Aurornis5 hours ago
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.
WhyNotHugo3 hours ago
This is partially because they import into their own system, and then export->import into OSM. At that point, they're considered an integration which imports data.
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.
greyb3 hours ago
>A project like OSM would be bombarded with spam and junk submissions if it didn’t have these barriers to submission.
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 The barriers to submissions are honestly more likely to cause object and amenity level data to become out of date.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.
SchemaLoadan hour ago
Having out of date public book boxes isn't really that big of a deal, at least compared to the massive amounts of broken entries, duplicates, and incorrectly licensed data that would end up from free and unrestricted bulk imports.
As it is today you can largely expect OSM POI data to be incomplete or out of date unless you have someone particularly keen on keeping your local area up to date.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.
maxerickson3 hours ago
It's not really considered an import if a person is looking at all of the changes. They would just need a clear license from their users.
(an import is when there isn't complete review...)
ryukoposting4 hours ago
To be clear to folks not familiar with OSM:
These restrictions are unique to projects doing automated submissions of mass data.
If you're an individual just trying to make the world a better place, you can make an OSM account, go to the website, click, add a thing, hit submit, done. Someone will review it.
Apps like CoMaps and Organic Maps make it super easy to contribute data for businesses, landmarks, and such.
zx80804 hours ago
> you can make an OSM account, go to the website, click, add a thing, hit submit, done. Someone will review it.
I will share an unpopular opinion: thil will only make a freeworkforce for those projects who profit from using OSM. And the OSM has surprisingly unreliable data quality for walking around even in the popular tourist places like Tokyo or Kyoto, or New York. I've tried, and it's so worse than GMaps (or Bing) to being completely unusable. No work hours of Starbucks, no local dining cafe, no menu contributions.
It's great for the trail and hike outdiors, sure. But that's very different from the city map, as the nature featutes rarely change, not like city POIs.
mikeocool4 hours ago
One of the nice things about OSM is you can profit from it from it if you want to.
I don’t think you’ll find even most the die hard OSM fan disagree with you on the POI data.
On the other hand, the road network in OSM is very high quality. As you point out, it’s used and contributed to by companies like Lyft and Amazon.
The fact that anyone can download an accurate detailed global road network for free is pretty crazy.
nemomarx3 hours ago
This is kinda what StreetComplete is supposed to help with, right? it asks me questions about opening and closing hours of cafes and things.
I would assume that tourist places don't have many locals going by and updating them and tourists don't want to fill in info on that kind of app, but that's mostly an adoption question. If more people contributed more info would be mapped.
ygraan hour ago
Yeah, StreetComplete helps both with adding the data in the first place and then keeping is current, since it will also ask those questions again after a while (which also gives an opportunity to check whether a feature still exists). What's less visible there is whether a cafe exists at all – it's not as good to add missing objects as it is for filling in details of existing objects, at least for the casual user.
MikeNotThePope4 hours ago
It's fine to make a project that will only be interesting if people choose to contribute, and it's fine if people want to contribute.
boredatoms4 hours ago
> No work hours of Starbucks, no local dining cafe, no menu contributions.
This moves the goal posts of OSM
ygraan hour ago
Well, those things can be added:
- opening_hours=*
- amenity=cafe
- website:menu=*
florkbork2 hours ago
This is trivial to navigate. Use the notes API to post the likely presence of a public bookcase with details (link to image, description, etc); and the community will slowly ingest the contributions.
Or set up a maproulette challenge with much the same detail.
Or just a geojson dump under an ODBL licence and share with with relevant communities. The third one or something very like it is required if you have mixed ODBL with non ODBL content.
arjie5 hours ago
This makes sense, but I wish there was a generally accepted way to share geospatial data and POI data against OSM IDs. e.g. I want to be able to add overlays for noise level, etc. and I find the whole thing too fragmented. The OSM way seems to be the right way, but no one seems to do it. You just maintain your own DB with an optional OSM POI entity identifier etc.
I suppose if you want something badly enough you have to do it yourself, but it's not that the thing doesn't exist though it doesn't seem to. It's that I want others to want it too :)
altairprime3 hours ago
Can you simply write overlays as GOL files and load them from non-OSM URLs? Assuming you use the appropriate coordinate grid you won’t need POIs to layer the relevant data, and if you choose to annotate OSM’s POIs further, you can save those annotations as a personal GOL that you optionally share with others, and that also enables cross-referencing derivations if you use (unverified: trust isn’t the point, uniqueness is) signing key fingerprint as the GOL author GUID.
DoctorOetker4 hours ago
I've always been confused why OSM doesn't design a cheap open source stereo imager, some finetuned modern YOLO neural network could detect and blur the glass parts of windows, doorbells, nameplates and humans in the scene.
It could use GPS for rough geolocation, and 3D models of all the scenery could be generated. New contribution traces would contain changes compared to the past. Volunteers could request new paths it would like to see explored, and OSM could propose paths that cut through or ride along segments of recently submitted recordings of other users, to check if those changes are real, without checking the whole suspected recording.
