this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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I've tried using it over the years but I never liked it because there was no information. So last night I looked at my local city and there is almost no information at all. I spent a few hours last night adding buildings and restaurants and removing incorrect items. It was actually kind of fun and therapeutic and I plan to do more of it tonight. My girlfriend thinks it's dumb and I'm wasting my time because Google maps and Apple maps and Bing maps exists but she just doesn't understand open source.

Edit: Apologies, I just realized this question is not Linux specific.

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[–] ntzm@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

I do a lot, we also use the OpenStreetMap data for my work. I enjoy it but it's definitely lacking in some areas, and there's no app that really comes close to being a Google Maps replacement sadly.

[–] isilv3rbull3t@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Contributed a very little. Been using it ina Top metro city for .ore than a year. Heavily reliable.

[–] Elbrond@feddit.nl 3 points 1 year ago

I enjoy editing my hometown and have been doing it for about twelve years. But my town is already pretty complete, so I check in every six months or so to change minor details like shops or adding a new bench in the park. In total I'm not even at 200 edits, but I always enjoy seeing those edits back in major tools that use OSM.

[–] Kiloee@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 year ago

I live in an area that was next to perfect when I first learned about OSM, so I had no real reason to contribute. I have seen their maps used by our public transport to show the way to/from stops (or even inside them on the particularly large ones).

This just reminded me that I can in fact contribute and I will check out the iOS options for doing so.

[–] OddFed@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I'm honestly very confused by OSM. I always wanted to use it as an alternative to Google Maps, but it's so hard to use.

Anyone got some tips or good ressources to share?

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[–] Positroni@positroni.ddns.net 2 points 1 year ago

I have added some nearby forest paths to OSM and added some bicycle paths alongside roads which were already mapped, using OSM mostly for outside of road network since other maps do not show forest paths and the like at all while OSM has decent coverage

[–] KindaABigDyl@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's a cool project, but I've used it, and man is it not going to be a replacement for Google Maps anytime soon, as much as I'd like to get to a FOSS alternative. I can't use it to navigate to a building down the street lol

It's not dumb to contribute though because it's already okay, so it can only get better than okay, and the way that happens is contributions

[–] dknelson@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

The goal isn't to replace gmaps, though? If it was, I don't think they would care to allow me to map the species of tree of the height of a curb. Some apps are trying to use OSM as a base layer to provide a gmaps alternative, but the real goal is just to map the world, at least to me

[–] NotThatDisuse@reddthat.com 2 points 1 year ago

Contribute! The info will bubble up into there other products as they all supplement and enrich their data from OSM if applicable.

[–] NaturalEnganche@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

I've not contributed to the main one, but I have for the humanitarian osm team, you get recently disaster stricken areas and copy roads and buildings and the like

[–] Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi 2 points 1 year ago

I rarely use any maps, but OpenStreetMap is used by Rate Your Music to show where artists you've rated at least once came from.

[–] lobster_irl@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Omg great idea! Probably a stupid question but how did you contribute - through an app or from desktop, through the website?

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[–] CurlyMoustache@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Just have faith. We'll get there eventually 🙏

[–] toastal@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

I’ve contributed a lot of places around the country–though mostly missing cafés & restaurants because that’s what I’m interested in.

[–] tallpaul@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

We update it a lot. We also have a product (for walkers in the British Isles) called WayMaps (used by a variety of walking web sites in the UK and also our own demo site https://waymaps.the-hug.net/) which uses the geodata from OSM and other Open Data to produce our own map tiles. We love OSM.

[–] borlax@lemmy.borlax.com 2 points 1 year ago

I love the idea of OSM, been trying to use MagicEarth on iPhone which leverages OSM, but I run into similar issues that your describe. I’ll be honest tho, I never even thought of trying to contribute, may look into it as a little hobby in my free time.

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