4w ago

I cant wait to remove all the american products from my life!

The alternatives to Intel/AMD/Nvidia, Visa/Mastercard/American Express/Discover and IOS/Android need to be more developed.

225 comments

Hey, Sunshine, if you're interested, I highly recommend contributing to OpenStreetMap if/where you can. The built-in iD editor for desktop web is phenomenal and very easy but powerful, and the third-party Vespucci app for Android on F-Droid works very well. OpenStreetMap is still missing data in relatively large cities (let alone probably out in rural areas), and that especially includes sidewalks, residential buildings, addresses, and contact information. Even just making sure the information is complete and up-to-date the next time you visit a business, park, etc. (and marking the 'Last Checked Date') is profoundly useful. I'd be free to answer any questions you might have!
- ngl for a second I thought "what a weird way to start a comment" before I checked and realized her username was sunshine lol
- Am I just not using it right or is it impossible to look up just a normal address? I love the idea of open maps and have contributed a few places, but the UI is difficult for me to figure out.
  
  I use organic maps which uses open street maps, and I cannot get it to bring up anything by address. If I search the business name it brings it up, but not by address. Same thing with my home address, I can get it to bring up the street, but not my house.
  
  A lot of addresses still need to be added to OSM. If you sign up for an OSM account (really easy; no BS, no dark patterns), you can add these addresses through the editor. In iD (the built-in web editor), this is done by clicking the building etc. and adding a street number, street name, optionally unit, city, state, and zip code if applicable. Once these are added there and published (plus maybe about 10 minutes for the editor to update), it'll show up in the app (at least for me; I use OsmAnd downloaded from F-Droid). I do this whenever I'm about to go somewhere like a business etc. to see if the information is there. It takes about two real-world minutes and helps fill out the map. This can also be done through third-party, FOSS mobile editors like Vespucci (Android), StreetComplete (Android), and Go Map!! (iOS). This confused me at first too until I realized "Oh, the data just isn't there, but I could add it."
  This is tougher than using GMaps, although there are ways in which OSM already curbstomps GMaps (maybe I'll write a post about it someday), and there are huge benefits to having this information in an open dataset rather than behind Google or Bing's closed crap. These include (for reasons I won't delve into unless asked) accessibility for the disabled, sovereignty from corporations, much more detail (compare the same area with GMaps sans the satellite view and OSM), an open dataset for research, disaster response, conservation, and (funnily enough) walking and cycling, the last of which in my experience is strictly better than GMaps provided OSM has adequate (read: a normal amount) of data to work with. For an explanation of the last one, GMaps often recommends downright suicidal routes that take longer and go farther than OSM. Every time GMaps has offered me a better cycling/walking route in my area (but was still abysmal), I realized it was because OSM was missing something; adding this something immediately shot OSM's route ahead of GMaps'.
  I genuinely believe that OSM will steadily outperform GMaps in more areas as data is continually added. Sort of like what happened with Wikipedia and Britannica.
  (Edit: god I wish I could show you my area now that I have it more-or-less fully mapped out and the routes without doxxing myself. GMaps just shows a near-blank blob without the satellite, whereas OSM is entirely readable without that. GMaps' cycling route takes me biking through a huge, dangerous, sprawling parking lot to lose time and 0.1 miles while OSM takes the optimal route down a cycle path. Everything is perfectly documented. It's glorious and makes GMaps look like child's play.)
  
  You give me hope. I love Osm, especially through osmand. I am active on streetcomplete, but have just downloaded vespucci, to check it out.
  If we ever meet in person (Osm-con?) I would love to see how you have contributed to your area, and vise-versa. I believe in the free future. The positives far outweigh the negatives.
  
  Maybe our differing experiences are a function of how previous users contributed to the maps in our areas.
  This is 100% correct. You can add a lot of parameters to stuff in OSM, and buildings can have the type of building (e.g. apartment building, nail salon, etc.), the name, and the address (as well as dozens of others such as contact info, hours, air conditioning y/n, toilets y/n, specific ones like bar y/n for restaurants, etc.) If the addresses exist but not the names, it's likely these are stored right now as generic "building"s and just need someone to come along and add the name and type of business. This process is completely trivial and can be done in maybe 20 seconds per business.
  Edit: Here's an example of what a business looks like (don't worry, I don't actually live in Boise, Idaho; also, I just noticed there's a "Sells Used" parameter for pet stores, which maybe we should tone down a little? lol):
  
  Yeah I've had exactly the same experience. I think it's an OM UX problem, not an issue with OSM itself.
  
