Enthralled by OpenStreetMap

In something that should not surprise anyone, I have spent the last two or so months mapping on OpenStreetMap (OSM) almost completely out of nowhere.

Based on data from this website, I am apparently among the top 400 mappers on the project in the United States in the last two months. I just started around that long ago, so it is remarkable for me to see how quickly my changes have piled up as I map my hometown. Now granted, the OSM community is not nearly as large or active in the United States,^[1] but I’m still quite happy with my progress.

I mostly started alone, but I actually very recently roped two friends into mapping too. One is a lot more active than the other, but that’s alright. He seems to enjoy mapping his own hometown. I see him make a lot of beginner mistakes but he’s learning fast. A friend of mine on ATProto, Xan, also started doing some edits recently when I posted about OSM because they forgot they had an account. It’s nice to see my mapping bring in some new contributors; as to whether they (or I for that matter) will last, we’ll just have to see.

Why am I mapping so much? Hate Google, simple as. But being a little bit less blunt, Google Maps has some of the most blatantly incorrect map details I’ve ever seen. Some of it is slightly excusable, like a road-shaped marking on the ground being mapped as a road, even if it’s just a proposed road that hasn’t been built yet. I’d get why an algorithm makes that mistake. I don’t get how it hallucinates a road THROUGH a major section of the high school. That part of the building consequently DOES NOT EXIST on the map anymore.

I would show screenshots but unfortunately I’m not going to figure out images on my blog right now. Seems like too much work for me at 21:00 (I will be up late working on shit anyway…). But seriously, Google botches the map in several areas to a ridiculous degree. Part of me thinks it’s probably better to have no data than bad data, so…

So yeah. Maps. Love ‘em. Go map your community, I bet there’s things missing. Open knowledge is awesome and cool and freely licensed information benefits everyone. We should not have to be dependent on corporations like Google for a goddamn map of our communities.