[HN Gopher] MapRoulette: the micro-tasking tool for OpenStreetMap
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MapRoulette: the micro-tasking tool for OpenStreetMap
Author : puddingvlaai
Score : 94 points
Date : 2024-08-28 21:14 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (maproulette.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (maproulette.org)
| mkl wrote:
| I like the idea, but these tasks seem incomprehensible. I looked
| at some near me, and one is about traffic lights at an
| intersection that doesn't have traffic lights, and the others
| just say "Highway not on ground and no tunnel, bridge or covered
| tags" under "Instructions" but they're not highways or roads at
| all (though I guess they are on the ground).
| knocte wrote:
| I agree, I looked around my area and found a task on top of a
| parking lot that says: "These elements have rare (<20 uses)
| parking=* values." What does this mean? Does it mean that the
| parking log is marked to have a "<20" value when the value
| should be a number instead of a string? Obviously I'm not going
| to go inside the car park and count all the park slots, there
| could be hundreds!
| gaganyaan wrote:
| That likely means something like "This is using a rare value
| for the key 'parking'. It might be incorrect, check that it's
| not supposed to be a more common value".
|
| In other words, it's trying to catch things like typos.
| xp84 wrote:
| I tried items with rare values for 'surface.' I found and
| fixed a footpath through a pasture (the docs seemed to imply
| that "dirt" is sufficient for a path through a pasture). But
| my next item was in China and the surface was "Mu " which
| apparently means Wood. But the rest of the fields of this
| pier were also in Chinese, and I was too shy to update it. I
| hope that localization is handled separately and that it
| would have been fine, but... it would be super annoying if a
| Chinese-speaking editor updated an American map to have
| details all in Chinese. Googling "are tags on openstreetmap
| supposed to always be in English?" gave no hints.
| morsch wrote:
| The tags are specified in the wiki:
| https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:surface
|
| In this case, the spec allows for "commonly used" user
| defined values, which is unusual (how does a user defined
| value become commonly used enough in the first place?),
| measured per this site:
| https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/surface#values
|
| You can find a few non English entries in there, but the
| vast majority and all of the most common ones are in
| English. "Mu " has 2 entries, "wood" has >200k. I think
| it's pretty clear that even in cases when the specification
| is open, the intention is for values to be English whenever
| practical.
|
| The alternative is so outrageous that they made it into an
| April fools joke: https://weeklyosm.eu/osm-tags-soon-in-
| german-and-french-and-...
|
| Here's someone attempting to translate the tags/values (for
| display): https://github.com/osmlab/osm-planning/issues/20
| Freak_NL wrote:
| You misinterpreted the wiki page. That tag (like several
| others) explicitly supports user-defined values. This is
| useful, because you cannot define a complete set of
| values for something as open-ended as a way's surface.
| Innovations happen, and sometimes odd things are used to
| pave a way for a variety of reasons (art, tourist appeal,
| experiments, etc.)
|
| So that table there lists all common values covering 99%
| of the use cases, and finally links to TagInfo for all
| values in use. That 'all commonly used values' bit is
| slightly misleading, because TagInfo lists all uncommon
| values, but it true in the sense that any common value
| missing from that table will be listed in TagInfo (being
| derived from the actual database).
| Freak_NL wrote:
| OpenStreetMap generally follows the guideline that all tags
| and generic values (i.e., not names and other language
| dependant stuff) are written in British English. Exceptions
| exist due to the way this project works. The wiki is the
| primary place to go for documentation of tags and values.
|
| So yes, surface=Mu is wrong, but to replace it you would
| have to know if the path uses wood-chips (`woodchip`) or
| boards (`wood`).
| mjlee wrote:
| The word highway in the sense OSM uses it predates cars and
| means pretty much any path. Think of highwaymen, for example.
|
| See https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/23/924.3 which
| includes public pedestrian paths.
| lufte wrote:
| See also: https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete
| WA wrote:
| Or "Go Map!!" for iOS, which has a a similar quest mode:
| https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Go_Map!!
| pimlottc wrote:
| The map widget doesn't appear properly on iOS Safari,
| unfortunately
| pimlottc wrote:
| For something called MapRoulette, I expected a much simpler UX,
| e.g. a big button that gave you a random task in your area.
| throwaway346434 wrote:
| Try mapswipe
| mngnt wrote:
| The problem with maproulette is the same thing that makes it fun:
| the gamification.
|
| Some people value imaginary internet points so highly, they edit
| OSM willy-nilly to make it conform to maproulette, disregarding
| ground truth, not checking if the tasks analysis is complete and
| mapping slightly wrong around the world.
|
| This is mad MUCH worse by the fact that the default setting in
| maproulette is that when you finish a task, the system takes you
| to an another one at a random position in the world. I have no
| idea, for instance, if this Italian restaurant in Minsk has a
| correct web address (or if it exists at all), but I'm
| incentivized to jut remove the tag and get those sweet points.
| spamtarget wrote:
| The solution for this could be creating a review process and
| gamify that too
| stevage wrote:
| Ugh, it really goes to a random place?
