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I can recommend installing this and opening it while you are bored on a walk somewhere through your city. The questions are very well phrased, come with intuiti

I can recommend installing this and opening it while you are bored on a walk somewhere through your city. The questions are very well phrased, come with intuitive pictures to help you answer. I'm not sure how useful the edits are in practice but I've contributed hundreds of questions about wheelchair-accessible sidewalks, street lighting etc and hope that this is helping some people make better navigation decisions.

Aachen 5y ago
> I'm not sure how useful the edits are in practice It depends on who you ask! For me, things like opening hours or paid parking indications are very helpful. My girlfriend was doing some running training a while ago and in summer during the day it can be quite hot. But at night, how do you know which roads are lit if you want to plan your route ahead of time to have the right distance? Easy: OSM has the data, OsmAnd and others can display it... except our area had almost no coverage at all. StreetComplete made it super easy for me to map that, so now it's there. She stopped running in the meantime but... hopefully the next person can make use of it, the data is there to stay :) For the wheelchair questions, there is of course another audience that might like to plan routes without finding inaccessible steps in the middle. I can also imagine if you drive trucks, having good weight/width/height limit data is also useful. Right now I think this data is quite incomplete (though I didn't do a comprehensive study) and I have no idea what those companies use instead (maybe they just drive a route before sending trucks down it?), but at some point a free worldwide uniform dataset is going to be easier than whatever they use now.
- progbits 5y ago
  > She stopped running in the meantime Made me laugh! Thanks a lot for sharing. These are all great usecases and it is good to hear people make use of that. I didn't have the need for it, and while I can see the intrinsic value in having this data widely available in OSM the fact people do actually use it for something makes it more "real"!.
  - windthrown 5y ago
    In addition to the wheelchair ramp example, there are a few navigation apps for people who are blind which use OSM data - crucially features like tactile paving and crosswalks with voice prompts: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_for_the_blind https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_for_the_blind
mtmail 5y ago
StreetComplete can create Notes, too. [edit] I think that's default when a question cannot be answered. For those not aware: On https://www.openstreetmap.org/ https://www.openstreetmap.org/ you can leave comments on the map, so called Notes (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Notes https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Notes). It's like bug reports but on a map, with comment thread. Local mappers look at those. Or that is the idea, I've seen notes open years and others resolved within hours. The answers with new information are useful for local mappers, even "this shop no longer exists" answer (examples https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/2659780 https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/2659780 , https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/2641050 https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/2641050) when asked about opening times. Many notes need a local mapper to verify (visit the place, find secondary information).
- easyKL 5y ago
  Notes also come from other services that make use of OSM data, like MapsMe. There are lots of them.
  - andrewshadura 5y ago
    Correction: MapsMe → Organic Maps
    - windthrown 5y ago
      I prefer Organic Maps too, but it isn't incorrect to state that MapsMe "makes use of OSM Data".
    - Mediterraneo10 5y ago
      No need for that correction. The issue is that while MapsMe got sold to a dodgy company and now has some respectable FOSS forks, the Notes layer on OSM is still full of notes that were created from Maps.me over the last several years and clearly state that.
blargpls 5y ago
Amazon uses it for deliveries and also contributes to OSM.
matkoniecz 5y ago
> I'm not sure how useful the edits are in practice Heavily depends on a question, some are quite niche. But even backrest quest has some use - thanks to it I detected and deleted some no longer existing benches. See comments in https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/blob/master/app/src/main/java/de/westnordost/streetcomplete/quests/QuestModule.kt#L130 https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/blob/master... and below for some additional context. And note that some not-yet-used data will be more likely to become used as OSM coverage improves!

Aachen 5y ago

> I'm not sure how useful the edits are in practice It depends on who you ask! For me, things like opening hours or paid parking indications are very helpful. My girlfriend was doing some running training a while ago and in summer during the day it can be quite hot. But at night, how do you know which roads are lit if you want to plan your route ahead of time to have the right distance? Easy: OSM has the data, OsmAnd and others can display it... except our area had almost no coverage at all. StreetComplete made it super easy for me to map that, so now it's there. She stopped running in the meantime but... hopefully the next person can make use of it, the data is there to stay :) For the wheelchair questions, there is of course another audience that might like to plan routes without finding inaccessible steps in the middle. I can also imagine if you drive trucks, having good weight/width/height limit data is also useful. Right now I think this data is quite incomplete (though I didn't do a comprehensive study) and I have no idea what those companies use instead (maybe they just drive a route before sending trucks down it?), but at some point a free worldwide uniform dataset is going to be easier than whatever they use now.

progbits 5y ago
> She stopped running in the meantime Made me laugh! Thanks a lot for sharing. These are all great usecases and it is good to hear people make use of that. I didn't have the need for it, and while I can see the intrinsic value in having this data widely available in OSM the fact people do actually use it for something makes it more "real"!.
- windthrown 5y ago
  In addition to the wheelchair ramp example, there are a few navigation apps for people who are blind which use OSM data - crucially features like tactile paving and crosswalks with voice prompts: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_for_the_blind https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_for_the_blind

mtmail 5y ago

StreetComplete can create Notes, too. [edit] I think that's default when a question cannot be answered. For those not aware: On https://www.openstreetmap.org/ https://www.openstreetmap.org/ you can leave comments on the map, so called Notes (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Notes https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Notes). It's like bug reports but on a map, with comment thread. Local mappers look at those. Or that is the idea, I've seen notes open years and others resolved within hours. The answers with new information are useful for local mappers, even "this shop no longer exists" answer (examples https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/2659780 https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/2659780 , https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/2641050 https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/2641050) when asked about opening times. Many notes need a local mapper to verify (visit the place, find secondary information).

easyKL 5y ago
Notes also come from other services that make use of OSM data, like MapsMe. There are lots of them.
- andrewshadura 5y ago
  Correction: MapsMe → Organic Maps
  - windthrown 5y ago
    I prefer Organic Maps too, but it isn't incorrect to state that MapsMe "makes use of OSM Data".
  - Mediterraneo10 5y ago
    No need for that correction. The issue is that while MapsMe got sold to a dodgy company and now has some respectable FOSS forks, the Notes layer on OSM is still full of notes that were created from Maps.me over the last several years and clearly state that.

blargpls 5y ago

Amazon uses it for deliveries and also contributes to OSM.

matkoniecz 5y ago

> I'm not sure how useful the edits are in practice Heavily depends on a question, some are quite niche. But even backrest quest has some use - thanks to it I detected and deleted some no longer existing benches. See comments in https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/blob/master/app/src/main/java/de/westnordost/streetcomplete/quests/QuestModule.kt#L130 https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/blob/master... and below for some additional context. And note that some not-yet-used data will be more likely to become used as OSM coverage improves!