A gallery of ridiculous questions (and answers!) asked on Google Maps

[Briggs]

Last Updated: 16 June 2018.

As you all holistically agree one way or another, the ‘Questions and answers’ feature on Google Maps has been met with mixed success. As ideal as it may have sounded and thought of at the beginning of its inceptions, legitimate reviews have unfortunately made its way into the form of questions, complaints, comments and plenty of undesirable content have funnelled well into the eyes of potential customers, and the inherent dullness that puts Google Maps users and even Local Guides into light is discouraging for several different parties.

It’s pretty sad how we would’ve expected the questions like we saw in the feature announcement as “What are the must-see special exhibits?” and instead get something completely stupid like “goirla imt”, “Dangerops prangent? Will it hurt baby top of its head?” or whatever what that means. I have read many Google My Business owners who have even requested to turn off the feature, I’m pretty sure that’s easily doable though, but for the interim, it’s interesting to see how the general population uses the questions and answers, should’ve used it for some sort of social studies.

Inspired by Lucio’s Review and awareness post, I thought it would be a little bit of an icebreaker just to give a few laughs or chuckles. Here I will compile a whole bunch of ridiculous, dumb, strange, and funny, yet all real questions that people have actually asked, and even to an extent some of the strangest answers and trends that somehow people could even slightly think of! I can assure you I have reported probably 90% of questions that get asked whenever I get the notification that someone has a question about a listing, that most likely I haven’t visited.

These are real questions and answers asked on Google Maps listings

If you have any other strange questions and/or answers you would like to add to the collection, feel free to comment them (place, question and/or answer[s]) below! I constantly add to the list as I find more hilarious questions and/or answers, and so I will post once I have updated.

[davidcox]

@Briggs I do not know where it is but there was a twitter post by Joy Hawkins I think that showed the Russian language questions on the CIA Google My Business page. I was like a crazed robot was spamming the listing. I can not find the original post and I may be cleaned up. I will look for some crazy questions for you. Interesting they have not claimed there listing.

[Briggs]

Touché.

Found some notable questions, but not the Russian one. I’m gonna go on a hunt to find some more. Thanks for the heads up @davidcox !

[davidcox]

@Briggs Careful, you may descend into a world of insanity.

[AkmalB]

@Briggs I think its enough for today. … hahah. …

…I have few interesting questions and answers .

But let me laugh out loud first.

@OSAMA check this POST OF THE WEEK.

[OSAMA]

@AkmalB yeah bro i open this post today and laugh laugh :)))))))))))))

then receive a call :)))

good you mention me her again :)))))))))))))))

what am sure about that @Briggs is still warming up on connect :)))))))))

[ErmesT]

Thanks for the collection @Briggs

Some other member was suggesting a change in the Q&A concept, because most of the questions are in fact addressed to the business owner, and it is not clear to everyone that the question are for LG to reply.

In one side this is nice, because LG can show their knowledge of the places, but for a lot of questions is impossible to give an answer.

In the other side, addressing the question to the owner, can be possible only if the owner is identified (Mybusiness).

What about to move your post to the Feedback-and-Feature-Requests board, for the Googler to have a look? Do you agree?

Ermes

[Briggs]

Hello @AkmalB and @OSAMA ! I’m glad you find the collection of random Q&A hilarious. Whenever I get a notification when I’m on the go, I’m almost ready to take a screenshot so I can humiliate it in a form like this in the future. And @davidcox , what’s to say that I haven’t already descended into insanity?

@ErmesT , I do agree. There are some things that this feature has opened up, but calling it a ‘question’ is not exactly accurate, but more of ‘post, thread or discussion’. While I have already made such suggestions in a previous post, this post’s intent is to just gather a collection of hilarious and extremely off-topic questions. Heheh.

[ErmesT]

You are right @Briggs , I miss your previous post.

Thanks for linking

Ermes

[LucioV]

LOL @Briggs really a cool collection!

