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OSM needs some form of gamification adding to it. Google Maps app is great, lets you gain points by adding information & photos & reviews etc. They even send y

OSM needs some form of gamification adding to it. Google Maps app is great, lets you gain points by adding information & photos & reviews etc. They even send you a free bespoke pair of socks or a badge if you're active enough. So fun to add photos and then see how many views they get (I posted one of a chippy in Scotland (for Americans that's Fish & Chip 'Thick French Fries' shop) which got over 1.4 million views - mental). The location history feature suggests things to contribute which helps too. Would be good to have something similar to make contributing fun.

BetaDeltaAlpha 4y ago
Web3 is on it https://hivemapper.com/ https://hivemapper.com/
- benbristow 4y ago
  $649 for a dashcam probably worth $50 being generous on Wish.com/AliExpress to earn some random crypto. Hmmm.
jxramos 4y ago
I concur completely. I was having my young son learn how to use the computer focused on input devices and simple UI interactions by having him annotate buildings and pools in OSM for a few random towns friends live in. I thought he'd very much more enjoy this if it was gamified in some way. He did it, got the hang of the UI, but then it grew tedious so he moved on to something else.
csteubs 4y ago
I'm working through similar gamification of map update questions right now, specifically with aerial imaging. We're trying to crowdsource aerial imagery using (for now) passengers in window seats, so the most obvious solution was to provide them free in-flight wifi so that we could upload the images as they're captured as well. They don't record the entire flight, just at certain points based on altitude and tasked coordinates along their filed flight path. Most have appreciated the gesture, but a good amount would prefer airline miles, free in-flight goods, etc. We've looked into chain-based royalties where an image accessed by our customers is paid out to the original photographer, but that's a ways out. Gamification is tricky.
mvexel 4y ago
I maintain a website called MapRoulette which is not pure gamification but breaks down map contributions into small tasks. It has some elements of gamification (badges, leaderboard). For more task-based editing with gamification elements check out StreetComplete, an Android app.
- int_19h 4y ago
  The concept is great, but the map on the site is very buggy on the desktop (Edge 105). Trying to zoom in with mouse wheel, it often randomly zooms out and in again. Trying to pan when dragging while zoomed in and near task markers, it will often pan back after releasing the mouse, and in one case, I've seen it pan back and forth between two points on the map in what looks like an infinite loop. It seems that it's trying to do some kind of snapping to the markers, and ends up fighting the user and/or itself. Also, the markers disappear entirely past a certain zoom level. When that happens, zooming out one notch does not cause them to reappear, either - I had to do like 4 levels before they'd show up. The worst part is that it also happens when you click on a marker and the map auto-zooms on it. EDIT: just realized that for that last problem, what happens is that a single combined marker (the one that shows a number) is broken up into individual markers. The problem there is that those individual markers often end up outside of the viewport, and so it looks like the combined markers just disappeared.
  - mvexel 4y ago
    Thanks for trying it out! Yes, the map UI has a number of known issues, some of which you pointed out. We're actually working on addressing the most annoying ones right now! I hope to have them addressed in the October / November release.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  if people don't know it -- MapRoulette is massively successful and a giant contribution to Openstreetmap
  - ryandrake 4y ago
pwg 4y ago
> OSM needs some form of gamification adding to it. Take a look at StreetComplete [1]. It is gamification of updates to OSM. [1] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplete/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplet...
- benbristow 4y ago
  Android-only :(
  - jumelles 4y ago
    Every Door
- Grimburger 4y ago
  The last time I submitted a few months worth of my travels at once after doing a hundred or so of these challenges/questions and got a bunch of notifications lambasting me for not updating the moment I did instead of later. Honestly didn't realise you had to manually submit, thought it just happened automatically. Was a really rude intro to the community and reminded me a lot of SO or Wikipedia with its gatekeeping. I've never submitted a single thing since then. If that's how you treat newcomers then I want nothing to do with you.
  - aqfamnzc 4y ago
    I've seen some gatekeeping in the OSM community as well. In this specific case, this is also (in my opinion) due to bad tooling. Basically the easiest way to keep an eye on an area is to use a tool that shows changesets whose bounding box includes a certain area. So you could make a single tiny edit in both NY and LA, the bbox would ping a huge swath of the US. This happens all the time, actually. It's annoying, but the way I see it that means we need a better way to see changesets that actually affect a specific area.
    - jxramos 4y ago
