakase-menu https://www.cookweaver.com/omakase-menu

boredpudding 7d ago

I appreciate this a lot, but I wonder why the first edit is not done on the website itself. This is 15 minutes of work for a single change, while on the website you can do it in a minute.

mikeocool 7d ago

JOSM is great when you get really into, but if it's really your first edit, just use the editor on openstreetmap.org. If it's something you end up enjoying, one really satisfying thing to do is pick a small rural town and improve the map. With a few hours, it's not hard to make the OSM data more detailed and better than any other publicly available map.

0l 7d ago

I would honestly not recommend beginners use JOSM - the web based iD editor [1] is much easier to learn and will hold your hand a lot more. [1]: https://learnosm.org/en/beginner/id-editor/ https://learnosm.org/en/beginner/id-editor/

sp8962 7d ago

Oh dear. Using JOSM for your 1st edit is definitely not recommended. Doing the same with iD (the editor embedded in the OSM website) is faster and there's even a tutorial that will explain a bit about how things work.

juliantigler 7d ago
That's a fair point. I mainly chose JOSM for this tutorial because of its filter. As a beginner (just a few weeks ago), I couldn't figure out how to use iD's filter to show JOSM's equivalent of `name=* ((amenity=* "addr:housenumber"=*) | shop=*) -website=* -"contact:website"=*`. For this tutorial I wanted something better than than "click around the map until you find a place without a website." That felt like it'd be a frustrating and inefficient first experience. Is there a way to make that filter in iD?
- nutjob2 6d ago
  I think your tutorial would have more impact if you had a super short intro making a quick mod using the web page. The existing stuff is excellent for those who get a surge of dopamine from updating the map and want more power and control. The web editor is far from ideal but the app has a greater learning curve. Even installing it can be onerous. I used the web editor recently to add a street and path and to fix some names. It was about as clunky as the Google Maps web editor which I used for the same updates.
biglyburrito 6d ago
Yeah, I got as far as "Search for an Official Website". Didn't know what the hell I was looking at or for, and uninstalled JOSM.
nutjob2 6d ago
Tried to run JOSM, it tells me that "This app cannot run on this machine you have macOS 10.14.6 and it requires 10.11". Just use the web page. It works, it's not hard to use and it's immediate when you have the urge and motivation to fix something on a map.

_russross 7d ago

I started contributing to OSM recently after a bike trail was built near me. The arial imagery typically takes years to refresh around here so I walked it a few times to capture GPX tracks and then drew the new path. It was exciting to see my contribution percolate out to various apps that depend on OSM, and meanwhile Google and Apple have both ignored my edit suggestions and deny the path exists. So I have a fairly fresh newcomer's perspective and here's what I suggest to get started: keep it simple and start local. As others have noted, skip the complex mapping app and go straight to the website for feature edits, or download a simple mobile app like Every Door and focus on businesses and landmarks near you. Go on a walk around your neighborhood and look for old/incorrect/missing businesses. There may be errors near you about places you actually care about, and it is really gratifying to fix those. There were restaurants near me that were missing, shops that had changed hands, etc., that were easy fixes but years overdue. I captured some basics (names, posted hours, the phone number posted on the door, etc.) with Every Door, and then later logged into the main OSM website and fine-tuned the entries. I got into a pattern of fixing one or two entries every evening when I went out for a walk and pretty soon my walking route was all up-to-date. Then I started paying attention to things like stop signs and cross walks and found a whole new kind of little, incremental edits that nobody else was doing. It's been fun, I've made useful contributions, and my laptop is still Java free.