|
| I used to do a lot of OSM editing. In my experience, it really
| helps to have edited a lot in one area to better understand
| local context, make better sense of imagery etc etc.
| throwaway346434 wrote:
| No, you tick 'nearby' and it's a non issue.
| krick wrote:
| This really should be a default though.
| uoaei wrote:
| What does this accomplish that StreetComplete does not?
| derkades wrote:
| StreetComplete is about answering questions by doing a physical
| survey. MapRoulette seems to be about fixing tags in random
| places, inferring information from context, imagery, or the
| internet.
| xp84 wrote:
| This reminds me a bit of the obsessive fun of foursquare super-
| usering back when that app wasn't dead in all but name. I
| remember painstakingly updating whole strip malls and such to
| have every single business perfectly delineated and labeled, with
| the pins located right at the front door of each.
|
| (At some point they made some change that left my class of SU
| behind, but since the original purpose of 4sq died long ago there
| wouldn't be a point to donate my time to it now.)
| qwertox wrote:
| It makes no sense. I zoomed into a segment of my city, lowest
| level.
|
| I see two clusters with "2", maybe that means that there are 4
| tasks on the map segment which need fixing.
|
| Clicking on any of the two clusters does nothing. The sidebar has
| just an odd "Global: [amenity=doctors] and
| [healtcare:speciality=*] missing [healthcare]", which, when I
| click it, reloads the page and shows me a world view with
| problematic doctors.
|
| When I deselect "Cluster", then nothing is shown, instead of
| those 4 clustered tasks that apparently need fixing. I expected
| to see 4 individual tasks, instead of the two clustered ones.
|
| At the same time a label tells me "23 tasks found", yet I see
| none. I assume those two pairs of clusters of two should
| represent 4 tasks, but I can't interact with them in any way.
|
| I also can't easily navigate to a place of interest because there
| is no location searchbox.
|
| I was expecting something like StreetComplete.
| throwaway346434 wrote:
| Try mapswipe
| raybb wrote:
| Lately I've been thinking more about how to get better POI (like
| business) data into OSM. Apps like everydoor work okay but I feel
| it's still annoying to type it in and get the tags right.
|
| I think it could be a really good use of AI to let me, for
| example, snap a photo of the menu and then have it automatically
| generate the OSM tags. Then someone just has to review if it all
| is appropriate.
|
| Just bring able to walk down the street, snap a bunch of menu or
| sign pics, then go home and drop pins and confirm tags from
| photos would be great.
|
| Heck it could even scrape their website to verify the information
| too!
|
| Does anyone know if there is a project like this? Or have any
| thoughts on if this is a reasonable approach? I think as long as
| there's a human in the loop checking things it should be fine by
| OSM.
| throwaway346434 wrote:
| Alltheplaces.xyz and experimental tools like
| https://matkoniecz.codeberg.page/improving_openstreetmap_usi...
| franga2000 wrote:
| In terms of scraping, there's already a huge project that
| collects business data in an OSM-compatible format:
| http://alltheplaces.xyz/
|
| The main trouble is licensing and change tracking. Most of the
| scraped data is protected by copyright or database rights so it
| can't be imported.
|
| And even if the licensing is solved, you have the problem of
| matching scraped data to OSM data and what to do when changes
| disagree. For example, a store might be scraped as a point in
| the middle of a shopping mall, but then an OSM editor would
| come by and move it to the correct section of the mall - the
| next import round shouldn't undo that. Or maybe a store changes
| opening times but forgets to update their website - an editor
| can fix that, but the next import would break it again.
|
| I have a sort of "grey area" idea for this, but I haven't had
| the time to try it. Basically, I would track changes in
| AllThePlaces and create "change reports" such as "store X
| changed open times from AAA to BBB". Then, I'd make a UI that
| would show you the changed website alongside an OSM editor and
| a convenient "copy change" button.
|
| This way, a human is still the one looking at the website and
| entering info into OSM, which is essentially the same as in-
| person surveying. The copy button is "just a convenience".
|
| Still, I think this is too messy from a legal standpoint and
| the OSM editors wouldn't allow it out of caution...
| raybb wrote:
| Thanks for the great answer. Based on what I'm reading
| scraping a business website is probably fine in general but
| using data from Google Maps/Yelp/etc is generally not gonna
| fly.
|
| What I think could work is if everydoor allows you to create
| notes with photos
| (https://github.com/Zverik/every_door/issues/184) then it
| would be pretty easy to later go back and drop those photos
| into an AI tool and extra websites and try to create some
| tags for review. Could also work with Streetcomplete but
| there it's not easy to see if a POI already exists.
|
| In any case, I might experiment with this idea further. Some
| very basic testing shows me that Claude 3.5 Sonnet is pretty
| great at taking a photo of a menu turning it into decent
| tags.
|
| So if I could run around taking photos of menus and the
| outside of businesses then quickly turn them into tags later
| that would be a nice workflow for me (and hopefully others).
| sureIy wrote:
| The website is giving CSS IS AWESOME vibes
| https://imgur.com/a/wM7ZT2C
| butz wrote:
| I prefer fixing OSM issues listed on osmose.openstreetmap.fr.
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