      yah the change set visualization could indeed use a lot of love. I think it would be worth it, something like beyond compare's image diff could be a good start in the right direction https://beyondcompare.gitbook.io/project/other/how-to-compare-versions-of-images https://beyondcompare.gitbook.io/project/other/how-to-compar...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
alt227 4y ago
This is the main thing I hate about google maps. I refuse to do free work for google in return for 'fun'.
- martyvis 4y ago
  That isn't the main return for me. It is knowing that you have contributed to the community corpus of knowledge that is almost impossible to come otherwise. For instance I had the to visit a data centre that I had previously been to but was under a new owner. The pin had Equinix but not the site code. Once I confirmed it, I submitted the edit for it to become Equinix SY6. It apparently has since been used thousands of times. I also enjoy adding a food shot or a representative photo of places I have enjoyed as a small reward and enticement for others to do likewise.
- dewey 4y ago
  I also want to hate it, but in reality I recently uploaded my first picture and then get monthly updates on how many hundreds of people have seen it and I have to admit the gamification works :( On the topic: I think it would be a good idea for OSM if done in a good and non-technical user-friendly way.
  - zaik 4y ago
    There is no way for OSM to know how many people use your contribution in which way.
  - mvexel 4y ago
    This is a pattern that OSM could adopt. OSM data is used by about half of FAANG and countless smaller companies and organizations directly and indirectly (through Mapbox for example), so your contributions are seen by millions if not billions, depending on where you are.
- everybodyknows 4y ago
  Try thinking of it as work done to help other real people. I found the "Emergency" door of a local hospital hard to find IRL, so I added a photo of it from the driveway POV. Another sort of real person you can help are the web-clueless owners of local small businesses.
GekkePrutser 4y ago
Most of the contributions to OSM are commercial now. Most of the big names except from Google have people working on improving the maps.
- eMerzh 4y ago
  sorry but that is simply not true... I think there are areas where it can be, probably those more remote, or where there are less contributors but at least in western europe, the map is built and maintained by individuals like me. Maybe helped with external datas but still carefully handpicked and integrated by individuals
  - mvexel 4y ago
    The statement is at least partly true. Nearly all big corporations and many smaller ones have people on the payroll contributing to OSM. And there are entire countries where paid / commercial editing makes up the majority of contributions to OSM. See this post from last year that breaks it down: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Jennings%20Anderson/diary/396271 https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Jennings%20Anderson/diary....
    - diggernet 4y ago
      Hang on... I can get paid to edit OSM instead of just doing it for fun? Where do we find those jobs?
      - matkoniecz 4y ago
        This is typically offered as minimum wage job in poor countries. For example one company caused noticeable damage as UK was mapped by people from Belarus who were unaware about many local intricacies.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mkaszkowiak 4y ago
Pokemon Go upon release encouraged people to contribute to OpenStreetMap in my area, as Pokemon weren't spawning in incorrectly tagged areas :)
- alias_neo 4y ago
  I thought Pokemon used Google Maps like its predecessor, Ingress?
  - mkaszkowiak 4y ago
    If I remember correctly, at first Pokemon Go used Google Maps to display the actual map, but it still used OSM data for the spawning algorithm. Later on they made the switch to only use OSM.
    - alias_neo 4y ago
      Interesting, thanks for clarifying!
    - Tostino 4y ago
      The changes to Google maps api pricing made it entirely unsuitable for a whole lot of apps.
      - alias_neo 4y ago
        I do recall when that happened all of the complaints, madness from Google, but that's entirely their MO I suppose.
Rygian 4y ago
I do not oppose. But personally, I have a ton of fun just mapping for the sake of it. Seeing my contributions rendered is a satisfaction.
- ibz 4y ago
  Same here. I think mapping is fun and it should be done by people who love doing it. Doing it because you get a pair of socks or some smiley clippy character telling you something cute is very different.
  - fragmede 4y ago
    No it's not. We're talking about a silly pair of socks or a quirky avatar message, not, y'know, actual amounts of money. You can't pay rent or buy food or taxes with a pair of socks. Someone doing mapping for free, with the hopes of getting a pair of socks is much closer to this hypothetical mapping purist than a 3rd party contractor that doesn't care about cartography and is just doing it for the paycheck.
nonethewiser 4y ago
> I posted one of a chippy in Scotland (for Americans that's Fish & Chip 'Thick French Fries' shop) which got over 1.4 million views - mental Do they protect against self promotion somehow? seems like it would be an easy way to market something to a huge audience. I mean something like giving a completely legit review then dropping a link to your website or something.
mcv 4y ago
In my experience, OSM data is usually better than Google Maps. The only problem is that Google Maps has the better app.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

