Can StreetComplete be improved so users don't leave useless and unsolvable Notes?

[Matija_Nalis]

@qrisztly

opening hours: I’m not a fan.

They change often and unless someone methodically keeps them updated they are

(WARNING: choice of quests offered in SC is getting slightly overbroad for original intention of this topic; but here is my personal opinion anyway, since you mentioned it):

I generally agree, but “possible outdatedness” is a risk with many (if not all) things in OSM, not only opening_hours=*.

E.g. one might argue it is problematic mapping clothes shop or cafe either, when they quite often might be replaced tomorrow with a bookmaker or a pawnbroker.^[1]

In my opinion, such Sisyphus’s destiny is what every OSM mapper must come to terms with sooner or later – if they want to keep their sanity (in fact, it is why StreetComplete not only asks about missing attributes, but also about ones which might be outdated).

EveryDoor app with its checkmark functionality is even more tailored for quickly verifying (and recording verification date!) whether data on the ground is still correct (so great choice to use at least once a month in your neighbourhood!)

So, my suggestion to perspective OSM mappers would be: update things even more often then you map new ones!

often worthless, maybe even misleading.

Well, they are periodically asked to be resuveyed, and StreetComplete does specifically tag when opening_hours were last verified with check_date:opening_hours (and check_date) tag (see e.g. here).

That information can in turn then be used by data consumers (like e.g. CoMaps navigation app) and displayed to the user to let them decide how trustworthy that information is (“changed two weeks ago? I’ll trust it! Last update 16 year ago? Uh… highly questionable if place still exist, much less that the working hours are the same, best if I look them up online first”). Here is an random example how it might be conveyed to the end-user:

Much better and more useful IMHO than G***Maps, at least in this little corner of EU (where things which went out of business half a decade ago are still being happily listed there).

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1. at least over here those seem to taking over worryingly often! Sign of economy collapse, I’m told. But they are also often just replaced with something less sinister, or left vacant. ↩︎

[Matija_Nalis]

@Fizzie-DWG

Some form of indication to say that you’ve been looking “this direction” when you took the photo would be great!

Actually, that EXIF tag indicating direction (GPSImgDirection) is already present in JPG image headers (if the camera software you’re using is able to record it^[1]). However, you also need to put redacted GPS coordinates back in the picture for common tools (like JOSM) to display it.

Yes, I agree that it would be nicer if GPS coordinates were not redacted in StreetComplete (as there is not much point from privacy standpoint if you ask me^[2]), but I was not able to be convincing enough when it was being decided.

There are however tools external to StreetComplete which can put GPS coordinates automatically back in pictures (see SC #2880) or one can use SCEE which allows storing full-size unmodified pictures with full EXIF tags (including GPS lat/lon and viewing direction).

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1. FOSS OpenCamera if capable of that, but recent Android version no longer allow you to specify default camera, so unless your phone is rooted you might be stuck with whatever your OEM decided to ship ↩︎

2. since note itself which links to picture contain the coordinates! ↩︎

[Matija_Nalis]

@SomeoneElse

When you select the “overlays” button there’s some text that you have to click “next” on to get rid of before you can see what overlays actually are.

yeah those were the instructions you seemed to want

BTW, You can clear app data (after uploading your changes of course) if you want to see all tutorials again – but I’m aware that is an ugly workaround.

@SomeoneElse

Unfortunately then there is no obvious help and no link to any documentation.

Yeah. For better or the worse, StreetComplete does not really believe in documentation.^[1]

IOW, if something requires documentation to be able to use it properly, it is deemed not a good fit for StreetComplete (as its main selling point seems to be that people from the street can answer simple questions in their own language without any prior education or knowledge of OSM or anything else^[2] and still contribute useful data to OSM).

(so yeah, Overlays as they are already borderline and “advanced” feature).

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1. my subjective impression, but I’m just a humble contributor, not its BDFL ↩︎

2. beside basic phone skills like “click on the button to do what the button says” ↩︎

[onterof]

I assume most SC-users never change the country specific defaults, which is fair because hopefully these defaults have been carefully thought about … but if a user has a problem with answering a specific question wouldn’t it be a good idea to give them the option (or tell them how?) to disable this type of quest, i.e. pointing them towards the corresponding settings menu? Then if someone feels not entirely sure about how to proced with this quest type in general, they know how to ignore it - if they want - instead of thinking they they have to add a note to every occurence of it.

