I became the #1 mapper in New Zealand

Citizen cartography is cool and fun and would be far more popular if people believed they weren’t just feeding a corporation’s profit.

I believe that public participation in open source GIS datasets is only limited by UX. The author framing this as “a side quest while you walk” is on to something.

I am #3 in a similarly sized country, I was #1 for a few weeks about a year ago. It should be noted that this is "only" streetcomplete. Many mappers don't use it at all - instead mapping in JOSM or iD and greatly outperforming StreetComplete folk. According to HDYC [1], the author of TFA is currently ranked at 37 in New Zealand. I don't know if HDYC can show historic data.

All that said, this is not a competition. It's just fun to enhance the maps and see the enhancements in real life - better driving directions, more naturally shaped roads, sidewalks being replaced with stairs where needed, traffic lights and pedestrian crossings showing up where they should.

The gamification is only a cherry on top. Now I have to go out, score a few hundred edits and maybe grab #2.

[1] https://hdyc.neis-one.org/?Terence%20Eden

It looks like StreetComplete is Android only. Does anyone have suggestions for a good iOS friendly alternative?