StreetComplete: Fixing OpenStreetMap, one tiny quest at a time

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kkls0e about 4 hours ago 72 commentsRead Article on streetcomplete.app

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74% Positive

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Discussion (72 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

lapetitejort•32 minutes ago

I got into OSM and StreetComplete to flesh out intersections, stop signs, and sidewalks in my area. I always felt like I was doing something wrong though. I created crosswalks, then OSM would prompt me to connect the crosswalk to the road via a crossing. In StreetComplete, it felt like I was filling in duplicate data. I had to add whether the crossing had crossing lights not only at the middle crossing, but on the sides as well. This probably doesn't make any sense.

Basically, I am never confident I am editing OSM correctly. Am I supposed to manually draw out sidewalks, or tag the road as having a sidewalk? After adding sidewalks in my area, StreetComplete is now asking me if roads have sidewalks, which I clearly see on the map. Reminds me of editing the various Wiki pages. There's several ways of documenting something, only one way is correct, and it's undocumented.

edit: after playing with StreetComplete more, I noticed you can mark sidewalks as displayed separately. This is tagged as "sidewalk:both=separate" on the road. Whether this is the right way to do things I do not know

Cider9986•12 minutes ago

When I'm unsure I make a note with a photo and someone who knows more looks into it.

earth-tattoo•about 1 hour ago

It sucks that Google is probably using OSM data to check what they are missing and adding it to their maps, but we can't do vice versa. OSM should change their license to something like if you use our data, you have to make yours open as well.

JacobKfromIRC•about 1 hour ago

The license seems to already require this: https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright/

Maybe I am misunderstanding the summary, but it says: "If you publicly use any adapted version of this database, or works produced from an adapted database, you must also offer that adapted database under the ODbL." <https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/summary/>

GreyStache•about 1 hour ago

Change that to definitely. I added a brand-new road on OSM and a week later it was on google maps.

plorg•16 minutes ago

On the other hand, I've been trying to submit changes to Google for several new and vacated roads for over a year (having already updated OSM) and they are constantly rejected. I suspect it is much more that their updates are responsive to car traffic. The segments I'm submitting are or were low-traffic although they include a road that a local municipality has directed people to in official communication for overflow yard waste after some big, recent storms.

juliangmp•3 minutes ago

I had a similar experience with Google Maps, I used to live in a place where the house on Google maps was located on the wrong street, like one parallel street off. I put in a few requests from time to time because deliveries were a huge pain, to no avail. I opened a thread on some Google forum or support place and then it was mentioned that I actually can't change that because only the city is allowed to... why I get the option in the app I don't fully understand. At some point it got fixed but I have no idea why. Of course it was a few months before I moved out

ygra•about 1 hour ago

Google can cheat a little, especially for new roads since they notice when someone is driving over it. When there was a redesign of an intersection near here, someone marked the road as completed in OSM maybe half an hour after it was opened (we have a few quite active mappers), and Google had it open about two hours later and I suspect no one changed the data directly.

aweb•about 4 hours ago

I discovered that recently, it's a very fun way to contribute to OpenStreetMap, and the UI is really well-done, it's totally beginner friendly! I wish there was a way to do more than labeling though, like add simple roads and footpaths

eskori•about 4 hours ago

I have used it one (1) time in my life, ans it was my first experience with OpenStreetMap in general. It was pretty fun!

It's very intuitive and makes you learn just how detailed and specific map data can be. Can't say much about missing features since I don't event know what can be done.

Recommended experience, it's like playing Pokemon Go without the evil part :)

hadi121•about 3 hours ago

What's the "evil" part?

weavie•about 3 hours ago

Probably https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/06/pokemon-go-players-unwitt...

Forgeties79•about 3 hours ago

Niantic would sell your children’s social security numbers if they thought they’d get away with it.

Ajedi32•about 3 hours ago

Usually if I need to add a footpath I use the "Create new track recording" feature to trace out the path with GPS, then come back to it later on desktop. Adding paths is pretty awkward to do on mobile, especially since there's no satellite overlay.

0l•about 3 hours ago

FYI someone else has probably already traced this through Strava, which is allowed to be used for tracing: <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Strava#Data_Permission_-...>

nightpool•about 2 hours ago

StreetComplete doesn't have satellite overlays, but both Vespucci and EveryDoor support viewing satellite overlay tiles!

giancarlostoro•about 1 hour ago

Reminds me of when Microsoft released a new Flight Sim, and people immediately started spotting buildings and things that were out of the norm in the game, which in turn started getting reported to OSM for corrections.

https://hackaday.com/2020/08/21/microsoft-flight-simultors-d...

jnpnj•33 minutes ago

Are there other similar apps to stimulate soft "crowdfixing" ? I'm sure there are plenty of other aspect of society that would benefit from a light way to know where someone can contribute or notify so other can fix things (forest dumps, random trash). Homeostatic apps to ensure our surroundings are close to a good state :]

ivanjermakov•15 minutes ago

> forest dumps, random trash

Likely you can report such occasions to local authorities via online form. Of course every city/county would have their own.

