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I have done more work on OpenSeaMap. It started with me being annoyed with plotters costing too much and ended in me using many hours to mark down rocks from satellite images.

It's still pretty basic and there is no good way of collecting water depth info, but fun to improve it.

Back in the old days I used an external GPS mouse connected to my phone via Bluetooth to track streets, writing down notes on every way point to later publish everything. Today still have of this area is there to look it up and I enjoy it everytime I

It's not even so much about F(L)OSS for me, it's mainly about privacy. Haven't contributed so far, but been using it through Organic Maps. OSM lacks no address in my town, and that's enough for me. I only need a map to get frow A to B, and I'd already know what's at B if I'm going there in the first place.

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've been contributing a lot via StreetComplete, what is also great is that you can use OSM offline!

I got very into it in the early days. Probably around 2007-2008, I was mapping parts of my large town in Australia. The data it had was pretty bad, with a lot of the roundabouts modelled as intersections and it didn't have any new streets. Every week I rode my bike around parts of town capturing GPS trails to mark the streets. I would manually import the points and model the roads and carefully model the roundabouts (the tooling was very basic back then, roundabouts were hard to make).

Then one day I logged in and noticed ALL my edits were gone. The whole state had been mass updated in one go, with new street data that was donated by some agency. But it was so bad. It had roads marked that didn't exist. Some new roads were marked but in the wrong place. And all the roundabouts were modelled as intersections again! I got so frustrated, I immediately logged off and I haven't contributed to OSM since then.

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.

I contribute where I can, nothing significant.

However, nothing beats Apple maps IMO. I have an iPhone which I hotspot data to and basically only use it as a GPS when driving. I can't use my Android device as I prefer using Apple CarPlay and GrapheneOS does not support Android Auto.

I use Magic Earth or OSMand when I don't have my iPhone with me.

I'm in the UK and open street map has mapped out my local area more accurately than google. It is marginal, but I stopped using google maps after a few issues: I was hiking and it directed me into a privately owned farm (claiming it is a permissive footpath).The farmer was very racist.

Another time I was directed through the middle of a primary school.

I did a little bit in my area, haven't had the motivation to start up again.

Long time ago, I did several villages where I grew up. This was before satellite images covered that area, so I did it the old fashioned way with a GPS, cycling up and down every single street, writing down name and surface in a notebook. Walked around every field, every patch of forest, creek, etc. It took years, but I've literally been everywhere in those villages. It was fun :) When aerial images came I could do private buildings too.

At one stage, all street names were removed from my city because of changes to the license osm was using. And my suburb was blank. I got on my bike with the app on my phone, and mapped it all over about 3 leisurely rides. And I can say I've been past every house in my suburb at least once 😁

I also have found it better for offroad riding and walking. Also did some track mapping offroad too.

I rarely use any maps, but OpenStreetMap is used by Rate Your Music to show where artists you've rated at least once came from.

Surprisingly in my area OSM is mapped down to individual trees. Definitely keep up the work, because it shines in areas where it's well mapped.

Organic Maps works really good.

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 used to contribute GPS-traces. But then good enough aerial photos became available for my country.

Now I contribute POIs. Last ones this week.

There used to be a mobile game that would have you go around and complete tasks to fill out the map (still might be idk). That's pretty much what google did with ingress

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

I got very into it in the early days. Probably around 2007-2008, I was mapping parts of my large town in Australia. The data it had was pretty bad, with a lot of the roundabouts modelled as intersections and it didn't have any new streets. Every week I rode my bike around parts of town capturing GPS trails to mark the streets. I would manually import the points and model the roads and carefully model the roundabouts (the tooling was very basic back then, roundabouts were hard to make).

Then one day I logged in and noticed ALL my edits were gone. The whole state had been mass updated in one go, with new street data that was donated by some agency. But it was so bad. It had roads marked that didn't exist. Some new roads were marked but in the wrong place. And all the roundabouts were modelled as intersections again! I got so frustrated, I immediately logged off and I haven't contributed to OSM since then.

I use it a lot. I'm finding things like hiking trails are more up to date than Google maps

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 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 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.

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

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've submitted a few corrections before. Garmin or Strava used it for mapping runs and I quite liked it because in my area their maps of trails were actually much more complete and up to date than Google maps. For example in one nature park the current trails were shown on osm but Google showed a completely different set. I later came across a really old and faded sign in the park that showed trails that lined up with what Google showed despite them not existing any more. The new trails WERE shown on a pdf the city provided on their website but I guess they must have never been submitted to Google or something. Fortunately there must have been some dedicated OSM users in my area who were inputting updates.

Use it and love it. I live in the countryside and google just doesn't bother capturing footpaths. Using OSM (I use OpenMultiMaps for Android) I can see contour maps, much clearer transport maps, footpaths, and pretty much anything else I need. Occasionally the notes people write have been handy too, for example for marking footpaths that are poorly maintained or turb into a swap in rain

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

I enjoy editing my hometown and have been doing it for about twelve years. But my town is already pretty complete, so I check in every six months or so to change minor details like shops or adding a new bench in the park. In total I'm not even at 200 edits, but I always enjoy seeing those edits back in major tools that use OSM.