I have tried contacting the developers due to mapping of a big amount of gates in a settlement that popup up on the IHM map that were not connected to any way. I got a response about half a year layer with no accountability or any desire to improve.
They said they are using OSM like any other app.
I agree about the garbage and the usefulness of the data and I’m in favor or removing it.
The last mail I sent was January this year and I didn’t got any response to it.
Here’s the content of the mail thread, my question are in hebrew:
- האם זה נעשה ע"י האפליקציה שלכם
Anyone can enter anything they wish into OSM, and there’s no way for us to track or be aware of it. The app doesn’t trace users’ mapping values or hold them responsible for it.
Therefore, blaming the app for inserting junk into OSM is untrue, and all app users have to input the data manually. The data which we collect includes the total actions and types performed by a user for global statistics.
If you suspect any misuse of the app by a users or bot, please inform me, and I will investigate the matter for you.
- האם האפליקציה מוסיפה מידע ל-OSM
Yes. It’s not confidential; you can discover it in the app description.
- מה הבקרה שאתם עושים על המידע שהאפליקציה מכניסה?
I had the same question during the initial meeting, and here’s the response: “It’s the same as OSM = Anyone can enter anything they wish into OSM.” The app is simply another entertaining way to map objects around.
Each user has to use their personal OSM account to map things. Furthermore, users are typically junior high school students who passed a mapping guide with a Technion instructor.
.In case you want to make an appointment with the relevant person, let me know. I’ll inform them
.Be aware it’s not completely a project yet, and there’s always a window to improve
Moreover, it’s important to note that my response might not be entirely accurate and could potentially include mistakes. I am a student working on the IOS version.
Thank you for understanding,
Yosef.
Which I replied and got not answer:
The reason I asked the original question is that a lot of gates popped up on our map which uses OSM (this was a long time ago and it took me a while to remember why I sent the original email).
Below is a link and image to how it looks - a lot of these gates are not part of any road, which means that their mapping is probably incorrect or partial.
If this app is given to high school students I would like to ask that the instructor will do some verification of the work the students are doing, at least to verify that their first edits are valid and valuable.
While we too use OSM the same way, there’s a higher barrier to adding points to the map (beside login, the user needs to do a few clicks to upload a point to OSM), and especially for gates we try and find the closest highway in order to place the gate on it.
If the purpose of the app is not to add valuable information to OSM, I would recommend using their dev server and not the production server.