raybb 7d ago
Every Door is definitely one of the easier ones and I like it but dang I wish the dev could get more funding to make it a nicer UX. Between the glitchy raster tiles and need to click load data all the time I feel it gets tiring fast. I've considered building a separate app that's similar but oriented around the idea of using voice of pictures to update things (with AI extracting and formatting the data for you to review). But alas making yet another tool isnt ideal.
- ManuelKiessling 6d ago
  Isn’t that a door (haha) opened by our supreme new AI coding overlords: that now it’s possible to take the Every Door source code (it’s on Github), and throw it into a coding agent with the instruction to „improve <ux shortcoming of your choice> without breaking functionality“, and with some iterations and human validation that yes, the UX is now indeed better, play the changes back with a PR?

ricardobayes 7d ago

How does OSM prevent trolling or vandalism? Since many (most) courier companies rely on OSM for their database a bad "joke" could prove very frustrating to many people.

maxerickson 7d ago
The main method of prevention is blocks on users that make malicious edits. Obviously that doesn't prevent all malicious edits. The larger users of the data are doing some degree of validation of changes before showing them to users.
mpol 7d ago
Just like Wikipedia, people follow changes. If there is vandalism, it often gets reverted within a few hours. If there's a mistake (relation broken for example) it can take a few hours longer to fix.
speedgoose 7d ago
I once encountered a joke building that was so large, I remember in the magnitude of 500km2, that you couldn’t edit it in the web editor. You had to download a desktop application to delete it. It was in a place of the world that is unlikely to be popular within the OSM community.
- sellyme 6d ago
  Fortunately it's fairly easy to query the database for that kind of thing and a few editors periodically go through the most implausibly-sized common features, so anything too egregious will get noticed eventually. The last time I saw a collection of "biggest objects" for various tags it was mostly things that were just subtly mistagged (e.g., an entire forest being tagged as a single tree) rather than vandalism.
  - yellowapple 6d ago
    > e.g., an entire forest being tagged as a single tree If that forest's dominant tree happens to be a quaking aspen then technically speaking it might not have been mistagged. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)

KolmogorovComp 7d ago

Is there any software that can take raw footage from 360deg cameras that are now sprolling, identify businesses without websites, opening hours etc, and pre-fill them? With the user only having to validate. A foot-carried google street car if you want.

Krasnol 7d ago
You can actually add a "streetview" level to the editor by adding the mapillary plugin and you can add material for others on the free and independent version: https://panoramax.fr/ https://panoramax.fr/ mapillary got bought up by meta.
rightnutwingjob 6d ago
sprolling ?
florkbork 6d ago
https://alltheplaces.xyz/ https://alltheplaces.xyz/ is a better version of this idea - grabs snapshots of structured data where the business has made an effort to publish it. Street view imagery is better for attributes on the actual street - mapillary did it first, with automated feature extraction for street signs etc, others have followed.

doctoboggan 7d ago

I recently purchased some very rural land with a cabin that I put on AirBnB. The address is a different road than the driveway is and all the maps took drivers around 1 mile away with no way to find the actual driveway. I had to go through the process of fixing this on Google, Apple, and open street maps. OSM was by far the easiest and my updates propagated within minutes. Google was the second easiest but still took me deep into the “feedback” menu and then a week or two of waiting. Apple was by far the worst as I had to sign up for an Apple business account, upload incorporation docs, and then go through multiple rounds of back and forth with some approval agent.

mayneack 7d ago
Another option for apple would have been to just wait for a few months. They are downstream of osm but updates are slow. Likely your "propagated within minutes" was misleading. Almost no app, certainly not a mainstream app your customers might use, is reading osm live. They're all days to months behind on periodic batch updates.
- seb1204 6d ago
  Months behind is not fair. Apps like Komoot, OSMAnd or CoMaps have monthly refresh cycles. Others are shorter and yes there are longer (mostly obscure) update cycles such as apple maps, Uber, https://transportnsw.info/ https://transportnsw.info/
  - mayneack 6d ago
    In my experience, the bigger the app, the longer the update cycle. They likely have a QA and integration process to deal with how osm combines with other sources. Something like osmand is basically just an osm wrapper, so they can be fast.
    - reddalo 6d ago
      I think bigger apps are also slowing down updates to prevent vandalism from appearing to a wide number of users.

elliotpage 7d ago

I've been using the app "StreetComplete" on Android, I have found it to be a really seamless and easy way to add extra details to OpenStreetMap while roaming around.

ktpsns 7d ago
+1. https://streetcomplete.app/ https://streetcomplete.app/ is really easy to get into.

