#FreeSoftwareAdvent day 5: StreetComplete
StreetComplete is an Android app that displays local data from OpenStreetMap, and asks questions to improve/update the data.
I joined OpenStreetMap in 2006, back when many roads simply weren't mapped. I remember reading an article (probably around that time) which predicted that OpenStreetMap would get progressively out of date.
The author said that adding new things to the map was fun and exciting, but there were challenges with keeping the map up to date.
First, people wouldn't want to fire up something as big as JOSM just to make a small change. Second, updating the map was much less interesting, so people wouldn't bother.
The inevitable result, the author said, would be that OpenStreetMap's data would degrade and it would gradually become unusable.
StreetComplete addresses that issue by making it easy and fun to keep the map up to date. You can't use it to add a missing road to the map, but you can use it to add details like whether or not the road has lighting.
It will also periodically check that things are correct, so when StreetComplete asks "Is this rubbish bin still here?" and the user selects "No", the bin is removed from the map.
I've made over 19,000 edits using StreetComplete. If I'd had to use JOSM, I wouldn't have done most of them. It's an excellent app, and I thoroughly recommend it.
