Google is wasting its map

Kia_Faraji · January 24, 2022, 6:34pm

Saw a pregnant lady today on foot at the duplicate location of a hospital on Maps which is a few hundred meters off from it’s actual location right in the middle of a famous neighborhood in our city; she asked me for it’s address, I told her the real address and she sadly whispered to herself or God “why Google is showing its location here?” I recalled it was the wrong location which I reported and got rejected, and it was just another “typical” moment when I deeply felt that my 7 million views on a worldwide brand is worth nothing, no honor or pride I can take in that.

Although this incident made me angry enough to write some, but there’s just a lot to complain about, a lot; and I believe it would be waste of time since I see Google being obsessed with the word “celebration” that they’ve forgot they have a map to take care of. I’m almost disappointed, I can’t even talk the way I should because of their extreme censorship here, map is full of spam, directions get me wrong, I’m just feeling it’s wasted, at least in my country it is, they ask to follow rules, they think same rules in the US & Europe are efficient in all countries. Any law that has been made by human beings is undoubtedly subject to change; Have the people in charge ever been to third world countries? If you ever do, I can take your hand and show you things and take you places that can make you ashamed of your very own product.

P.S: please don’t come in here writing that you’re sorry for what you read or thanking me; any such sympathy is (no offense) worthless, just do something if you can for whatever’s sake you believe in.

iorikun301 · January 24, 2022, 9:08pm

Just shake your phone or tablet to send Google feedback, @Kia_Faraji

Or beg for help on Google Maps Help Community

They will respond to it if they want to.

They are only hoomaann…

Kia_Faraji · January 24, 2022, 9:14pm

@iorikun301 Like I don’t know that already

You seem to be familiar with begging boy, got your bone yet?

ErmesT · January 24, 2022, 9:27pm

I think things are a bit more complicate, @Kia_Faraji

You know me, and you know that, like you, I am a volunteer, so I am not speaking on behalf of Google.

And you also know that I am used to go straight to the point.

The issues that you are finding are not happening only in your Country. I am reporting and merging duplicates, or at least trying to, several times every month. And I spend a long time in this community, reading a lot of posts where the Local Guides, depending of the situation, are complaining for the reason “A” or for the opposite of “A”.

I was fighting against a Local Guide who was adding Fire Hydrants, categorizing them as Hospitals. I was fighting with Local Guides that were adding speed control as Police office

The community complain because too many edits are approved (spam) and because many edits are not approved (too many restrictions). So where is the point of balance between “open” and “too restrictive”? I personally don’t have an answer.

In my life I am designing control systems for large automated plant that are processing vegetables, and I have to fight every day with similar issues: People who wants less restrictions (algorithms) in controlling the machines, but that is coming to me every time they do something wrong “because the algorithm should block me if I am doing something wrong”. I am talking about plants with 1000 workers, so I can clearly imagine how difficult can be to apply this to a larger scale. We are talking about more than 150 millions Local Guides and this means more of less 3 times the whole population of my country, or two times the population of yours.

It means that you cannot have a person to check all the edits, all the reviews, all the photos that are added every single day of the year. So, you must have a software (call it algorithm, or AI, if you like) to check and verify the contributions.

How should this algorithm be improved, in your opinion? Making the edit easy (more approval) for you to be able to merge or remove the duplicate, or making the edit more difficult, to avoid someone to add a duplicate, so that you dont have to remove it?

I don’t have an answer, but I have an opinion: choose the compromise that give you less fake locations.

But, if you have a better idea to suggest, we can talk about that, but first of all I think we need to know the size of what we are talking about.

Then, if you want to share a link and show the procedure that you used to attempt the merging, I know that many Local Guides will be happy to share their experience with you about the way they use to merge two or more places. What I personally do is to monitor daily Maps in my area, to fix and remove the issues quickly, because I think that nobody should be in the condition of the lady mentioned in your post.