Krasnol 7d ago

Don't make your first edit(s) around the place you live.

llsf 7d ago
Any good reasons, why not do our first edits around the place you live ? Privacy issue ?
- seb1204 6d ago
  Most likely the parent was relating this to revealing where you live and the privacy aspects. Yes indeed one could figure out where I went for holidays by my OSM edits but then any FAAG or similar would know that already by any social media interaction I might have had during the holidays. My bigger OSM edits are rarely during the actual holidays but rather before or after.

yegle 7d ago

One thing to note: OSM edits are associated with your account. Do not use your regular user name, or people can easily identify where you live since people tends to edit nearby locations. If you accidentally did that, I believe there's a way for the admin to scrub that for you.

nradov 6d ago
There are much easier ways to identify the approximate neighborhood where most people live.
- seb1204 6d ago
  You can define a location of your choice in your profile for example.
dvdkon 6d ago
I'm not too concerned about my place of residence, since the state already publishes my full address online. But OSM edit history also shows the various places you visit, with timestamps too. I still haven't decided if I want to do something about that or not. It's certainly something new contributors should be aware of.

cantalopes 7d ago

I was put off by co tributing to osm at first when someone brought up that 300mb java monster application at first actually. Luckily i found there's an online editor and did my first edits there. I would definitely not recommend josm for a newcommer

xigoi 6d ago
I’d also recommend StreetComplete, which makes contributing to OSM as easy as playing Pokemon Go.
- biglyburrito 5d ago
  Doesn't support iOS, unfortunately.
  - xigoi 5d ago
    I’m guessing unpaid volunteers don’t want to pay a huge yearly fee just to be allowed to publish their app.

celsoazevedo 6d ago

This seems to be a very powerful way to contribute to OpenStreetMap, but I'm not sure if it's the right option for a new user. I have over 2k contributions and most are from the Every Door app ( https://every-door.app/ https://every-door.app/ ) on my phone. If adding new data is too "scary", then maybe use StreetComplete ( https://streetcomplete.app/ https://streetcomplete.app/ ) which essentially asks questions about missing or existing old data. I've added buildings, fixed layouts, etc, but that came later, after I better understood how things work.

wingmanjd 6d ago
I've taken StreetComplete with me on walks around my neighborhood and on a few vacations. It was really easy to submit data for missing items.
- Loic 6d ago
  I did my first contributions last week with it. Really easy and the UI is simple and nice.

raffael_de 6d ago

it's much easier than that. just go on osm.org, create account, click edit and then ... DONT edit ... but complete the tutorial offered right there ... then edit. anyway, it's fun to keep the neighbourhood up-to-date.

ligarota 6d ago

Downloading a whole binary to do an easy edit in ID editor Crazy stuff, definitely not for beginners

fitsumbelay 6d ago

w00t. L-U-V this

mjlhkl 6d ago

I do not recommend JOSM to a new user. The iD editor in openstreetmap.org is much more user friendly than JOSM. The target audience for JOSM is power-users and experienced mappers.

bwnkl 6d ago

JOSM aside, I think it's great to target people that read HN with this article. They are likely tech savvy and as much as OSM tries to make it easy for less tech savvy folks to contribute, it's just not really feasible without third party apps like StreetComplete. I recently tried to teach my dad, who was interested but completely overwhelmed, even by the iD editor, and the whole idea of the data model. Which is a shame because he knows so much about the area where he lives.

