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.

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WhyNotHugo 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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.

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SOLAR_FIELDS an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I get this perspective. But I also find the standards to be onerous. They were honestly fine until this one:

> Contact the relevant local communities affected by the contributions

Do I literally have to do new local community outreach every little town one of my bookcases shows up in? Ridiculous if so

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Aurornis 13 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Refers to OSM communities, not the literal physical local communities offline.

If every contribution required community outreach, we wouldn’t see any contributions.

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Doctor_Fegg an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Generally this means “national” and the sub-board on the OSM discussion forum.

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SOLAR_FIELDS 43 minutes ago | parent [-]

Okay, that’s slightly more reasonable it means if I’m going to be rolling stuff back into OSM in a new country I should at least have a quick chat and ensure what I’m doing abides by that country’s regulations etc like South Korea has some notorious law around data residency

	▲	ponorin 22 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> South Korea has some notorious law around data residency if you're talking about the export restrictions of map data, that only applies to official, government-managed geodata. OSM explicitly doesn't rely on any other maps, so the law doesn't apply.

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Dylan16807 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's not how I would summarize it. OSM is only giving them two options: apply to be treated as an automated sync source, or don't submit at all. They're willing to put in work and care but not to handle all the other complex barriers.

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maxerickson 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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...)

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greyb 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>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.

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zimpenfish 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Google is able to have such an up to date place database because it relies on a large quantity of crowdsourced submissions

Google denied our address existed[0] for years (which caused several problems with online shops that used Google Maps as the source of truth for address resolution) - took a good few tries to get them to actually add it.

Currently Google Maps is showing an "ALDI charging station" directly across the road when it is, in fact, about a mile down the road.

It's also showing a Chipotle just around the corner when, you'll not be surprised, there is no Chipotle there and, hilariously, the photo it has is of the Chipotle at the O2 Dome a good 10km away.

Absolute clusterfuck of nonsense is Google Maps.

[0] A 1960s London estate which was adequately represented on Google Maps and Streetview, mind.

	▲	michaelt 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's bizarre, isn't it? I work in a warehouse, and if you type our address into Google Maps, it puts the maker right on our building. But they also label the building as a pub, two buildings down the street. I've submitted corrections, and had a reply saying they were accepted. You can look on street view and the true location of both pub and warehouse are clearly visible, so there'd be no problem verifying my correction. Their map view includes the outline of the pub, as does their satellite view. The pub's been there 10 years, the warehouse since the 1990s. The Street View car has driven through the pub's car park three times. And yet, the pub marker stays in the wrong place.

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Doctor_Fegg 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Google employs _engineers_ to figure out the truth. If an import pipeline is causing problems, a higher-up can just say “stop doing that or we’ll stop your pay cheque”.

OSM doesn’t have that option. If it didn’t have these guardrails in place, a million CS students will see some open-looking data (or not even that, maybe something scraped) and throw it into OSM with a cursory Python script, resulting in an almighty mess. We need the process because we don’t have Google’s leverage of “we pay you”.

	▲	darren_ 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Google employs _engineers_ to figure out the truth. and people say hacker news has no sense of humour
	▲	londons_explore 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Another approach is to simply accept low quality data into the database, yet have some kind of filtering during the viewing stage. Eg. Draw me a map, but include only data points tagged with 'osm-license-verified-and-spam-filtered'. That way users of the data get to decide their own tradeoff between legal risks, data freshness, spam, etc.

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SchemaLoad 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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.

	▲	rixed 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I wouldn't use gmap as a benchmark for up to date POIs, at least in some European countries. And I'm not talking about inaccurate opening times; but about places that closed during Covid but are still on the map.