Feedback on Unpublished Reviews – My Borçka Karagöl Experience

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Feedback on Unpublished Reviews – My Borçka Karagöl Experience

Hello dear Google Local Guides community,

Recently, I shared a very natural and informative review about Borçka Karagöl Nature Park. I wanted to express my experience, mentioning that the road is narrow and bumpy in places, that one should be cautious on rainy days, and that the scenery is absolutely worth the effort.

However, unfortunately, my review was not published, even though it didn’t seem to violate any of the stated rules. In my review, I included:

A helpful warning about the condition of the road,

Positive remarks about the breathtaking landscape,

A polite suggestion for visitors to be cautious.

My review did not contain ads, did not use offensive language, and did not violate community guidelines. On the contrary, it was meant to inform and guide fellow users with genuine, on-site insights.

My question is:
Why are such reviews being blocked from publication?
Isn’t the goal of the community to share honest, useful experiences?

If the system is automatically blocking these kinds of reviews, I believe it needs improvement. Otherwise, it may discourage contributors from sharing content.

I will continue writing and sharing. But I believe transparency and clear communication will benefit us all.

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Best regards,
Vahit İpek
Level 9 Local Guide
#LocalGuides #GoogleMaps #BorckaKaragol

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Hello, @vahit.ipek
Sorry to hear, that even an honest feedback can be declined.
But what does it say under the ‘details’ button?

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Hello @Hakeem_Akt
Thank you for your support. I didn’t understand the source of the problem

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Hi @vahit.ipek

It is a common misunderstanding that the problem triggering the spam filter is to be found in the review text.

It might as well be one of the attached photos or videos.

It dan also be that Google blocked all reviews to the place because of to many spam reviews.

Or it could be caused by other unrelated violations from your hand.

If you share the link to the place and your text and photos we can try reproduce the issue and hopefully rule out some of the causes.

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Yeah, it said, the content is duplicated somehow.

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Hello @MortenCopenhagen
Thank you for your help. I don’t share my own photo of the photos that I didn’t take. I respect the ethical rules, but it got my nerve off.

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Thanks for the link.

Where can I see your review text?

We can conclude that the problem is not caused by the place having a block on reviews as another Local Guide added their review only 3 hours ago.

Do I understand correctly that you did not attach any photos?

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Did you submit the review more than once?

Why is there a photo shown in the screenshot explaining that you uploaded it twice?

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Chronic problem on Maps with no fix. You just have to guess at what the issue is and hope it gets resolved, which is wild

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The road is a little bit busy and there is a hole in some places to be careful. A beautiful lake view and mountain view pay more for the work given. We had a day of rain, but it was pleasant. You are walking along the journey with perfect views. It is recommended that Artvin doesn’t have much space already. Private individuals need to be careful, which is difficult.
This is my review text. I have added both photos and videos. They all belong to me @MortenCopenhagen

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I tried twice, so he didn’t load it, but I was blocked again @MortenCopenhagen

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I am sorry that a chronic problem doesn’t self-publish it was published after I objected to a comment that was stymied. I don’t understand the reasons for blocking, seriously @jeckelbarger

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Thank you for sharing the screenshot of the message from Google, @vahit.ipek
The message is clear:
“In this case, there was a violation of our duplicate content policy. This policy prohibits posting the same content multiple times from the same account or multiple accounts.”

Many people think that a review is blocked solely because of the review text, when in fact the review also includes attached photos and videos. Your text seems perfect to me, but there are two possibilities:

  • You posted the same text more than once.
  • You posted the images attached to the review more than once.

Of course, we don’t see the blocked review or its attached media, so we need to analyze the visible content to see if there are any similar behaviors in other published content.

Unfortunately, there are actually many where you’ve used the same images/videos in more than one place.
For example, take these two reviews where you used the same video.

According to Google’s rules these two reviews should be removed, because you posted the same video in two places.

Or look at this one, where the same 8 images were posted 4 times

I could say the same of these 3 reviews

What I mean is that there are many things to consider, @jeckelbarger

Often, in fact, it is not a question of an error of Maps, but of a misinterpretation of the rules.

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Thank you @ErmesT I appreciate your help.
I want to convey that sometimes Google Maps does not upload photos. These things are from me. The city park issue is a matter of time, I have sent notifications about closing the same places many times. The same location was not closed. I have made photos and comments to the same places so that people are misguided. I did this for people to help.

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I have been to the Hagia Sophia Mosque in these two places, and my objections have been rejected because of how many times they have changed their name wrong. Some people in Turkey can easily change their addresses and names.
The opinion of the local guide is not at all taken into account.

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Guys, c’mon… we need to stop blaming the end-users for a broken system here.

The current moderation approach — which is rejecting or hiding contributions without feedback — is lazy. When you penalize a Local Guide without rationale and, instead, send them a link to a maze of documentation and require them to figure out what went wrong. That’s not moderation, nor is it helpful. It’s inefficient at best and is going to kill engagement if it hasn’t already.

The crazy part is that this isn’t rocket science either: every successful platform provides clear, immediate feedback. Facebook specifies what community standard was violated, Twitter did the same for some time, and even YouTube details why content was removed. We make our users guess and blame them for not knowing the endless rules, as if they’re expected to be Product Experts.

Google has the best technical resources but somehow can’t manage basic user communication? Confused users become former users, and I can see why people jump ship or lose motivation to be power users. There is no carrot and all stick.

Either fix the feedback mechanism and proactively educate users with real-time feedback; or accept that the Local Guide program will start hemorrhaging engaged contributors.

The status quo here is unacceptable, and everyone in this community, that’s not a Moderator or a Google employee, knows it.

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@vahit.ipek

@ErmesT gave you consistent advice to remove your duplicate photos. The message you got refered to duplicates and Ermes pointed out examples. You can see the duplicates in your photo contribution list. From there you can delete them. This is likely to fix your issue. If you remember copy pasting any review texts they need to be edited or deleted also.

Best of luck.
I’m looking forward to reading about the results.

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I am really surprised about your reply, @jeckelbarger
Have you read a single line of the conversation in this specific Topic, other than the title?
I guess you didn’t, otherwise your reply would have been a bit different.

It’s true that for a long time we had content moderations without any feedback, but in this specifica case @vahit.ipek was

  • immediately informed that the review was removed
  • received details about the reason of the removal (duplication of the content)

A check of his contributions shown that he’s in fact posting the same content multiple times also in other reviews, probably published before the start of the improved moderation system

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Sure, Ermes — I read it. The title wasn’t the only line I managed to get through unfortunately.

Even if you call this one a duplicate, it doesn’t change the bigger problem: edits are rejected or hidden without feedback, and that’s been the community’s top complaint for years. Google never addresses it, and contributors are left chasing moderators or begging the forum for clarity.

If the system actually gave transparent, real-time reasons for rejections, half these “duplicate” threads wouldn’t exist in the first place. That’s the real issue.

Not sure why we’re having to play “go fish.”

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I’ll give everyone one single response @jeckelbarger @MortenCopenhagen @ErmesT
He was right about feedback@jeckelbarger because I noticed the comment I wrote a year ago when I was researching it unpublished. The other issue is, I appreciate your help. I’ll apply them all, so let’s see if it’s going to happen @MortenCopenhagen @ErmesT