BetaDeltaAlpha 4y ago

Web3 is on it https://hivemapper.com/ https://hivemapper.com/

benbristow 4y ago
$649 for a dashcam probably worth $50 being generous on Wish.com/AliExpress to earn some random crypto. Hmmm.

jxramos 4y ago

I concur completely. I was having my young son learn how to use the computer focused on input devices and simple UI interactions by having him annotate buildings and pools in OSM for a few random towns friends live in. I thought he'd very much more enjoy this if it was gamified in some way. He did it, got the hang of the UI, but then it grew tedious so he moved on to something else.

csteubs 4y ago

I'm working through similar gamification of map update questions right now, specifically with aerial imaging. We're trying to crowdsource aerial imagery using (for now) passengers in window seats, so the most obvious solution was to provide them free in-flight wifi so that we could upload the images as they're captured as well. They don't record the entire flight, just at certain points based on altitude and tasked coordinates along their filed flight path. Most have appreciated the gesture, but a good amount would prefer airline miles, free in-flight goods, etc. We've looked into chain-based royalties where an image accessed by our customers is paid out to the original photographer, but that's a ways out. Gamification is tricky.

mvexel 4y ago

I maintain a website called MapRoulette which is not pure gamification but breaks down map contributions into small tasks. It has some elements of gamification (badges, leaderboard). For more task-based editing with gamification elements check out StreetComplete, an Android app.

int_19h 4y ago
The concept is great, but the map on the site is very buggy on the desktop (Edge 105). Trying to zoom in with mouse wheel, it often randomly zooms out and in again. Trying to pan when dragging while zoomed in and near task markers, it will often pan back after releasing the mouse, and in one case, I've seen it pan back and forth between two points on the map in what looks like an infinite loop. It seems that it's trying to do some kind of snapping to the markers, and ends up fighting the user and/or itself. Also, the markers disappear entirely past a certain zoom level. When that happens, zooming out one notch does not cause them to reappear, either - I had to do like 4 levels before they'd show up. The worst part is that it also happens when you click on a marker and the map auto-zooms on it. EDIT: just realized that for that last problem, what happens is that a single combined marker (the one that shows a number) is broken up into individual markers. The problem there is that those individual markers often end up outside of the viewport, and so it looks like the combined markers just disappeared.
- mvexel 4y ago
  Thanks for trying it out! Yes, the map UI has a number of known issues, some of which you pointed out. We're actually working on addressing the most annoying ones right now! I hope to have them addressed in the October / November release.
mistrial9 4y ago
if people don't know it -- MapRoulette is massively successful and a giant contribution to Openstreetmap
- ryandrake 4y ago

pwg 4y ago

> OSM needs some form of gamification adding to it. Take a look at StreetComplete [1]. It is gamification of updates to OSM. [1] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplete/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.westnordost.streetcomplet...

benbristow 4y ago
Android-only :(
- jumelles 4y ago
  Every Door
Grimburger 4y ago
The last time I submitted a few months worth of my travels at once after doing a hundred or so of these challenges/questions and got a bunch of notifications lambasting me for not updating the moment I did instead of later. Honestly didn't realise you had to manually submit, thought it just happened automatically. Was a really rude intro to the community and reminded me a lot of SO or Wikipedia with its gatekeeping. I've never submitted a single thing since then. If that's how you treat newcomers then I want nothing to do with you.
- aqfamnzc 4y ago
  I've seen some gatekeeping in the OSM community as well. In this specific case, this is also (in my opinion) due to bad tooling. Basically the easiest way to keep an eye on an area is to use a tool that shows changesets whose bounding box includes a certain area. So you could make a single tiny edit in both NY and LA, the bbox would ping a huge swath of the US. This happens all the time, actually. It's annoying, but the way I see it that means we need a better way to see changesets that actually affect a specific area.
  - jxramos 4y ago
    yah the change set visualization could indeed use a lot of love. I think it would be worth it, something like beyond compare's image diff could be a good start in the right direction https://beyondcompare.gitbook.io/project/other/how-to-compare-versions-of-images https://beyondcompare.gitbook.io/project/other/how-to-compar...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

alt227 4y ago

This is the main thing I hate about google maps. I refuse to do free work for google in return for 'fun'.

