Community Contribution Score (Beta)

The Community Contribution Score is a rating, specially developed for this app catalog. It highlights apps that contribute to the OpenStreetMap community and enable users to easily contribute to OpenStreetMap themselves.

To achieve a high score, an app should be:

• open source,
• capable of displaying and editing the map,
• accessible to many people,
• and well-documented.

Click here for the catalog

Specification

The Community Contribution Score ranges from A to E, where A is the best rating and E is the worst.

Evaluation Areas

The score is composed of four main categories.

---

1. OSM Contribution (max. 4 points)

Contributions to the map:

• +2 points if the app supports contributions (editing, analyzing, etc.) to OpenStreetMap.

Adding and Editing:

• +1 point if adding, editing, or deleting POIs, ways, etc., is possible.

Displaying map data:

• +1 point if the app displays maps or OSM data.

---

2. Development Involvement (max. 3 points)

Open Source:

• +1 point if the app is open source.
• An additional +0.5 points if the license is a copyleft license (e.g., GPL, ODbL, MPL, CC).

Source Code:

• +0.25 points if a reference to the source code is documented.

Issue Tracker:

• +0.25 points if an issue tracker exists.

Last Update:

• +0.25 points if the last update occurred within the last year.
• An additional +0.25 points if the last update occurred within the last 3 months.

Translatability:

• +0.5 points if contributions to translations are possible.

---

3. Availability and Accessibility (max. 2 points)

Translations:

• +0.125 points if the app supports multiple languages (min. 3 languages).
• An additional +0.125 points if the app is available in at least 10 languages.

Free of Charge:

• +0.25 points if the app is free of charge.

Availability on Multiple Platforms:

• +0.25 points if the app is available on multiple platforms (e.g. Web, Android, iOS).
• An additional +0.25 points if the app is accessible via open-source stores (e.g. F-Droid).

Global Coverage:

• +0.5 points if the app covers worldwide map data.

Accessibility:

• +0.5 points if accessibility is supported (e.g. screen reader compatibility or route calculation for wheelchair users).

---

4. Community Channels & Documentation (max. 1 point)

Community Channels:

• +0.5 points if a communication channel for the community exists (e.g. forum, Mastodon).
• An additional +0.25 points if a channel is hosted on open-source platforms (e.g. Matrix).

Documentation:

• +0.125 points if a documentation link is available.
• +0.125 points if the app is documented on multiple platforms (e.g. OSM-Wiki, taginfo, Wikidata).

---

Restrictions

Apps that are neither open source nor support editing map data can achieve a maximum rating of C.
This ensures that the score prioritizes apps that actively contribute to the OpenStreetMap community.

Summary of Points Distribution

Category	Max. Points
OSM Contribution	4
Development Involvement	3
Availability and Accessibility	2
Community Channels & Documentation	1
Total	10

Calculation

The score is calculated by adding up points from all categories. The resulting score places the app into one of the five rating levels (A to E):

• A: Score ≥ 8
• B: Score ≥ 6
• C: Score ≥ 4
• D: Score ≥ 2
• E: Score < 2

Discussion

A score like this is subjective, so it’s important to me to be in dialogue. If you have any suggestions on how the score should be adjusted, we can discuss them here.