jkingsman 6d ago

Contributing to OSM was super cool. I've had an issue where my home snaps to the nearest road, which is in fact fenced off from us, rather than the road that our cul de sac connects to (which was not well marked in OSM). Last week, I went in and in about ten minutes used the visual editor to paint in the driveway, read a quick wiki page on how to correctly label driveways, and then submitted it. I got a pleasant jump scare the next time I doordashed some food and saw the little driveway squiggles I added on the map in the doordash app, and then again for lyft -- such a cool feeling! Would highly recommend the web editor -- what's proposed here looks super comprehensive but way more difficult to use for a first timer.

neilv 6d ago

On iPhone, so far "Go Map!!" works well for my simple edits, which are things I notice while walking on the sidewalk. https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Go_Map https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Go_Map!! (The double exclamation marks in the name drove me away initially, so I tried 3 others first, none of which worked well on the iPhone for my edits, but then "Go Map!!" seemed to just work.) For edits that can be done from desktop, the OSM official Web site's editor was pretty good -- complicated, but seems to work, and has a nice interactive tutorial mode.

earth-tattoo 6d ago

[flagged]

matkoniecz 6d ago
See https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Lake_Ontario https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Lake_Ontario for OpenStreetMap documentation page on that topic. > The name of the lake became politically contentious in August 2026, especially on maps. As OSM is not a consumer-facing product per se, the OpenStreetMap Foundation's longstanding policy regarding geopolitical disputes is to prioritize the on the ground rule by default but also record information about notable alternative claims, so that data consumers such as renderers and geocoders can choose what to present to end users. > As of September 2026, the Lake Ontario relation has tags indicating its many names, most notably: (linked page has nicer table) > name Common name in the local language Lake Ontario English is the most commonly spoken language in both the US and Canada. > name:en Common name in English globally Lake Ontario This name remains overwhelmingly popular both in the U.S. and abroad and so far continues to be used by most news and print media. > name:fr Common name in French globally Lac Ontario Traditional name (in the other official language of Canada). > official_name:en-US English name preferred by U.S. federal government agencies Lake America Official U.S. federal government position per GNIS and GNS, as ordered in Executive Order 14422. The order is only binding on the U.S. federal government, but the name is very unpopular according to opinion polling, particularly in local areas bordering the lake, and so far rarely used in news or print media.

nobody42 6d ago

https://streetcomplete.app https://streetcomplete.app - basic task-based, on-the-ground, app for Android https://every-door.app https://every-door.app - intermediate on-the-ground app for smartphones https://rapideditor.org https://rapideditor.org - AI-assisted mapping in browser https://www.hotosm.org https://www.hotosm.org - task-based mapping in browser https://josm.openstreetmap.de https://josm.openstreetmap.de - advanced editor for desktop (this post) https://www.comaps.app https://www.comaps.app - actually use the map with ability to make minor changes

Gigachad 6d ago
I wish Streetcomplete had an ios app. The ios editors are all far too cluttered and hard to use on mobile. I've almost been considering making my own editor like streetcomplete but as a web app so it's cross platform.
- choroid 6d ago
  There's progress being made on an iOS app for StreetComplete. https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/issues/5421 https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/issues/5421
  - Gigachad 6d ago
    Oh that's awesome, Looks like I'll just wait and see then.
- habi 6d ago
  Are you aware of https://mapcomplete.org/ https://mapcomplete.org/ ? Web-based and thematically focused.
  - ninalanyon 6d ago
    One of the great things about StreetComplete is that it works perfectly offline.
- 6d ago

pferde 6d ago

After you create an OSM account, there is also https://maproulette.org https://maproulette.org, which has tons of little tasks to fix, grouped into challenges, and many of them can be done using just the aerial photos, from the comfort of your seat. Then there is also mapping for humanitarian purposes, https://tasks.hotosm.org/ https://tasks.hotosm.org/, which has mapping projects prepared by disaster response teams, and you can help by updating maps of areas recently affected by disasters. E.g. recently there was a lot of mapping in the area hit by the August river flood in Nepal.

fizwidget 6d ago

I hope the author reconsiders recommending JOSM to beginners. iD, StreetComplete, MapComplete…almost anything except JOSM would have been a better starting point.

