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> Even if you took a simple algorithm, whereby you preferred any data you had for a location over any OSM data for the same location, surely you would wind up w

> Even if you took a simple algorithm, whereby you preferred any data you had for a location over any OSM data for the same location, surely you would wind up with a richer dataset? That gives a messy, inaccurate dataset. It ends up including cafes that were closed years ago, places that aren't even cafes, or places several blocks from where they actually are. As a user, I don't think you want to walk out to a new cafe only to find that it doesn't exist. If you have to review the entire OSM dataset anyway, you may as well create your own. I did make a few OpenStreetMap contributions years ago, but I see they've since been 'updated' to incorrect information by someone who doesn't even live in my city. It still has a lot of inaccurate and missing information in my area. At least for what I wanted to do (and for my city), OSM was a really bad dataset.

lucb1e 10y ago
> If you have to review the entire OSM dataset anyway, you may as well create your own. I don't know what terribly mapped place that is - probably one with lots of people where it made economical sense for Google to have a very high map quality, resulting in nobody using OSM - but I cannot imagine that that statement is true anywhere in the world. I've only used OSM extensively in the Netherlands, Germany and Finland and the data is very good. The occasional time I go into Belgium, data is much less good, but the roads are there and that's usually all I'm looking for. And where Google Maps is fine in the Netherlands and Germany, OSM was clearly better in Finland. > I see they've since been 'updated' to incorrect information by someone who doesn't even live in my city. Might be vandalism, though I have yet to see the first case in my five years of mapping. I've seen incorrect edits, but usually it's just clueless people doing something wrong, and most of the time it's caught by people checking up on new users. Is there a local OSM community that you can talk to, like for your country? Because invalid edits are not quite appreciated and I bet someone will jump on it when you mention it.
- SyneRyder 10y ago
  > I don't know what terribly mapped place that is... I mentioned above, but it's Perth, Australia. Google seems to have won the mapping wars here. Google even includes live feeds of how busy a store currently is (measured in realtime by Android phones), and shows busy/quiet trends for each store so you can plan ahead when you want to go. The Open Street Maps Australia website appears not to have been updated since 2009.

lucb1e 10y ago

> If you have to review the entire OSM dataset anyway, you may as well create your own. I don't know what terribly mapped place that is - probably one with lots of people where it made economical sense for Google to have a very high map quality, resulting in nobody using OSM - but I cannot imagine that that statement is true anywhere in the world. I've only used OSM extensively in the Netherlands, Germany and Finland and the data is very good. The occasional time I go into Belgium, data is much less good, but the roads are there and that's usually all I'm looking for. And where Google Maps is fine in the Netherlands and Germany, OSM was clearly better in Finland. > I see they've since been 'updated' to incorrect information by someone who doesn't even live in my city. Might be vandalism, though I have yet to see the first case in my five years of mapping. I've seen incorrect edits, but usually it's just clueless people doing something wrong, and most of the time it's caught by people checking up on new users. Is there a local OSM community that you can talk to, like for your country? Because invalid edits are not quite appreciated and I bet someone will jump on it when you mention it.

SyneRyder 10y ago
> I don't know what terribly mapped place that is... I mentioned above, but it's Perth, Australia. Google seems to have won the mapping wars here. Google even includes live feeds of how busy a store currently is (measured in realtime by Android phones), and shows busy/quiet trends for each store so you can plan ahead when you want to go. The Open Street Maps Australia website appears not to have been updated since 2009.