As I was passing through Amsterdam, OSM lied to me several times. I don’t have the tools and means to correct the maps for various complex reasons starting with not having a good Internet connection, but really an Amsterdam local should get involved anyway because I’m not sure of all these problems.
Misinfo:
- Brouwerij Troost (52.36616°N, 4.87318°E) ← shutdown
- Manamana (52.35410°N, 4.89033°E) ← apparently shutdown; someone should verify
- Hecke Electronica (52.35243°N, 4.88725°E) ← shutdown; owner retired. It should be updated to say “/Formerly/ Hecke Electronica” until something replaces it
- Flower Burger (52.37226°N, 4.88566°E) ← replaced with a /cashless/ croissant shop.
- CT Coffee & Coconuts (52.35267°N, 4.89150°E) ← replaced with another similar shop. Not sure if other Coffee & Coconuts locations closed or just this one.
Missing info:
- Bierfabriek Amsterdam (52.37007°N, 4.89375°E) ← cashless¹!
- Brouwerij De Engel (52.37007°N, 4.89375°E) ← building is rightfully unnamed since the brewery was only there a couple years before bankruptcy. It should be updated to say “/Formerly/ Brouwerij De Engel” so people actually know the brewery is no longer there, until something else is established there.
¹ When a cashless merchant sells alcohol, it’s a trap and an injustice. Having records of alcohol consumption stupid and reckless because it denies consumers their GDPR Art.5 right to data minimisation. And it has consquences. E.g. a scandinavian home buyer was denied a loan because the bank discovered he bought alcohol regularly. Anyway, there will always be dumb consumers who pay for alcohol electronically, but in the very least OSM should mark cashless bars as cashless so wise consumers can easily avoid them. I walked out of my way to visit Bierfabriek only to discover they were cashless. Unlike other cashless bars, they were at least diligent about posting it.
If you just found this few in a city of several million people it means amsterdam is very well mapped, good job local mappers!
You should leave a note on the openstreetmap website, so local editors can find this bugs easily. Go to openstreetmap.org find the places there, rightclick, add a note, and write your problem. You can do this without registration, the barrier of entry is as low as possible deliberately, so those like you can report the problems easily.
Also don’t call this misinfo, it’s usually simply outdated data. Osm is updated by volunteers mostly, you can’t speak to a manager.
If you just found this few in a city of several million people it means amsterdam is very well mapped, good work local mappers!
I verified roughly ~15 or so data points during a day visit. So statistically ~8 out of ~15 does not look great for such a heavily travelled city.
You should leave a note on the openstreetmap website,
I tried to register there at some point and could not complete the process. I did not note exactly what the issue was but most likely I failed a humanity check, which is usually my problem given my low tolerance for those checks as well.
You can do this without registration, the barrier of entry is as low as possible deliberately, so those like you can report the problems easily.
Oh, interesting… good tip! I’ll be making use of that for sure.
Also don’t call this misinfo, it’s usually simply outdated data.
Misinfo is the correct term. It’s not just old info, it’s also wrong info.
50% only is very good. Trust me, I have 5000+ edits on osm.
Local mappers rarely visit tourist places, as they are for tourists mostly, so it would be very very useful if you would add these notes. Shops change there frequently as well, unlike for example shops in villages or residential areas. Last week I surveyed a local restaurant street, and 70-80% of restaurants were outdated, all of them changed owners only in the last 2 years.
The word misinfo has a connotation that it’s deliberately wrong, which is definitly not the case here. Your post sounds like someone vandalised the map there, which happens a lot of times, but I guess it’s not what happened here.
As osm is a huge open data project we have to deal with a lot of bad actors, hence the checks, but afaik you can even sign up with a temporary email, but I’m not sure about current limitations, I registered more than a decade ago.
afaik you can even sign up with a temporary email
My notes show that I supplied an
@sharklasers.comdisposable email address. Most likely the confirmation msg never arrived.
As I see you haven’t created notes for these problems yet, I created them for you. You can see them here:
- https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/4743334
- https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/4743340
- https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/4743344
- https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/4743351
I updated Bierfabriek Amsterdam from your description, in this changeset: https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/165840808
Flower Burger was already updated in March to the croissant shop, so you used outdated map data in your app, osm was already fixed months ago. See the history of the node here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/1348523661/history
I didn’t updated Brouwerij De Engel, as on osm we map only what is currently there. You can check the history of already mapped objects, but mapping what was there is not the scope of the project. If the old name is still visible on the building than it can be mapped, if the signs are already removed, it has no place on osm: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Good_practice#Don’t_map_historic_events_and_historic_features
As I see you haven’t created notes for these problems yet, I created them for you. You can see them here:
Thanks! I was planning to, but I don’t get online often.
Flower Burger was already updated in March to the croissant shop, so you used outdated map data in your app, osm was already fixed months ago.
OSMand broke old devices by making them dependant on a non-updatable cert authority and forcing TLS. So anyone with AOS older than 7 can no longer update maps using the app (even if they run the latest version of OSMand that works on their device). My workaround has been to manually fetch the map (e.g. `Netherlands_noord-holland_europe_2.obf.zip) from https://osmand.net/list.php. The zip file I unpacked and side-loaded was dated April 16th, 2025. So it’s unclear why the update from months ago did not make it into the maps being distributed at https://osmand.net/list.php.
If the old name is still visible on the building than it can be mapped, if the signs are already removed, it has no place on osm: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Good_practice#Don’t_map_historic_events_and_historic_features
I wouldn’t blame you for not following the policy, but I must say it’s not a great policy. There are quite often mismatches between what the web (e.g. reviews) say is in a place and what OSM states is there. The discrepency is unresolved for the user if the user cannot see what was there previously in order to work out if OSM is wrong or the other source is wrong.
In principle, the historical map linked by that wiki could be useful in this regard. I’ll have to fiddle with it. But not everyone has the luxery of using obscure or exotic tools from a desktop when trying to navigate an unfamiliar city they are passing through. Users don’t need a deep history; they just need to know what was there previously on any turnover that happened in the past 5 years.
Actually we have a tag for old names like this: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:old_name
But if it only existed for such a short time I’m not sure if it’s significant enough to map it after it was closed. If it would have been already mapped while it was open it would make sense, but if no one ever cared about this before?
You can add a note if you think it’s important enough, local mappers will have to decide.
I don’t know how the osmand snapshot were wrong, though I never used this manual offline download feature.
Check out StreetComplete. You won’t be able to fix everything, but this might be more tailored for you.
I appreciate the tip but I installed that some time ago. It just shows an empty map whenever I try to use it. My phone is hardened. I give no apps the privilege to use clearnet. StreetComplete may be fussy about IP addresses. But I think the facility to add notes on the OSM website without logging in will be my solution given my complex set of circumstances.