MollyRealized 6d ago

As a side note, there is an Android app called StreetComplete [1] which creates 'quests' for you that let you contribute to OSM in a fun way. [1] - https://streetcomplete.app/ https://streetcomplete.app/

reassess_blind 6d ago

Surely if they want any chance of having relatively up-to-date meta data on their map, making edits needs to be more user friendly than this.

dakial1 6d ago

So, I read the article, downloaded JOSM and start making edits on my neighborhood (including adding new poligons, buildings, etc). Soon I thought "This would be easily done by an AI" and searched for it and found META's Rapid (https://rapideditor.org/ https://rapideditor.org/) which does an ok job finding buildings, but really could go further and suggest the tags as well.

MRPockets 6d ago
I am a long-time OSM contributor and I will just point out that much of the OSM mapping community have very strong opinions on automated/AI mapping. I mostly stay out of those discussions but be aware that automated edits will likely get reverted if you aren't very careful to follow the guidelines. No idea if Rapid enforces "proper" AI mapping or not.
bulder 6d ago
Automated building tracing is okay sometimes, but actively harmful other times. I know that at least in my region, Rapid footprints are all meters offset from the real location, because when they were building their dataset they weren't checking the satellite imagery offset. In general it's probably better to see if you can find an official map, and check if its license terms are compatible[1] with OSM. [1] https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2017/03/17/use-of-cc-by-data/ https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2017/03/17/use-of-cc-by-data/

ecommerceguy 6d ago

Thank you so much for this tutorial, I've made my fist OSM updates. As a former gis guy, this is awesome!

sage981 6d ago

Starting with a website tag is clever because it gives newcomers a bounded edit and leaves a source for later phone and hours updates.

zergrush 6d ago

im using OSM in my app but its not clear how much usage i can get before i get rate limite ?

Einenlum 6d ago

There's something a bit weird about OSM. We have the infrastructure and the idea to have a wikipedia-like map. It's insanely cool. But it's super hard to make any edit except through StreetComplete and people get asked the type of bushes they see in their street. I think the biggest priority would be to map all stores, their type and their opening hours. Right now there's nothing more reliable than Google Maps for this which forces people to use the Google Places API if they want a reliable product. I think we should have an app somewhere that is more user-friendly and focused on what most people need from a business perspective.

dddw 6d ago
Every door is more focused towards opening hours. Streetcomplete is indeed alot of 'what type of road is this?'
- krzyk 6d ago
  StreetComplete also asks about opening hours, but you need to have a POI added first (AFAIR StreetComplete allows adding POIs also)
  - matkoniecz 6d ago
    > AFAIR StreetComplete allows adding POIs also yes. Click on left circle in top-right, select orange icon ("Places" layer)
RobotToaster 6d ago
You can change the type of "mission" you get on street complete, but it definitely needs more sensible defaults.
pietervdvn 6d ago
I made this: mapcomplete.org/shops

qurren 6d ago

> the Java OSM editor app Java? No thanks. I don't want that monstrosity of system-hogging, clunk, slow, 1990's UIs on my system again.

dostick 6d ago

The article describes a case that is a perfect candidate to be automated by LM. You don’t have to have real-world knowledge for that. Would be interesting to see what involves contributing a real thing that’s not found on the net - a fence, footpath, etc. Or contributing a bus stop.

mavamaarten 6d ago
No. If you're making maps and building a database of facts, I think the possibility of hallucinations is actively harmful.

agile-gift0262 6d ago

I use the Street Complete app, which shows missing data around me. It's fun and satisfying to add many details that no other map has, like accessibility of crosswalks or street lighting.

