In summary: Because OSM requires work and care to be put into the data submission plan, which isn’t worth it.
A project like OSM would be bombarded with spam and junk submissions if it didn’t have these barriers to submission. Understandable.
A project like OSM would be bombarded with spam and junk submissions if it didn’t have these barriers to submission. Understandable.
If their apps instead submitted directly to OSM (letting submission trickle back down), then the flow would fit into "user submission". Book Corners simply becomes an app though which the user performed the submission, rather than an intermediary exporting data.
(an import is when there isn't complete review...)
> Contact the relevant local communities affected by the contributions
Do I literally have to do new local community outreach every little town one of my bookcases shows up in? Ridiculous if so
if you're talking about the export restrictions of map data, that only applies to official, government-managed geodata. OSM explicitly doesn't rely on any other maps, so the law doesn't apply.
If every contribution required community outreach, we wouldn’t see any contributions.
To contribute a bookcase, ask them to create an OSM account, log in with OAuth, and send the edit straight to OSM.
Book corners becomes just a custom view and editor over OSM data, instead of being its own database.
Users are now responsible for the data they submit (OSM already has tools to deal with vandalism etc...).
I'm not sure about this. The barriers to submissions are honestly more likely to cause object and amenity level data to become out of date. Google is able to have such an up to date place database because it relies on a large quantity of crowdsourced submissions, and employs consensus to figure out the truth.
As it is today you can largely expect OSM POI data to be incomplete or out of date unless you have someone particularly keen on keeping your local area up to date. OSM is best used as a background map layer for your own custom applications, like embedded maps in apps showing your own data overlayed. Rather than an alternative to the google maps app.
OSM doesn’t have that option. If it didn’t have these guardrails in place, a million CS students will see some open-looking data (or not even that, maybe something scraped) and throw it into OSM with a cursory Python script, resulting in an almighty mess. We need the process because we don’t have Google’s leverage of “we pay you”.
Eg. Draw me a map, but include only data points tagged with 'osm-license-verified-and-spam-filtered'.
That way users of the data get to decide their own tradeoff between legal risks, data freshness, spam, etc.
and people say hacker news has no sense of humour
Google denied our address existed[0] for years (which caused several problems with online shops that used Google Maps as the source of truth for address resolution) - took a good few tries to get them to actually add it.
Currently Google Maps is showing an "ALDI charging station" directly across the road when it is, in fact, about a mile down the road.
It's also showing a Chipotle just around the corner when, you'll not be surprised, there is no Chipotle there and, hilariously, the photo it has is of the Chipotle at the O2 Dome a good 10km away.
Absolute clusterfuck of nonsense is Google Maps.
[0] A 1960s London estate which was adequately represented on Google Maps and Streetview, mind.
I work in a warehouse, and if you type our address into Google Maps, it puts the maker right on our building. But they also label the building as a pub, two buildings down the street.
I've submitted corrections, and had a reply saying they were accepted. You can look on street view and the true location of both pub and warehouse are clearly visible, so there'd be no problem verifying my correction. Their map view includes the outline of the pub, as does their satellite view. The pub's been there 10 years, the warehouse since the 1990s. The Street View car has driven through the pub's car park three times.
And yet, the pub marker stays in the wrong place.