TeddyDD•about 4 hours ago

Great app. There is also https://every-door.app/ that gives you slightly different set of tasks and allows you to place POI easily. I recently mapped a lot of trash cans and benches around my neighborhood while walking with my dog.

Ajedi32•about 3 hours ago

StreetComplete lets you place trash cans and benches too (among other things) using the "Things" overlay. IMO Every Door has a much more complicated UI, though it's also more of a full featured editor than StreetComplete. (Though still less so than something like Vespucci.)

progbits•about 1 hour ago

Thank you!

Is that a new feature? I have over a thousand contributions on StreetComplete (casually using it during walks) and somehow I never noticed that button.

ygra•about 1 hour ago

The overlays are intentionally a bit hidden, since they're more of a power-user feature and I appreciate that StreetComplete retains beginner-friendliness as a core tenet. But the overlays are indeed awesome for survey-type walks where you just want to make sure that all sidewalks are mapped correctly, or to see which shops are still missing.

Ajedi32•about 1 hour ago

Sort of. It was added in 2023. (https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/pull/5373)

TeddyDD•about 1 hour ago

Each to their own, I use both for different things, I like EveryDoor UI better for placing POIs.

deckar01•about 3 hours ago

The UX is really bad. POI loading is taking 10+ seconds to update, then any zoom or pan reorders the list of locations. Most of the missing info (around me) is just phone numbers and hours of operation, which are boring and should be trivial to collect automatically.

jllyhill•about 2 hours ago

The thing is that the best way to get the phones and opening hours is to walk in person and look them up. Any source for the automated collection is way more likely to be outdated/wrong than what the sign or the person behind the counter tells you. And can also have non-permissive license not compatible with the OSM license.

jorvi•about 2 hours ago

Raw Information cannot be licensed, and I am not sure why OSM sticks to the policy that it can.

Google Maps does not hold the rights to which opening hours Bob's Bakery keeps. If someone entered them from Bob's Bakery their site onto Maps, you are free to type it off of Maps onto OSM. Legally anyway. OSM themselves still hold the policy you can't, so you should adhere to that.

didip•about 3 hours ago

oooo what a fantastic idea. I have always wanted to map as many clothes donation boxes as possible.

ndriscoll•about 3 hours ago

You can do that, little free libraries, water fountains, etc. all in StreetComplete as well.

freakynit•about 3 hours ago

Just downloaded and made 15+ small contributions in the vicinity of my area. Very well built app. Super simple to use. And gamification is top-notch. Recommended.

Cider9986•5 minutes ago

I naively thought that Duolingo's gamification was for a good cause, helping you learn a language by addicting you, but now I know it's not only an extremely ineffective way to learn a language, but they're an advertising/social media/data broker company, which makes the gamification unethical.

I wonder if there are any other FOSS apps or websites with gamification that are for a good cause, like StreetComplete.

pavel_lishin•about 1 hour ago

I downloaded this, and I'm slightly amazed at how much detail there is. What material the utility poles are made of?

ivanjermakov•14 minutes ago

My favorite one is smoothness, I find it very useful when building cycling routes.

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:smoothness

hexomancer•about 3 hours ago

This is very cool, I wish there was some way to use it on a bicycle though. For example, when moving into a street it could ask (using voice) if this street is paved, and I could answer it using voice too.

wxlong2000•about 1 hour ago

StreetComplete's trick is hiding the tagging model until you actually need it. Most contributor tools expose the schema too early.

marssaxman•about 1 hour ago

Thank you for the reminder! I got out of the habit of checking StreetComplete since my previous neighborhood was well populated in OSM, but having just moved, I should check it out again.

Schiendelman•about 4 hours ago

Hi! Is this yours? Would you like help porting this to iOS?

looperhacks•about 4 hours ago

Not mine, but you can check this issue: https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/issues/5421

jcynix•about 1 hour ago

StreetComplete is cool, fun and useful, yes. And there is its companion app StreetMeasure which makes it easy to add measurements like the width of a narrow street, for example.

hirako2000•about 3 hours ago

One thing missing on osm is pictures. Would defeats Google maps if it had some, where users would feedback and bad shots would get wiped to save space. We would get the best shots the world has to offer.

jllyhill•about 2 hours ago

There are ways to add pictures as the tags of the OSM objects

- https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:wikimedia_commons

- https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:panoramax

- https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:mapillary

Mobile apps can use this data to either give links to them (e.g. CoMaps) or display them in the app (e.g. OsmAnd)

edent•about 2 hours ago

OSM does have a pictures layer.