w22oop 6d ago

I send update about defibrylitors and after half year still it not apear in map sorry this is not profesional

matkoniecz 6d ago
1) is map style you looking at showing AED at all? No map style shows all OpenStreetMap data. 2) have you made edit or created a note? Many notes are waiting for years for volunteer to verify them

tiznow 6d ago

I was just thinking about this as I just started using Overpass QL to help a friend with a project.

slim 6d ago

I'm conflicted about OSM. Historically maps have essentially had a military use. Volunteering to give otherwise unattainable level of detail about a potential future war zone, is not right. Some details should be kept away from maps. That's what I read in TAZ by Hakim Bey

LelouBil 6d ago

I started contributing via StreetComplete a couple of months ago, and then using iD, it's amazing this kind of thing can exist and work, just like Wikipedia. Now I'm looking into automated edits, because in my region there's a lot of open data published by the government/local cities about locations of various types of features, like bicycle holders or bus stops, and it would be nice to keep that updated automatically.

pietervdvn 6d ago
Be very careful with "automated edits". We have a bit of a collective trauma and doing it completely right takes a ton of work. See https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import/Guidelines https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import/Guidelines

swiftcoder 6d ago

I've made a bunch of edits just through the website, because my rural village was not very accurately reflected on OSM. I've added all the missing footpaths, fixed a couple of intersections, and added building footprints for all the houses. I'm not sure anyone but me cares, since most people use Google maps. But it's satisfying to have accurate maps for myself at any rate.

rosieletters 6d ago

[flagged]

rafram 6d ago

The online iD editor is powerful enough for even pretty complex/big edits in my experience, with good basemap options and intuitive controls. I don’t see any need to download JOSM.

ponkipo 6d ago
Exactly my thoughts. Advising to download and use JOSM to a novice OSM mapper to make their first edit there (to add a single tag, of all things) instead of iD is nonsense to me, just totally unnecessary overkill. I don’t even understand how article author decided it’s a good idea, to be honest.

maelito 6d ago

We added a simple place editor to https://cartes.app https://cartes.app that includes the website attribute. We're convinced most users (shopowners too) want to read and write in the same app.

pietervdvn 6d ago
Perhaps we should start working together and start reusing the questions from mapcomplete into cartes.app
- maelito 6d ago
  That would be great ! We're starting closer collaboration with Comaps this month. What are these questions on your side ? A text more friendly than ID ? Or a selection of inputs based on the place type ?

mightysashiman 6d ago

Elephant in the room question: how isn't OSM not pretty much in sync with major proprietary maps services using a crawlers that replicates what they find?

slazaro 6d ago
I'd assume legality. You can't just copy stuff you find in other services, especially in OSM where the data submitted has to conform to their license.

aembleton 6d ago

I've read through these comments, and one useful app that has not been mentioned is Vespucci: https://vespucci.io/ https://vespucci.io/ It's not got the best UX, but it does let me edit anything from my phone. This means that I can easily check and/or edit the tags for a path or a track. For example, recently I was on a track that had steps. These weren't on OSM, but I could modify the track on Vespucci to add them. Easier to do on my laptop, but I'd forget to do them by the time I got home. The other OSM apps, I can recommend but have been mentioned are CoMaps (https://www.comaps.app/ https://www.comaps.app/) for viewing and route finding and Street Complete for easily updating data. Street Complete (https://streetcomplete.app/ https://streetcomplete.app/) has got a bit more powerful recently as you can now add things like toilets, bins, and benches

everystreetsf 6d ago

[flagged]

BiteCode_dev 6d ago

I recently made a app to privately share places to eat with friends and got to use osm data extensively. It's extremely dev friendly, they have a daily planetary diff you can download and just update your local copy. A lot of data is missing or is obsolete in the south of France, so I created an account to contribute. It got banned as spam, so I contacted them to ask what was wrong. A human answered in the following hour and they restored my access immediatly. They have a better dev experience and support than google.

jwynot 6d ago

Why not Apple Maps if you don’t like Google

el_blargos 6d ago

[dead]

vinesh_walks 6d ago

[flagged]