13 ms·

OSM has really evolved in some places. For the immediate vicinity of my home, OSM is a lot better than Google Maps or any other map I've looked at. OSM even in

by exDM69 12y ago

OSM has really evolved in some places. For the immediate vicinity of my home, OSM is a lot better than Google Maps or any other map I've looked at. OSM even includes horse trails and bicycling routes that I can't find in any other map available online. Not even local, official maps. The weakness in OSM still is that it's difficult to tell whether or not the maps are of good quality and up to date for a particular region.

illumen 12y ago
That is a weakness for all maps I've seen. There should be some sort of heuristic based on the number of edits which could guess at Goodness.
autokad 12y ago
a huge problem i have with it is its lack of consistency. a shady green thing thats hard to tell apart from a list of other shady green things will be used for multiple things. in one state it means brush, another it means forest. near by someone used it to mean desert. Or maybe there IS brush there but no one had ever bothered to label that region. often times an OSM map tells you nothing about what you are looking at. a 2nd peeve is how it chooses what cities you view on a map when zoomed out. Go look how far down you have to zoom before you see Philadelphia on the map. New York city? 'nope, but we'll show you elizabeth and paterson instead'. lastly, oh you want to look at other countries? how about we use their language instead. ugg
- Vik1ng 12y ago
  And google does that better? Google pretty much only shows large forrests in my area, everything else is often just grey, no matter if small wood area, grass or farmland. Maybe it's in the US because of bad imports, but in Europe OSM is usually is pretty accurate. > lastly, oh you want to look at other countries? how about we use their language instead. ugg Well, that's what everybody outside the US or non English speaker has to deal with all the time. OpenStreetMap simply is a global project, while google still is very US centric.
  - autokad 12y ago
    No, Google will display the language you normally look at. Also if I go to china, i see the chinese writing as well as english. OSM its just chinese. HOWEVER, when someone with their language set to Mandarin, they can view US cities and see it in mandarin, or even arabic cities. and for the record, yes, google maps is way better. Not only is the data more accurate, it uses consistent and easy to differentiate symbology.
    - ris 12y ago
      You are talking about the default map tile style, not OpenStreetMap itself. The default style is really designed for mappers to give them feedback in the editing process. The real intention is for a commercial entity (mapquest? mapbox?) to go and create beautiful consistent tiles and charge for their provision.

by exDM69 12y ago

illumen 12y ago

That is a weakness for all maps I've seen. There should be some sort of heuristic based on the number of edits which could guess at Goodness.

autokad 12y ago

a huge problem i have with it is its lack of consistency. a shady green thing thats hard to tell apart from a list of other shady green things will be used for multiple things. in one state it means brush, another it means forest. near by someone used it to mean desert. Or maybe there IS brush there but no one had ever bothered to label that region. often times an OSM map tells you nothing about what you are looking at. a 2nd peeve is how it chooses what cities you view on a map when zoomed out. Go look how far down you have to zoom before you see Philadelphia on the map. New York city? 'nope, but we'll show you elizabeth and paterson instead'. lastly, oh you want to look at other countries? how about we use their language instead. ugg

Vik1ng 12y ago
And google does that better? Google pretty much only shows large forrests in my area, everything else is often just grey, no matter if small wood area, grass or farmland. Maybe it's in the US because of bad imports, but in Europe OSM is usually is pretty accurate. > lastly, oh you want to look at other countries? how about we use their language instead. ugg Well, that's what everybody outside the US or non English speaker has to deal with all the time. OpenStreetMap simply is a global project, while google still is very US centric.
- autokad 12y ago
  No, Google will display the language you normally look at. Also if I go to china, i see the chinese writing as well as english. OSM its just chinese. HOWEVER, when someone with their language set to Mandarin, they can view US cities and see it in mandarin, or even arabic cities. and for the record, yes, google maps is way better. Not only is the data more accurate, it uses consistent and easy to differentiate symbology.
  - ris 12y ago
    You are talking about the default map tile style, not OpenStreetMap itself. The default style is really designed for mappers to give them feedback in the editing process. The real intention is for a commercial entity (mapquest? mapbox?) to go and create beautiful consistent tiles and charge for their provision.