Using JOSM for your 1st edit is definitely not recommended.
Doing the same with iD (the editor embedded in the OSM website) is faster and there's even a tutorial that will explain a bit about how things work.
I mainly chose JOSM for this tutorial because of its filter. As a beginner (just a few weeks ago), I couldn't figure out how to use iD's filter to show JOSM's equivalent of `name=* ((amenity=* "addr:housenumber"=*) | shop=*) -website=* -"contact:website"=*`. For this tutorial I wanted something better than than "click around the map until you find a place without a website." That felt like it'd be a frustrating and inefficient first experience.
Is there a way to make that filter in iD?
The larger users of the data are doing some degree of validation of changes before showing them to users.
If it's something you end up enjoying, one really satisfying thing to do is pick a small rural town and improve the map. With a few hours, it's not hard to make the OSM data more detailed and better than any other publicly available map.
A foot-carried google street car if you want.
> The area you tried to downlaod is too big or your request was too large.
And no indication whatsoever of how big the area should be, I'm at my fifth attempt so far.
This seems a bit outdated as many restaurants/shops now consider they FB/insta page as their "official" website (or rather lack of).
[1] https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/contact:facebook [2] https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/contact:instagram
> Determine if any of the search results represent the official website for your place. Do NOT use search results for social media profiles, review sites, or other business aggregators. When in doubt, don’t use it.
This zero-option style phrasing doesn't leave any room for interpretation.
So I have a fairly fresh newcomer's perspective and here's what I suggest to get started: keep it simple and start local. As others have noted, skip the complex mapping app and go straight to the website for feature edits, or download a simple mobile app like Every Door and focus on businesses and landmarks near you. Go on a walk around your neighborhood and look for old/incorrect/missing businesses. There may be errors near you about places you actually care about, and it is really gratifying to fix those.
There were restaurants near me that were missing, shops that had changed hands, etc., that were easy fixes but years overdue. I captured some basics (names, posted hours, the phone number posted on the door, etc.) with Every Door, and then later logged into the main OSM website and fine-tuned the entries. I got into a pattern of fixing one or two entries every evening when I went out for a walk and pretty soon my walking route was all up-to-date. Then I started paying attention to things like stop signs and cross walks and found a whole new kind of little, incremental edits that nobody else was doing.
It's been fun, I've made useful contributions, and my laptop is still Java free.