alt Hacker NewsContributing to Open Street Map has given me a ton of satisfaction. Knowing that my somewhat minor efforts to correct one address, add one feature, correct one trail will propagate to so many different places and help other people not get lost, find something new, or just be able to navigate more safely in the world makes me feel like I am leaving the world a better place more than a decade of working at FANG ever did.
Replies
THIS. My comment is somewhat tangential but I thought still relevant. I used to work for huge financial investment company with over a trillion dollars of assets for over 10 years. I never thought I was making positive difference in people's lives. However, my job offered me so many opportunities to volunteer and I would jump on every single one of those, and that made working there totally worthwhile. I still work for another huge company these days, which offers similar opportunities to make a difference in the community and that is what keeps me going here too.
There is something to be said about building tools out of kindness and not for greed. Thank you for your contributions to OSM and Thank you OSM developers too - big fan and user!
True, I use mapcomplete or streetcomplete to kill time when traveling. I use public transport a lot. I've racked up thousands of minor edits, addi g opening hours, accesability info and what not to the map. It's been very satifactory.
I work in public service and I've grotten so many people on board that the map in my region is pretty darned good.
How is that different than Google or Bing? Don’t get me wrong OSM is great.
I want to start contributing. I want to add some hiking trails that are not mapped around where I live. However, the process seems a bit complicated. Is there any documentation you can provide for how to contribute to OSM?