The best way for a "complete newb" to improve OpenStreetMap is to just find the place that you are interested in and click on "Edit" and start drawing the missi

The best way for a "complete newb" to improve OpenStreetMap is to just find the place that you are interested in and click on "Edit" and start drawing the missing features. There are public datasets and imports that happen sometimes, but these are done by people who have experience in it, and usually in cooperation with the local government GIS that controls the dataset.