  It is an issue with OSM itself, although it's not a fundamental issue as much as it is a transient, easily fixable one: the data for the address of that building is missing in the database.
  
  I find better luck finding addresses when adding a comma between the house number and street name. i.e "123, James Road".
  
  Good question! Hopefully my answer below can help. The short answer is, no, you're not using it wrong, although contributing these addresses will make them show up.
- Do you know if there's a way to improve the routing part? I find it often takes really obtuse paths that go out of the way and add time. It shows the more optimal roads as existing, so I'm not sure why. Maybe missing speed limits or something that make it think worse roads are more optimal?
  
  OsmAnd? I've found it's often worse than GMaps for driving but ends up strictly better for walking, cycling, or just telling me where I am right now. OsmAnd for me often goes out of the way in weird ways by car, so right now I use OsmAnd for cycling, walking, and orientation where it's quite superior (and where I'm less familiar with good routes) and then use it just to tell me where a destination is if I'm driving and figure the route myself. This route-self-figuring isn't practical for everyone (longer routes, more complicated infra, just not that good with directions), and for that I either recommend something other than OsmAnd like GMaps (GMaps seems to give basically optimal routes for driving; it just falls flat on its face for walking and cycling) or, if you're feeling like having fun about it and have time to kill, looking along the route to see if there's missing info (either along the route OSM chooses that would negatively impact it or along the route you would choose that would positively impact it). The level of data granularity on OSM is kind of insane, so I would keep it limited to things that could plausibly impact travel times.
  Something to keep in mind is that OSM at its core is the database itself. The renderer, navigation, visual editor, etc. are just plug-and-play – anyone could use the underlying dataset to try their hand at it. For example, a slightly suboptimal route I was talking about earlier happens on OsmAnd but not on the OSM website proper, which gives a perfect route between the points. Thus, I don't let OsmAnd's driving bugs dampen my enthusiasm for the project, since OSM stores much more information than GMaps and is thus perfectly capable of enabling routing software to make great choices. I've also seen OsmAnd continually improve over my time using it, where now it takes fewer questionable routes (likely both the data getting filled in and the routing algorithm being improved). This is definitely speaking from a position of privilege, though, since I'm not e.g. in a new city where I'm still learning where everything is; I'm instead in a position to take missing info as it comes and fill in the gaps.
  I will note that sometimes it really is because some data is missing. For instance, I performed a stress test by creating a bicycling route diagonally from one end of town to the other. Adding data about traffic signals like stop signs meaningfully changed the route and seemed to improve it. With the crazy level of navigation-relevant detail that OSM stores (this also includes highly granular accessibility info), I would be surprised if a routing app hasn't outpaced GMaps for literally everything in the next 5–10 years.
- the easiest way to contribute is by using the app streetcomplete. It's basically like a game.
- Which apps are available on Android for OSM?
  
  For editing, I recommend Vespucci and StreetComplete. I personally much prefer the former, but some people swear by StreetComplete.
  For navigation, I recommend OsmAnd or Organic Maps. This is another situation where some people swear by Organic Maps but where I much prefer OsmAnd.
  
  In addition to the ones already mentioned, there is another one for contributing called Every Door
  
  E.g Osmand, organicmaps, magic earth. Magic earth is as far as I know the only one supporting real time traffic (and hence route optimization upon traffic incidents)
- Thank you Thetechinician! That's great advice indeed as OpenStreetMap needs all the help it can get! I'm currently using Organic Maps/Every Door and Go Map!! to contribute to the mobile side of things. Then on Desktop, I'm using the JOSM editor however it has quite the learning curve.
- I use Street Complete on mobile to make contributions.
  Its intuitive and surfaces less often though about attributes like wheel chair accessibility and hard surface textures

225 comments