Separate ground truth recording from its interpretation into mappable concepts, going out to make a recording or observation is a different task from deciding how to canonicalize the content.
nullisland004 hours ago
It’s a volunteer org. Sounds like you’re volunteering to build that and pay for the imagery etc. Let us know when you’re done.
nemomarx3 hours ago
Well, first step here is to demonstrate that you can do that neural network part. I think that would be a really valuable tool for more projects than openstreetmaps - google might even want to buy it.
childofhedgehog3 hours ago
I think the piece I’m confused most about is why the little free library website’s map isn’t the place to log little free libraries. That being said, it makes sense that OSM has guidelines like this in place to ensure the data quality stays, well, quality.
argee3 hours ago
I feel like having such a map at all is kind of antithetical to building community. Shows you don't care enough to take a stroll in your 'hood to find such a one by happenstance (or to find neighbors to populate yours) and are hunting them down to share your self-published slop or something. Besides, it makes things a hell of a lot easier for griefers and trolls.
mips_avatar5 hours ago
I appreciate OSM for maintaining a higher data quality bar than other projects (Overture places are mostly junk outside of USA), but it's also just artificially limiting itself by not allowing streamlined paths to data contributions.
gopher_space3 hours ago
It seems like the path is streamlined once they know who you are.
This sort of feels like a generational thing but I would have flown over.
phoronixrly5 hours ago
The streamlined path has always been to verify your contributions in the field. Everything else is of dubious quality.
Brian_K_White2 hours ago
It is streamlined for individuals, and I have no interest in it being streamlined for anything else.
I'd rather no data than bad data. There is no seperate baby & bath water. If a bulk source of data contains an unknown mix of good and bad data, that is all one big single item of bad data that is of no use to anyone.
stmw2 hours ago
Good product management is mostly about saying No.
sampton5 hours ago
OSM needs a way to ingest "signals" instead of edits.
Maxious4 hours ago
OSM has the notes feature which sounds like what OP should have used
> Example of a valid and useful note can be "a new road was constructed here" or "this shop is closed and does not exist anymore".
farfatched4 hours ago
Yes, the data source is clearly useful, so not having it is a loss. But an edit is large enough a privilege to require all these checks.
Perhaps it's not that OSM that needs a signal, but perhaps it's that there's an opportunity for an open map that has many signals, of which OSM and Book Corners are examples.
Gigachad4 hours ago
Laying your own datasets on top of OSM is probably the most common use case. OSM isn't much of a replacement to Google and Apple maps as it is a way to build your own custom maps.
dartharva3 hours ago
You could try pinging an OSM dev to see if they're willing to take over the work laterally before calling it quits
[deleted]an hour agocollapsed
aaron6952 hours ago
[dead]
Tiberium5 hours ago
[flagged]
jburbank5 hours ago
I highly doubt that. What tells do you see that lends to probability of it being llm generated content?
Is it possible that we (myself included) have become conditioned to think content is llm generated as the default opinion?
asdf889904 hours ago
The article is definitely write or at least rewritten or heavily editorialised by an LLM. You can confirm this by skimming the author’s previous articles and compare it to this one, specially pre-2021.
Tiberium3 hours ago
Come on, the LLM language is all over the article:
> The workflow I had in mind was deliberately cautious
> The code was not the difficult part.
> These requirements are not a one-time form to complete and forget. They create an ongoing responsibility around the account, the documented process, community feedback, failures, and potential reversions.
Just a few examples. And yes, Pangram 4 also flags it as 100% LLM written. I don't mind being downvoted or flagged, but I think more people should be aware of the LLM style, even if they're ok with it being used without any disclaimer. It's honestly sad that nowadays people on HN cannot recognize this style.
phoronixrly5 hours ago
The way the text flows, the section headings that have zero creativity...
Demiurge5 hours ago
What a funny LLM-written comment. Could be true, but can’t trust those LLMs. :)
mxfh5 hours ago
Also I don't get the point why you would want them easily scrapeable to begin with. If you have eyes to read and can walk across YOUR neighborhoods, you would have eventually seen one. I thought that was the whole point? They are not exactly hidden. I find those public bookcase incidental low barrier offerings to a reading exprience you just stumble upon, nothing you would seek out on a map.
Why would you want to have more people from anywhere else possibly raid them for anything useful? This way nobody is inclined to put anything worthwhile in there if it just ends up outside of their communities. Not that I'm in general pessimistic, just would like to know what is gained by putting the exact location into a map and not just have a list of neigborhoods with a book corner and optional photo on that neigborhood level, if people want to network around them.
Gigachad4 hours ago
Those people traveling to them are probably just as likely to put something in as a more local passer by. And I'm not sure why I would care that someone the next suburb over read my book. As long as someone is enjoying it, that's the whole point of donating.
neilv4 hours ago
Recently it's seemed like (very roughly) half the Little Free Libraries I see aren't in OSM.
I sometimes edit OSM, so I'm wondering whether any public bookshelf omissions are intentional, and adding the shelves would be unwelcome by the people running them.
ikr6782 hours ago
The few places I have seen book nooks like this, they end filled up with religious literature which is usually not the intent of the person who started it.