I'd say: the fediverse. Everyone can "broadcast" and discuss freely without having a central power that can censor or subtly manipulate the broader discussion.
This is correct. Tools might however display them slightly different, have different update schedules or make different cartographic choices (e.g. not showing node networks or something)
There are also various libraries to show OSM as background map on a website and allow you to draw features on top. Those support various formats (GPX, GeoJSON, ...) Leaflet and MapLibre are the biggest here, with leaflet being the easiest and MapLibre being very flexible and performant
Sure, a 'description' or 'name' tag can contain something inappropriate (like a slur of defamation). If it has high impact, it'll be reverted quickly. If it has little impact, not a big deal. Many tools don't even show the 'description' tag
Pictures are a whole other level. You need to blur faces and license plates. What if someones house is photographed? How to detect inappropriate images? Should one study the laws of all countries? Even the freedom of panorama contains many differences between European countries, let alone privacy rights, ...
The OSM foundation strictly keeps it with 'map data'. There are however many other, small projects that fill in the gap; for example 'Panoramax' for streetview imagery or lib.reviews for reviews. I've made a webapp that ties those services together (https://mapcomplete.org)
Keep in mind that Google Maps has a >1 billion yearly budget (citation needed, but other global maps have similar budgets)
Not involved in OM or CoMaps at all; but involved in OpenStreetMap.
> What do you mean, leaked? Isn't this a FOSS project?
The client-app (CoMaps/Organic Maps) indeed is fully FLOSS. It uses OSM data, but that data is packaged into a specific and optimized format. The code _generating_ this optimized data (and serving it to the clients) was kept proprietary.
If you want to do more advanced accessibility mapping, also have a look at https://mapcomplete.org/onwheels - same concept, but different implementation. Also OpenStreetMap based, so data you add there is shared amongst CoMaps, StreetComplete, ...
First: editing _attributes_ of geometries is totally possible, editing the _shape_ of geometries is not possible with MapComplete.
If one allows to edit shapes (aka: geometries), this means that one can draw or move lines around - for example: add/move a cyclepath. A contributor might thus move a line into another geometry (such as a building). But as MapComplete has focused maps, they might not be shown to this contributor!
Allowing to edit geomtry shapes this implies I should show all _other_ lines and polygons (e.g. forests, streams, buildings, ...) to avoid incorrect intersection.
The point of MapComplete is to keep it simple and focussed on a single topic. Showing all geometries is counter to that. On top of that, we already have an excellent tool which handles geometry drawing: the iD editor you'll find on openstreetmap.org/edit .
One could also argue that creating/moving points (which can be done with MapComplete) could also cause data errors; but the 'add new point'-wizard has some steps to invite to add with high accuraccy. And even if someone adds a point in a wrong location (e.g. in a building instead of outside of it), the impact of a misplaced point is generally way less then that of a misplaced line or area.
Editing attributes of relations is possible. Adding or deleting objects to relations might become possible one day. Editing geometries is out of scope for this project.
https://mapcomplete.org/etymology links objects (mostly streets, but also parks, schools, ...) to the Wikidata enitity of of what that street was _named_ after.
If the link is already there, it shows the relevant Wikipedia page. E.g. the 'Willow Street' would show the Wikipedia page on willows.
One of the major differences is that, in StreetComplete, an object is hidden from the view once all quests are done. That makes StreetComplete a 'contribution-only' tool. (This changed in recent years, where Westnordost created 'overlays'). StreetComplete was a major inspiration though.
In MapComplete, you will see _all_ objects (known in OSM) for a specific topic, wether or not there are unresolved questions. That makes it a tool for both using the data and contributing.
Another difference is that MapComplete started as a webapp (but there is a version packaged as Android app too); whereas StreetComplete is (for now) an Android-only app (iOS is in the works)
A more abstract difference is that MapComplete has some highly specialized questions.
At last, MapComplete has some integrations with other FLOSS-tools, such as:
- Wikidata/Wikipedia for additional pictures and articles
- Mangrove.reviews for reviews
- Panoramax to add pictures
- Mapilarry to link pictures to objects
- Plantnet to determine the tree species on https://mapcomplete.org/trees
Find me on mastodon: https://en.osm.town/@pietervdvn