Will making trail changes show up over on alltrails.com, how long?

fixthatriail · 2020-08-27T02:06:52.000Z

Hey all! I’m new here and would REALLY appreciate any help you’ll kindly give me! I’ll try to keep it short as I can while giving the background too.

So I came here because I was told about the website alltrails (AT from now on) by a friend since I was trying to find as many possible hiking trails in the area as I could. Long story sort I found that there are TONS of very incorrectly marked trails in my area… including ones that go right through people I know VERY well’s private property! And I know 100% that there are no trails, tracks or anything in those areas and really wanted to get them removed ASAP as they are misleading to others looking for trails as well as all the other legal problems to boot with people trespassing on private property, etc., etc.

Going through AT’s help I then figured out it’ll do no good to contact them since they use openstreetmap data, so I came here, made an account and quickly fixed up a few of the most misleading “trails” in my area.

The changes were made on the 24th and seem to be updated now fully I think on OSM, but still no changes on AT site. I did notice if I change to the cycle or the OPNVKarte layers the map still shows up as it was before my changes… could they get data from those and how can I fix that?
.
Anybody know how long it might take for a third party site like theirs in general to update with the changes? Or could there be something or things I’m missing in order to make sure the changes will show up there?

Thanks so much for any help or advice, I really do appreciate it, truly want to avoid any issues that might arise in the future for both people I do and don’t know when it comes to hiking in my area if I have the ability to do something about it!

Sandal_man · 2020-08-27T10:25:54.000Z

In my experience it takes one to tree days, just be patience.

fixthatriail · 2020-08-27T15:43:40.000Z

Sandal man:

In my experience it takes one to tree days, just be patience.

Yeah, it’s been just about 3 days so hopefully it’ll all update in a day or two then. Thanks for the reply! Good to know that I’ve probably done everything the right way then too.

fixthatriail · 2020-09-01T16:28:11.000Z

Well all the trails that I’ve edited still have not updated at all over on alltrails even after a week. My guess is they are using some other data? Very frustrating because they say in their FAQ to not contact them about any map errors that you should contact OSM… really frustrating when you are trying help people out and you can’t even do it they way they tell you to.

Anybody know if I need to contact someone on the OSM team then to fix at least the most pressing major issues I have, like the couple trails showing up on the private land of people I know?!

Thanks, guess I might need to start a new thread since I doubt many people will see this now.

RicoElectrico · 2020-09-01T16:36:20.000Z

You have to understand that all the companies that use OSM data can refresh their OSM data whenever they want. It’s up to them to do this. So contact alltrails instead.

Sandal_man · 2020-09-01T17:16:02.000Z

Can you give the link to your edits.
Did you clear your browser cache?

fixthatriail · 2020-09-01T17:35:25.000Z

Sandal man:

Can you give the link to your edits.
Did you clear your browser cache?

Yeah, all the changes show up fine on OSM… except for the OPNVKarte layer. I’m new so I don’t understand the use of this layer so maybe it’s suppose to be that way.

If you think links would help something I can provide them to you just not sure exactly what you would need. Guessing the link from inside my profile for the time I edited this track in question?

fixthatriail · 2020-09-01T17:39:39.000Z

RicoElectrico:

You have to understand that all the companies that use OSM data can refresh their OSM data whenever they want. It’s up to them to do this. So contact alltrails instead.

Yeah, this is what I figure… and fear cause I’m pretty sure they don’t give a crap or at least it’ll take a ridiculous amount of effort to get them to actually do anything. Which is why I did decide to just join OSM in the first place and fix it myself cause I knew it would actually take less effort to do it this way, too bad it seems they don’t update very often at all or that they even do something different from just updating to the new data on OSM.

Sandal_man · 2020-09-01T17:48:15.000Z

You can link to the edit you made like this
https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/445250362

SomeoneElse · 2020-09-01T17:56:45.000Z

If AllTrails (or any other app) are “just doing it wrong” then I’d suggest contacting their support, in this case https://support.alltrails.com/hc/en-us/articles/360020311672-How-do-I-contact-Customer-Support-. The more people who do that (especially paying customers) the more likely they are to change it.

I’m not an AllTrails user, but (with an OSM Data Working Group hat on) have contacted them a couple of times about various things, including the advice they give to their users. Other apps (such as MAPS.ME, which I have no connection with either) have tried to make sure they include their users in the OSM community rather than distancing them from it, and AllTrails have made positive noises about getting better about this.

I’m not a fan of their map style, but I can understand to an extent how it is as it is - I guess they’re trying to differentiate their “curated” trails from everything else on the map.

