Definitely would prefer the map (and associated pages/possibly form in future) to the be main interface.
The Google Form makes it very easy to bootstrap collecting emails (reliably) to prevent any spam that may be submitted, but it's long and confusing to new users (already got that feedback).
Ideally in future you could click on an intersection on the map, use a timer in the page (could optimise the UX), associate an email address with a one time code (on first load/if no cookie) then submit (with the OSM node ID already filled in so I don't have to manually update that).
So that would be the long term roadmap - if it gets enough traction and I have time!
Add more data to OSM! Placenames, neighboud names, road names, add pubs, restaurants, venues, with their names and addresses!
I wonder what the legal perspective would be if everyone crawled "their" data (i.e. the data they personally entered) from Google maps and forwarded it to OSM.
That would probably be against Google's ToS. However if the knowledge is still in your head, then you can just manually enter it into OSM.
The 'search' box on the front page uses Nominatim[1], a programme for turning lat/longs into addresses (and vice versa). If there's a bug or the output doesn't look right, feel free to submit an issue.
Have you thought about generating the coarser data (country, county, city) from the location when possible? Or would having a half-filled form be confusing for users?
Could it be synced back to OSM so that people submit in your nicer interface but it'll flow back into OSM? I'm honestly not super familiar how open OSM is for things like that.
I really hope that privacy situation will start getting better - or at least not getting worse.
For email I basically gave up (for now) as it will likely leak on other side anyway.
But I aggressively avoid cloud sync, and my files on cloud are either public or locally encrypted before uploading. Well, at least it protects against non-targeted attacks.
> I have massive respect for OSM maintainers. People don't appreciate how much work goes into the map data.
:)
Just in case that you have an Android phone - I recommend StreetComplete, it allows limited editing with zero OSM-specific knowledge. Registering for OSM account is the most difficult part.
It really reads like you wish Google Maps were OSM.
Why not contribute to an actually open database that benefits to everyone and takes your contributions seriously?
(I personally don't think that Google, of all organizations, needs to be helped by unpaid volunteers - and they can import OSM themselves anyway if they choose to)
Not really related to the post but they are talking about making OSM cosumer-ready and every time I try to use OSM instead of Google Maps I realise it's just not on the same level yet.
It doesn't have to be on par in terms of error correcting input or location based search result because they just don't have the data on me like Google does (locations close to my work place, home,...) but even just the basic task of searching for my street on OSM [0] will give me a bunch of information the end-user doesn't really need to know like:
- tags
- created by
- version
- changeset #
- location ID
Is there a "cleaner" more consumer friendly web interface for the maps, maybe with a prettier mapstyle like the ones used in apps like Foursquare (afaik they are using OSM)?
Wow, OpenStreetMaps is worse which makes a bit of sense. Is there a good (step-by-step) tutorial on submitting data to OSM. I get the feeling if I can get the land grants people to submit their data it might make things a bit better.
That sounds logical to me. Do you see anything the OSM community could do to make this easier? Or do we just need (more, perhaps) companies like Mapbox and recommend those rather than self hosting?
I only wish there was a FAQ for using OSM instead of Google Maps. From what I gather after reading many HN threads, OSM is the way to go, except they don't want to use the OSM page for daily navigation, you're supposed to find some provider of some of the mapping data, etc.
In some places it sure as hell would improve Google Maps if they would (be able to?) include OSM data. Compare for example Sarajevo on Google Maps at http://goo.gl/maps/kc3yP to its OSM counterpart at http://osm.org/go/xfYWiLv8-- .
I always try to submit my changes to both. I would like OSM to be great but I find myself using Google Maps as well, it's good for me for both to be up to date.
The Google Form makes it very easy to bootstrap collecting emails (reliably) to prevent any spam that may be submitted, but it's long and confusing to new users (already got that feedback).
Ideally in future you could click on an intersection on the map, use a timer in the page (could optimise the UX), associate an email address with a one time code (on first load/if no cookie) then submit (with the OSM node ID already filled in so I don't have to manually update that).
So that would be the long term roadmap - if it gets enough traction and I have time!
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