If there is an entry on maps that has the pin in the wrong place and is uneditable as well as no way to submit an error besides the “your opinion about maps”?
I don’t see any problems. The first link provided by @beachmiles is on the Maps layer (which we as local guides can not edit) and the second one is on “our” layer and we can suggest edits to it as we normally can.
It is annoying and irritating to have two different places for sure. I have provided feedback suggesting map layer places moved to “our” layer to no avail many many times.
Maybe @Flash can provides some solid tips on how this general issue with having the same place on both layers can be solved. Obviously, suggesting a merge will not work. Maybe some tips on what wording to use in feedback to be effective could be what we need.
I’m not sure what the problem is with the last link provided by @beachmiles . Could you elaborate? For me, the link points to a search result page and not a POI.
I forgot to mention that I appreciate you sharing your concern on this since it is something that many Local Guides experience and get upset/concerned about.
Ya it’s unfortunate that this POI is placed at the wrong gps location. This bad link is also linked as the POI location for a wide area surrounding a 1/2 mile of the bad POI. So if you click on an area of the map like this for instance it links to the bad POI.
Searching for “czuleger park” in Google search in desktop view mode the “suggest an edit” link does not work. The correct POI is listed below under “see results about”
it may look like indeed a base map information however it has a POI, so should allow an edit.
I believe it is somehow mixed, for example this is a base map information: Piazza S.Francesco, without a POI and still even with the option to report a wrong data, option not available in those cases.
I see now how your square (like streets) is not marked with a visible pin on the map. Hence you need to do a text search to find and open it. While the first POI mentioned by @beachmiles actually has a pin visible on the map. Thanks for pointing this out.
I wonder what this difference tells us. If it is useful in understanding the types of POI in the Base map.
Thank you for tagging me, but I’m unsure what we’re trying to accomplish here. There are duplicate features on the map, thus one should be marked as a duplicate.
that’s basically the issue, the duplicated (and wrong) POI has no possibility of edit, neither of report wrong data. What could be the reason of this and how to report the duplicate if not via a generic feedback? Thank you.
Users don’t decide which place will be kept and which one will be merged into it; that requires looking at all the fields behind the scenes data. It does not matter which place is reported as the duplicate, Google will always make the decision as to which one to keep visible. If you can report one of them, that’s all that is needed.
I should say that given the nature of the issue… the more southern of the two POIs is the result of a bot that was run to separate polygons from POIs (it was a very successful bot but the small amount of errors it had looked like this) might cause the rejection of the report; but that’s not reason not to try the report.
thank you for the further explanation, that make sense.
@beachmiles I think this answer your question, you should attempt to report as duplicate the POI on which you have the control, so in this case the second good one, and Google should merge them both into the good one. Eventually the location should not be correct after the merging you can always submit another edit adjusting eventually the final location.
Thanks for your interpretation. I took an other look and to my surprise it is actually possible suggest the north one merged with the south one. It did show up on the list while pretending to do a merge. I learned something new that merge is possible across the two layers. Good to know. Or maybe the south one was not on the Maps layer after all.
PS. I aborted the merge = I did nothing.
Did you understand what Flash wrote about a clever bot?
I’m not sure what these “layers” you are referring to; there is nothing such as a layer separating elements. Just because you can’t edit an element doesn’t mean it’s on a separate layer, it just means editing it not turned on for the public.
Years ago polygons were optional features you could add onto a POI. So just as you can choose to add a phone number or leave it blank, you could also choose to add a polygon. The problem with it was twofold:
Despite repeated instructions to not add polygons to simply define the area a business occupies, people kept doing so as it made the business appear more prominently on the map. This was done by both business owners and by volunteer mappers that thought the business was important.
Polygons that did define something valuable would disappear if the POI was deleted and replaced by another POI, such as when a business sold. If someone had ignored point #1 and drawn in the building, that building polygon would be lost when the business was closed.
For this reason polygons were separated from existing POIs, and new POIs that had almost all the other fields turned off were created for the polygons to be attached. Basically, to the casual viewer there is now a POI and separately a polygon. The two can be associated, but if the POI gets deleted the polygon remains because it’s attached to a separate, nameless POI.
This was achieved by creating a bot that split all attached polygons off to be their own features. The bot took about 1 day to achieve this goal.
Thanks a million for your explanation and time, @Flash .
I often read about the Maps layer and the Transit layer as terms used to describe and understand how some places are not editable for Local Guides.
So would it be more correct just to refer to them as places local guides can not suggest edits for except via sending feedback?
Thanks for explaining the story behind the polygons. Are they also visible to us if we knew what to look for? When you mentioned two polygons associated with the southern pin would I also be able to see that on the map. If so how?
@MortenCopenhagen , yes, we’re often referred to all the transit items as being on the transit layer for simplicity when explaining why their not editable, but bus stops used to be completely editable and so that’s not included. The transit layer referred more to the overlay of bus and trolley routes; you’ll notice they don’t necessarily have to follow existing roads/railways.
As for referring to some features as items that cannot be edited except by feedback; that’s not correct. The items the public can edit are edited via feedback. Separately there are items the public can’t edit… full stop.
So just to be sure: When we local guides suggest an edit, you call that feedback? I have been distinguishing between suggesting and edit and providing feedback on the map like when we want to add a new road. But you are referring to both types as feedback, right?
If correct what terms do you use to distinguish between the two?