martyvis 4y ago
That isn't the main return for me. It is knowing that you have contributed to the community corpus of knowledge that is almost impossible to come otherwise. For instance I had the to visit a data centre that I had previously been to but was under a new owner. The pin had Equinix but not the site code. Once I confirmed it, I submitted the edit for it to become Equinix SY6. It apparently has since been used thousands of times. I also enjoy adding a food shot or a representative photo of places I have enjoyed as a small reward and enticement for others to do likewise.
dewey 4y ago
I also want to hate it, but in reality I recently uploaded my first picture and then get monthly updates on how many hundreds of people have seen it and I have to admit the gamification works :( On the topic: I think it would be a good idea for OSM if done in a good and non-technical user-friendly way.
- zaik 4y ago
  There is no way for OSM to know how many people use your contribution in which way.
- mvexel 4y ago
  This is a pattern that OSM could adopt. OSM data is used by about half of FAANG and countless smaller companies and organizations directly and indirectly (through Mapbox for example), so your contributions are seen by millions if not billions, depending on where you are.
everybodyknows 4y ago
Try thinking of it as work done to help other real people. I found the "Emergency" door of a local hospital hard to find IRL, so I added a photo of it from the driveway POV. Another sort of real person you can help are the web-clueless owners of local small businesses.

GekkePrutser 4y ago

Most of the contributions to OSM are commercial now. Most of the big names except from Google have people working on improving the maps.

eMerzh 4y ago
sorry but that is simply not true... I think there are areas where it can be, probably those more remote, or where there are less contributors but at least in western europe, the map is built and maintained by individuals like me. Maybe helped with external datas but still carefully handpicked and integrated by individuals
- mvexel 4y ago
  The statement is at least partly true. Nearly all big corporations and many smaller ones have people on the payroll contributing to OSM. And there are entire countries where paid / commercial editing makes up the majority of contributions to OSM. See this post from last year that breaks it down: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Jennings%20Anderson/diary/396271 https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Jennings%20Anderson/diary....
  - diggernet 4y ago
    Hang on... I can get paid to edit OSM instead of just doing it for fun? Where do we find those jobs?
    - matkoniecz 4y ago
      This is typically offered as minimum wage job in poor countries. For example one company caused noticeable damage as UK was mapped by people from Belarus who were unaware about many local intricacies.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mkaszkowiak 4y ago

Pokemon Go upon release encouraged people to contribute to OpenStreetMap in my area, as Pokemon weren't spawning in incorrectly tagged areas :)

alias_neo 4y ago
I thought Pokemon used Google Maps like its predecessor, Ingress?
- mkaszkowiak 4y ago
  If I remember correctly, at first Pokemon Go used Google Maps to display the actual map, but it still used OSM data for the spawning algorithm. Later on they made the switch to only use OSM.
  - alias_neo 4y ago
    Interesting, thanks for clarifying!
  - Tostino 4y ago
    The changes to Google maps api pricing made it entirely unsuitable for a whole lot of apps.
    - alias_neo 4y ago
      I do recall when that happened all of the complaints, madness from Google, but that's entirely their MO I suppose.

Rygian 4y ago

I do not oppose. But personally, I have a ton of fun just mapping for the sake of it. Seeing my contributions rendered is a satisfaction.

ibz 4y ago
Same here. I think mapping is fun and it should be done by people who love doing it. Doing it because you get a pair of socks or some smiley clippy character telling you something cute is very different.
- fragmede 4y ago
  No it's not. We're talking about a silly pair of socks or a quirky avatar message, not, y'know, actual amounts of money. You can't pay rent or buy food or taxes with a pair of socks. Someone doing mapping for free, with the hopes of getting a pair of socks is much closer to this hypothetical mapping purist than a 3rd party contractor that doesn't care about cartography and is just doing it for the paycheck.

nonethewiser 4y ago

> I posted one of a chippy in Scotland (for Americans that's Fish & Chip 'Thick French Fries' shop) which got over 1.4 million views - mental Do they protect against self promotion somehow? seems like it would be an easy way to market something to a huge audience. I mean something like giving a completely legit review then dropping a link to your website or something.

mcv 4y ago

In my experience, OSM data is usually better than Google Maps. The only problem is that Google Maps has the better app.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]