And yes, I am sorry for that lady, like I am sorry for someone who have an appointment for a job, and reach the wrong location, and for everyone who have an issue due to bad information added by a Local Guide.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that the fact was very emotional and I can understand that you are “on fire” for this. It would be the same for me. But we need to be rational, if we want to fix something and to improve it. This is the important point, not the numbers. Again, I agree with you

iorikun301 · January 24, 2022, 9:44pm

Oh I’m glad that you know that already, @Kia_Faraji . That’s a great news.

Kia_Faraji · January 31, 2022, 3:39pm

@iorikun301

You are glad?!That is great news?! Yeah, yeah… i’m sure you are and i’m sure it is ; keep on exaggerating in your words harder.

Hi dear @ErmesT

Thanks for sharing your thoughts in such detail and sorry for being late to reply;

We all know that since those ancient times, the most important criterion of a “map” is its “reliability”, nowadays that maps are digital, who would expect “the most” reliable map from anyone but Google?

Now if we speak from a base level consumer PoV (not as a Googler or a Moderator or even a Local Guide), the causes of problems (which lead to Maps becoming unreliable) is not a consumer’s concern, but the result are, and those results, good or bad will all end in the name of Google.

Although I consider Google to have a better AI compared to other tech. companies, it is still not developed enough to make correct decisions independently; so I’d suggest to take more advantage of human capabilities, just like you hire people to drive or walk for Street View, task very small teams from every city to clean, correct and enrich their own map and give them abilities to investigate, approve or reject other edits and photos, etc; Local Guides program gets boosted and hundreds of millions of new people will contribute in reviewing places and posting photos of them.

Kia_Faraji · January 31, 2022, 4:03pm

As an example, our district is more or less 1 sq. km in area, if I had more or less 2 hours, I could fix the entire maps of it, and by the “entire” I mean:

Names of the roads (local & English language),
Type of roads,
Joints and shapes of the roads,
Business names (local & English language),
Categories of businesses,
Location pin and addresses,
Whether they’re located inside another place or not,
Their phone numbers
Working hours,
Checking their photos for spams or unrelated,
Dealing with spam Q&A and reviews.

Regards and all that stuff,

ErmesT · January 31, 2022, 4:08pm

In my opinion it would be cheaper for Google to close the Local Guides program and to have only specialized people to provide Edits and photos, @Kia_Faraji , than to have “very small teams from every city …with abilities to investigate, approve or reject other edits and photos, etc”.

Just to better understand your proposal, in your opinion

how many people is necessary in all the world to investigate, approve or reject other edits and photos, etc?
What would be the cost of this?

Kia_Faraji · January 31, 2022, 7:33pm

Who could really estimate that before it’s given a shot and put to test for some time? but starting with average of two, three people in each city, the experts be allowed to make edits and add places, others to make suggestions and add photos that Google redirects to those specialized people, so they can verify or reject it, if someone makes an edit in local language within the district of that expert and there’s a bit of a problem in that request/suggestion, the expert could understand better what was intended or meant and proceed to correct, approve or reject it better than any AI.

The number of residential places (mostly not related to Maps) are way less than the number of people, and the number of businesses are much less than residential places; I’d say a city could be fixed in just under a month (mostly), from than on it would be maintenance;

Shared here is just a sample I was curious and crazy enough to take of our about-1 sq. km neighborhood, I counted about 315 businesses and PoIs (including parks, police, fire, medical departments and businesses within 3 commercial buildings) in 18 mins;

Let’s only suppose none of these businesses were on the maps, if it takes an average of 4 mins to put on these businesses, it would take 21 hours of work for 1 sq. km, just a very small sample.

MashaPS · February 8, 2022, 3:44pm

Hi @Kia_Faraji ,

Please remember that Connect is a global community with many folks from various cultural backgrounds and speaking various languages.

Profanity of any kind is not allowed on Connect as we want Connect to be a warm and welcoming place for all, so please refrain from using inappropriate language.

Thank you.