This is one of my favourite: Costco: What time close today

[CrackedLCD]

I’m just glad to see my area is not the only one inundated with bad submissions. Between the people who think it’s just a way to search Google, to the ones who think the store is actively monitoring the questions, the the grammatically indecipherable messes, about 95% of questions that Maps notifies me about are unanswerable. It’s definitely a “swing and a miss” rollout as far as I’m concerned. On the other hand, it gives me a laugh most every day.

[Briggs]

Good day all.

In response to the questions and answers rollout in the last 3-4 months, this is my feedback regarding it. It’s already been lost in the inundation of posts on the announcement/blog posts, but this commotion and the implementation of the Q&A maps feature I believe is fairly panned as an unfortunate “miss”. Here’s 13 Reasons Why:

1. First of all, the appearance of a textbox is interrupting the flow of basic Google searches, counted reviews/ratings (unless there were a function that could transfer such a “question” into the reviews section, but gauging a star rating without the user’s consent would be undesirable. There is always the prospect of written reviews without a star rating, but they really don’t make sense.

2. The immense amount of spelling mistakes, incomplete sentences, complete gobbledigook, astonishing capitalisation and plain idiocy that comes from the general public gauges whether the ability to either ask questions or provide answers should be accessible to everyone.

3. Given the inner social media trolls, they tend to relish on the negative. There is a pizza parlour that only has one “question” in plain sight and it’s a vent about the poor quality of food they’ve received, and already a whole bunch of “answers” are essentially other local guides/users all sharing the same sentiment and making complaints, without leaving any ratings.

4. Nonsense questions with nonsense answers, with plentiful examples given above. What I’ve realised is that although we ought for the best when the questions were asked, sometimes these make a mockery of the business/listing.

5. The fact that any user who types in any answer will be rewarded with three points, regardless of accuracy or trueness. People will be given points just for typing “Don’t know” or making a dumb remark.

6. There starts to distinguish a fine line between the people who actually ask the questions, and those who don’t. Trying to put this in a nice way, those with a higher IQ and sensibility will actually research and hopefully get to the answer they’re looking for, and those who are quite lazy or not so bright will just ask anything, and refuse to actually perform a Google search. While there might be merit in asking because of how much conflicting information exists on the Internet, local guides/users are people too, and many of them really don’t care, especially if the question is either too vague or too specific. Let me tell you that probably 90% of my answers are responses to people asking about the address, phone number or opening hours, and it’s this: “It’s on the listing.” followed by some sort of snide remark like “Please open your eyes.”, “Be more attentive.” or “You tried.”

7. This is more of a curiousity. When a person’s question has been answered, do they receive a notification? I do not think that they do, which brings me to the point that I don’t think that people backtrack or look back at the questions that they ask, as most of them are only submitted at the spur of the moment, and then probably have just searched on Google subsequently.

8. People do not mark the most helpful question and answer that helps the general public. Instead, they tend to gravitate towards plain stupidity that give them a laugh. There are plenty of other questions and answers pairs that are much more elusive and useful in information but insanity reigns supreme.

   

9. There is an influx of personal information being put onto the map listings via these questions. This can stem from Tax File Numbers (aka Social Security numbers), addresses, phone numbers, emails, to even the full disclosure of some certain employee’s name and attempting to publicly roast them. If I’m experiencing these with all of the notifications I get every 15-30 minutes of places where I have previously passed, imagine all the places we haven’t passed and the internal conflict that happens with small businesses and their users.

10. About 30% of the time, when I receive a notification of a place, I open it immediately and when it opens it already says that the question was removed? Why should I get a notification about a question if it doesn’t even exist or it’s marked for deletion/flagged due to filters? Additionally, 10% of questions that come from a notification are already answered by multiple people even right after I receive the notification, how does that work? But for the former, the notification should not go out before the filters or removals are applied.

11. I receive notifications about places that I have taken pictures of. In my defence, I believe the notifications should only go out if someone has marked that they have actually been there and checked in by clicking Yes to “Are you here now?” Of course this allows users to have a broader amount of questions and questioners being open to more questions, but it will allow an experienced person who has checked in been at the place to provide a more honest, and accurate answer.

