Linux

Yes, not only do I map, I show it to friends and how useful it is to me in specific situations. Bing and apple use osm data just like tomtom or many governments and many apps.

To me, spreading the word is more important than mapping. But I have to map in order to show how good it is. Moreover, it forces me to go out and hike and bike. That's awesome!

I had to make a full overhaul of my area but now it's awesome. I couldn't have done it without others, thank you guys as well!

Used: yes

Contributed: no

I know I know, I am sorry. Just started using it a few months ago (through Organic Maps on iOS), and honestly have started using it more than Google/Apple Maps. This is a good reminder for me so get off my ass and start contributing.

Yeah I have made many changes in my area. I also find it kinda therapeutic as well.

I've thought about trying it before, but this thread is both inspiring me and giving me some info to get started (apps, etc). Is there a handy guide somewhere for a beginner that would explain some of the terminology, some of the most needed info, etc?

I contribute as much as I can, mostly through StreetComplete. I see it as a hobby when it isn't too hot/cold outside, to take a walk around my area and map houses and addresses. I find it super important

My company actually partially sponsors an OpenStreetMap mapathon through our volunteering initiative. I’ve probably put in around 3 or 4 hours this year contributing to maps, though specifically developing countries with incomplete mapping and recent natural disasters.

Edit: I am US based.

I think I used to wardrive around and add open wifi hotspots to that system when I was like 18/19. I had Linux on a laptop and had gotten a crazy wifi antenna and a USB GPS module (along with some less than legal software to crack WEP encryption) and would drive around in my van looking for routers I could hop onto and map which ones worked and had internet.

I'm not sure what map software I was using though. It was some open source thing, and the name sounds really familiar.

I use organic maps, based on openstreetmap, it has more information than i expected but still much less than google. It’s almost on par with apple maps where I live, both significantly worse than google.

I used OSM tiles when creating webmaps sometimes and they can be great.

That said it's coverage is inconsistent. This area around a highschool has really high detail footprints for the houses so I think it might have been part of their IT class at some point.

https://imgur.com/a/8PA8xBS

It brings me a lot of joy to contribute to OSM. I haven't written anything other than the occasional script for years, so it feels good to help the community in ways like this instead.

I've sunk so many hours into it. Either "armchair mapping" with OSM and the imagery overlays, or (more fun) wandering with the android Street Complete app to fill in gaps when I'm out and about.

Me and it was so cool. My (approx 25k inhabitant) town had like 5 roads and one of them was completely wrong. I rode ~20km every few days on a bicycle trough all streets, uploaded gpx and drew roads. I think it was around 200+km to draw all streets, but the end result was so satisfying.

I have updated plenty of poi data since then, i love the idea that data is open and can be used by anyone. Yes, there are better and more feature complete solutions, but this one is about community. Btw osm had more frequent updates and when there were major road construction in our capital city, all navigatiom systems but osm were useless, it updated on a daily basis and was always accurate.

The power of community, we can only make it better.

I've contributed but not a lot. Mapped out my local area, counted the number of stair steps, mapped out trails... Very good thing imo. OsmAnd~ is a very good tool.

Thank you very much for your efforts, there’s a lot of inertia about mapping places with low amounts of detail. Remember to reach out to your local OSM communities for advice, and the OSM wiki.

I live in an area that was next to perfect when I first learned about OSM, so I had no real reason to contribute. I have seen their maps used by our public transport to show the way to/from stops (or even inside them on the particularly large ones).

This just reminded me that I can in fact contribute and I will check out the iOS options for doing so.

OsmAnd actually works pretty well in my experience, at least in the UK. It's not always up to date or fully-detailed but it's far from useless and I appreciate that. It's my primary map program on my phone.

Contributed a very little. Been using it ina Top metro city for .ore than a year. Heavily reliable.

Yes, I've populated most of my local area, and every time I go for a walk or bike ride, I add as much detail that I can. I also find it very enjoyable and it's pretty cool to see features I added show up in all kinds of mapping services that use its data

Osm now has the clearest and most detailed maps for walking that I know, and I use them in preference to the UK's ordnance survey maps, which don't scale so well on electronic devices.

I have, using OSMAnd on iOS. Here in Puerto Rico there are quite a good amount of map details already.

I'll sometimes contribute when I'm travelling to more rural areas which are less likely to be well mapped. The experience in my country has been that cities are very well mapped on OpenStreetMaps with a lot of detail, often having more up to date information than Google Maps. Less populated areas usually don't have as much detail, but the basics, like roads and buildings are usually well mapped.

I've also noticed OpenStreetMaps is awesome for trails and smaller roads used by hikers, usually being much more useful than Google Maps.

I do a lot, we also use the OpenStreetMap data for my work. I enjoy it but it's definitely lacking in some areas, and there's no app that really comes close to being a Google Maps replacement sadly.