[Talk-GB] Quarterly Project Suggestion - drink_water:refill

[Mark Goodge]

On 20/03/2020 10:55, European Water Project wrote:
> Dear All,
> 
> Just got off a long conversation with Rebecca Burgess, CEO of Refill.
> 
> Unsurprisingly, Refill has no plans to share any of their proprietary 
> data, but their App is open because anybody can use it  :)

For comparison purposes, I installed their app. While their base list of 
establishments in my town that offer free refills concurs with my own 
observations and council data, their mapping is awful. They've moved 
Tesco half a mile further down the road than it really is. A local 
independent coffee shop is on the wrong street. A cafe that I use 
regularly is in completely the wrong part of town! In fact, of the six 
locations they list here, only one of them (Wetherspoons!) has the 
correct coordinates.

So they've clearly got significant quality control issues. It seems to 
me that an Open Data product based on OSM would be more reliable than 
their solution, however it's being implemented. Provided the location of 
a premises is correct in OSM (which it usually is), then simply tagging 
that premises as offering free refills provides all the information 
necessary. The Refill app, by contrast, expects users to supply 
coordinates themselves (by dragging and tapping on a map), which is 
always likely to be unreliable.

> Refill has plans to use more and more OpenStreetMap data to populate 
> their network over time without re-contributing ...   Just a shame 
> everyone can't just use the Refill App (sarcasm) !

Based on what I've seen, people are better off not using it.

Mark