12. The reporting process. It has to load to a screen first (give or take 5 seconds) with some buttons that respond a little late. It is not instantaneous such as removing photos on a mobile device, which is the easiest by far. Don’t get me started with trying to report photos via the desktop version. Also the fact that questions and answers aren’t viewable on desktop maps (which I am grateful for).

13. Everything in the spoiler tag/list above.

Maybe I’m being a little mean and biased since my observations are all from Australia (and you know how some Aussies can be at times…) I’ve seen in places like New York that it seems like there are plenty of Local Guides who are asking educated questions with other Local Guides answering with educated, succinct answers and are also widely using the Helpful? feature to help stamp out spam and fizzle down the strange questions. I don’t mean to insult the brainchild of a few Googlers/engineers, but this is my opinion. I can’t believe I had to think of 13 individual reasons, now that number and show is stuck in my head.

Anywho these are my two cents as well. And as always, I have added quite a few entries to the list above, feel free to subscribe to this post for updates! Yay!

Tagging users who might find this useful: @NFN , @LucioV , @davidcox , @ErmesT , @AkmalB , @CrackedLCD . I know this post in particular might warrant a move to the ‘Feedback and features’ board but I wouldn’t care less.

[NFN]

[NFN]

Kape town fish market closed down months ago…but still ask for a review?

[LucioV]

@Briggs 100% agree on your list.

Maybe the Q&A whole thing is just too young and, mainly, should be not for anyone.

[Lajos_J_Hajdu]

Q/A should in the first hand be adressed to the owner. I as a local Guide visited as tourist a place, made some photos, published a review don’t make me expert about the place, to answer silly questions. All those silly questions and lame answers are saved huring the image of the place.

[Shadow11990]

Yes I get questions daily like these. Is there a way for google to explain to these people asking questions that we dont work for the place they are asking about? It gets super frustrating when people ask what time do you open, do you carry such and such, what movies are you playing. I think google could do better explaining just what it is that we do. I for one am explaining every single day!!!

[YK1001]

This is a new feature.

There is no point to ask questions - I meant no LG Points are awarded for the question, just for the answer.

So how to have more meaningful questions asked, is the question here, right?

Or, should we define what is “meaningful questions” first? I guess it will take time for this to settle.

As we got points on the answers, naturally, I have higher expectation for the answers.

As always, if any questions / answers are reportable, just report them.

[Lajos_J_Hajdu]

---

@YK1001 wrote:

This is a new feature.

There is no point to ask questions - I meant no LG Points are awarded for the question, just for the answer.

So how to have more meaningful questions asked, is the question here, right?

Or, should we define what is “meaningful questions” first? I guess it will take time for this to settle.

As we got points on the answers, naturally, I have higher expectation for the answers.

As always, if any questions / answers are reportable, just report them.

---

The QA function is getting be a kind of spam I start to ignore.

It should be at least two categories of answerers:

cat1/ source the owner or a Local Guide very near to the site in question and familiar with the establishment, has good contact with the owner;

cat2/ occasional reporter the Local Gude who happened to be there as tourist, made som photos but not know much about followup questions, feel them as a nuisance.

To bother the cat2 LG wiith trivial questions is a trouble and will result ingnorant behaviour, killing the enthusiasm of the LG.

It is not enough to ask “Do you know this place?” and then channel hundreds of questins to me because I was a busy LG.

Rather “Are you willing and able to answer followup detailed questions to earn additional points?” would be a more proper question to separate the two categories from each other. This question should not come for me if my home is in Uppsala, Sweden and I reviewed a restaurant in Barcelona, obviously on a trip.

Definition for meaningsful question would be a one I can give informative, useful answers for, information which was missing in the original description of the establishment, but in the long run should be incorporated into it.

QA is a way to enrich the description, to collect new ideas for the actual type of establishment, but it can only done by the owner or a well informed LG.

There is no need to report Question and Answer, never seen such case, these are just irritating because I am not knowing the answer. How many LGs getting such questions like “Is the Selby garden open on 1st of January?” All the LGs reviewed the place?

[LucioV]

I need to show you these guys…

These are related to a LEGO Store… I think everyone knows what LEGO is…

The question: “Who builds the lego sets?”

The answer they give:“I think they come already built” No words