Andy (from the DWG, but speaking in a personal capacity).

fixthatriail · 2020-09-01T18:29:07.000Z

Sandal man:

You can link to the edit you made like this
https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/445250362

My guess is it’s this one: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/16724125

But I guess since I removed the edit someone made it doesn’t show the original anymore so not sure it’s any use to you (or I just can’t find it). To be clear the track that was indicated on the map does not exist at all, it’s not even an old unmaintained track, trail or anything, just woods on private land marked with signs on the entry road to the property and the owner is in my family.

SomeoneElse · 2020-09-01T18:37:24.000Z

fixthatriail:

My guess is it’s this one: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/16724125

But I guess since I removed the edit someone made it doesn’t show the original anymore so not sure it’s any use to you (or I just can’t find it). To be clear the track that was indicated on the map does not exist at all, it’s not even an old unmaintained track, trail or anything, just woods on private land marked with signs on the entry road to the property and the owner is in my family.

That hasn’t been edited since the TIGER import - and lots of those don’t reflect reality. There are unfortunately quite a few of those left in the USA.

fixthatriail · 2020-09-01T18:42:59.000Z

SomeoneElse:

If AllTrails (or any other app) are “just doing it wrong” then I’d suggest contacting their support, in this case https://support.alltrails.com/hc/en-us/ … r-Support-. The more people who do that (especially paying customers) the more likely they are to change it.

Yeah guess I’ll probably have to, just don’t have a lot of confidence since I’m not a paying customer.

SomeoneElse:

I’m not a fan of their map style, but I can understand to an extent how it is as it is - I guess they’re trying to differentiate their “curated” trails from everything else on the map.

I agree, the major problem that I have is that all “tracks” from OSM (as far as I can tell and maybe other stuff too) show up as trails with indicated lengths as if they are all fine to go walk since there is no indications if something is private, public or what have you. Per their FAQ everything on their map with a dashed line is a trail… seems very irresponsible in general to the public at large. If everyone used common sense it probably just wouldn’t even matter, but here in America common sense is sadly not as common as it should be I guess (or people just don’t care).

Sandal_man · 2020-09-01T18:47:15.000Z

Do you use the osm map on all trails?
I don’t see any difference between osm and the osm map on alltrails?

fixthatriail · 2020-09-01T18:53:33.000Z

SomeoneElse:

That hasn’t been edited since the TIGER import - and lots of those don’t reflect reality. There are unfortunately quite a few of those left in the USA.

Good to confirm what I suspected that it wasn’t edited by a user on OSM at least.

And yeah that’s why I’ve decided to clean up in my area everything that I can verify since I’ve decided to dig deeper in to local area trails, just figure it’d be nice for anybody after me to not have to waste their time going around to find out these don’t exist or that they are marked private “no trespassing”!

fixthatriail · 2020-09-01T18:58:10.000Z

Sandal man:

Do you use the osm map on all trails?
I don’t see any difference between osm and the osm map on alltrails?

No I’m just using the default map layers when you jump to the explore tab and look at the map. I’m not a member or anything. Are you saying the map I’m looking at isn’t getting it’s data from OSM? If that’s the case obviously I’ll have to contact them, which it looks like I’ll probably have to anyhow, unless I just give up.

Sandal_man · 2020-09-01T19:23:05.000Z

The other maps depends from OSM but it can take much longer before the are updated, until 1 month.

fixthatriail · 2020-09-01T19:30:19.000Z

Sandal man:

The other maps depends from OSM but it can take much longer before the are updated, until 1 month.

Okay that’s probably the case then. I may not worry with contacting AT then until a month or so since it isn’t overly pressing and I’d rather just do the work my self on OSM anyhow.

Thanks for the info!

SomeoneElse · 2020-09-01T21:41:59.000Z

Sandal man:

Do you use the osm map on all trails?
I don’t see any difference between osm and the osm map on alltrails?

Well, there are lots of different OSM maps. None of the five map layers on openstreetmap.org are designed as trail maps. Examples of ones that are are https://www.thunderforest.com/maps/outdoors/ and https://hiking.waymarkedtrails.org/, although each shows different features of the underlying data. Each of these maps (the two just mentioned, the five at osm.org, AllTrails, and lots of others, including the Mapbox ones you see in all sorts of places) are all “osm maps”, but they’re choosing to highlight different elements of the data. Unfortunately the AllTrails one doesn’t highlight information that I’d consider pretty essential for a trail map, such as “is this feature unmodified TIGER data and therefore may not actually exist” and also the quite important “am I actually allowed to walk down here”.

fixthatriail · 2020-09-01T22:32:05.000Z

SomeoneElse:

Unfortunately the AllTrails one doesn’t highlight information that I’d consider pretty essential for a trail map, such as “is this feature unmodified TIGER data and therefore may not actually exist” and also the quite important “am I actually allowed to walk down here”.

AGREED

And potentially pretty dangerous for any number of reasons.