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Panoramax

I use https://mapcomplete.org/ to add images of artworks to OSM objects.

lapetitejort•2 minutes ago

I had been using mapcomplete to add images of artwork, which in turn used panoramax. However I saw someone else use Wikimedia Commons, and to me that makes more sense. Wikimedia ties into more systems, so if you wanted to create a Wikipedia page about an artist, there will be readily available images to use.

On the flip side, panoramax can be used as an open source StreetView. Different sites for different purposes I suppose

khernandezrt•about 3 hours ago

Does it have to be a mobile app? Id love to do this when im bored at work but i dont wanna make it seem like im just sitting on my phone.

stndef•about 3 hours ago

I think the reasoning behind this is that ideally you're at the location where you can confirm what you see, instead of maybe referring to older media or from memory.

That being said, I agree with you and would like to see more ways to access the tool!

circuit10•about 3 hours ago

A web app would also make it work on iOS (and other non-Android platforms) at the same time

okok3857•about 1 hour ago

Rapid Editor is a good web app for editing OSM: https://rapideditor.org/

modriano•about 2 hours ago

You can edit OSM from its main site [0], although there's a much steeper learning curve when using the site (as you have far more freedom and it's not super easy to figure out the standard way to tag some situations).

[0] https://www.openstreetmap.org/

harvey9•about 2 hours ago

You can edit OSM from their web apps. This is intended to be used in the field but I guess you could use it to find things that need fixing.

petrzjunior•about 2 hours ago

Adding to that: StreetComplete specifically creates only quests for information which must be checked in the terrain like opening hours, surfaces, traffic light sounds. Anything surveyable from maps and other sources should be edited using the web editors. OpenStreetMap iD is probably the easiest to learn.

netfortius•about 4 hours ago

Some more info in an earlier thread [1]

[1] CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48808928

endymion-light•about 3 hours ago

I really love this - fantastic that it's open source too as would love to contribute. Is there an opportunity to add fresh new sites on this?

ndriscoll•about 3 hours ago

As in can you add points of interest like shops? Yes, there's a places overlay with an add button, and a things overlay for things like benches, bicycle parking, etc. For adding buildings, roads, or paths you'd need something else.

myself248•about 3 hours ago

kls0e•about 3 hours ago

scph1001.bin

Narishma•about 3 hours ago

More like scph1002.bin in this case. 1001 is for SCEA.

Krasnol•about 2 hours ago

I love this tool.

It brought me back to mapping on OSM.

Wherever you are and need to wait for a minute, there are quests to be solved there.

I recommend SCEE for those who are already familiar with OSM mapping or are in an area where the most common tasks are already covered: https://github.com/Helium314/SCEE

Acrobatic_Road•about 3 hours ago

Every day I take a 2 hour walk and contribute as much data as I can to OSM using this app.

hadi121•about 3 hours ago

This is such a great idea. Are there ever any plans for a web app?

qmacro•about 2 hours ago

I enjoyed the simulated phone screenshots, particularly the choice of House of the Trembling Madness, a great beer stockist and drinking establishment on Lendal in York. I would like to think that the name in the input field is deliberately slightly wrong, ready to be fixed by someone. (It's "House of the Trembling Madness" rather than "The House of Trembling Madness".) Gamification at another level :-)

baumschubser•about 2 hours ago

Just through your comment I found out that they have different screenshots for all their localization settings. Cool!

jmspring•about 3 hours ago

Is there something equivalent for iOS?

Quot•about 3 hours ago

StreetComplete has been making steady progress on an iOS port over the past few years.

https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/issues/5421

circuit10•about 3 hours ago

It would be nice if they made a web app, that would make it work on iOS but also desktop and every other platform with a web browser at the same time

Quot•about 2 hours ago

I agree! It seems like their work on the iOS app would bring them a lot closer to web app support as well. In the iOS tracking issue, they say the main changes are moving to Kotlin Multiplatform and Compose Multiplatform, which both support web as a target.

tiffanyh•about 3 hours ago

> ANDROID WILL BECOME A LOCKED-DOWN PLATFORM IN XXX

My guess is no because of the developer linking too below (and how it's always existed this way for iOS)

https://keepandroidopen.org

I wonder why this needs to be an app at all, instead of web based.

piebro•about 3 hours ago

If anyone is interested in where StreetComplete is used or which quests are the most popular, you can check out: https://piebro.github.io/openstreetmap-statistics/stats/04_s...

lisper•about 1 hour ago