This is something I’ve sometimes encountered, where someone left a dozen notes on the same quest type in a small area and when asking for more details, they said they were not sure how to do this quest and instead left a note - which nobody is to blame for. I just think SC doesn’t make the option to disable (or for this enable, too) quest types very obvious for new users.

[InsertUser]

@Matija_Nalis

SCEE has something similar with its Add POI functionality on long-press (it does full id-tagging-schema presenting, i.e. not split into Things vs. Places vs. unsupported)

The Places vs Things thing is rather artificial anyway and had tripped me up on occasion.

@Matija_Nalis

IIRC that was suggested before, but not deemed good idea in SC.

Sometimes things change . If people are creating notes for missing features that already exists^[1] then better handling is probably needed.

@Matija_Nalis

I think it would probably be very confusing for majority of StreetComplete target audience (remember: they’re not supposed to know anything about OSM, and are not expected to even technically savvy persons in general)

No, but fundamentally all I’m saying is that if someone wants to add a thing then maybe it should show all the icons for things that SC knows about but isn’t currently showing as an intermediate step rather than just giving them a note option.

I don’t think maps being a little selective to avoid clutter is a particularly advanced topic^[2] and SC already includes overlays for these things, people just need a “reminder” that they exist. I think it would be nice if this was a bit more graceful than a dialogue that just tells someone they tapped the wrong place.

I can’t find the statistics^[3] but I think it’s still incredibly rare for someone’s first contribution to actually be with SC. IIRC most people have made at least one edit in iD first.

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1. do we have any statistics for this? ↩︎

2. in many apps, including SC, you can see things popping in an out of existence as you pan and zoom ↩︎

3. they might have been in a diary entry rather than on the wiki? Or I’ve just imagined seeing something at some point. ↩︎

[Matija_Nalis]

@onterof

but if a user has a problem with answering a specific question wouldn’t it be a good idea to give them the option (or tell them how?) to disable this type of quest, i.e. pointing them towards the corresponding settings menu?

Yes, that is a good idea. It is already explained in FAQ (that app links to) in SC FAQ: How can I hide a type of quest? but yeah, not everybody^[1] reads Frequently Asked Questions…

Thus, it has already been suggested in SC issue #6765: “Allow hiding a quest type from the Uh… menu” to make it more easy for the user to disable them, but we’re still brainstorming what would be the best place to put it (to help users who don’t want that particular quest, but not constantly nag everybody else who are fine with the quest).

Hopefully something will come out of it.

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1. talk about understatement of the year ↩︎

[OpenGreenStreet]

I would really like to see three options listed side by side instead of “Ah …”:

“Something else” | ‘Hide’ (for 15 minutes) | “Note”

or

“Something else” (with ‘Note’ in the submenu) | “Hide” (for 15 minutes)

(I had already submitted a suggestion on GitHub regarding “Hide,” but I can’t find it right now.)
Background: Almost every time(!) I use search chains—for example, when looking for restaurants—I run into the problem that the results aren’t displayed in the order I’ve set.

[OpenGreenStreet]

I always find the information I’m looking for (opening hours, restrooms, food options [vegetarian, vegan, etc.], etc.) in a different order each time.

[OpenGreenStreet]

In this particular case, it would be even better if queries could be moved to the end of a chain of queries (see the restaurant example). That way, you could answer the queries for which the necessary information is currently available.

[ja_geo]

The issue is real, Germany is drowning in StreetComplete-spam-notes. Anyway, I see three ways for improvement:

1. Make “Hide once” more prominent, as discussed here. (I prefer the term “Ignore,” but anyway)
2. Make “Things/Places overlay” more prominent, as discussed here.
3. Remind users of their old notes.

I think there is also great value in 3. In the field you are often busy and don’t want to mess with adding something new and at the same time deleting something old. A gentle reminder might reach you when you can spend the time. Also, a reminder can include the information on how to change things (use the overlay button or log in somewhere else or…). Frankly we could also discuss

4. Add an option for personal note including reminder.

But I don’t like that, one more function.