For someone living in a rural area without many LG’s around, adding places onto maps may perhaps be easier and they get many opportunities to do so because there aren’t many people around to compete with. (This is just my educated guess LOL!)
For somebody like myself, who lives in a busy city of Boston which is very densely populated, I am always, and I mean ALWAYS, on the lookout for the next new place opening up, or closing, so I could be the one to add it onto Maps.
I could already potentially have earned my Novice Trailblazer badge, and would definitely have unlocked the Fact Finder badge, for sure!
Now, my BIGGEST frustration comes from the fact that when I do add places, which I will go into detail next, they never get applied. And it’s great that now we can have some sort of clarity as to why those decision were made, which are still somewhat vague, according to a recent article by @Brad_W which you can read here. I guess my confusion comes from why my consistency is being rejected on a regular basis, even with clear proof added which can be checked simply by going on a website of the business, my attached photos, or Street View.
Let’s take a look at my most recent attempt to add Insomnia Cookies to the map that opened near where I work in downtown, I have tried at least 3 recorded attempts to add this businesses, all denied, all submissions had photos of the business clearly attached, with their info also available at www.insomniacookies.com at 61 Bromfield Street.
The next place, I have tried at least 4 attempts to change the name, which are also not applied, and I have NO CLUE why when all the evidence suggests otherwise. The business is called Veggie Tasty on Google Maps but in reality it is called, Juicy&Tasty, even with the photo submitted that shows the name of the place clearly. Even after eating there, my receipt showed Juicy And Tasty when we went there from August 20th while on vacation in Paris.
The next issue I had, is a little different of a problem. On Google Maps, there is a famous mall in Paris called Galeries Lafayette which is in one location that was right next to a hotel we were staying, and another place called Bureau Galeries Lafayette which is just offices, that happen to be close to each other. So people have been adding photos of the famous dome of the Mall to the location of the offices which is very confusing because tourists looking for the mall can end up going to the completely different location based on the wrong photos. So I tied to edit that, but of course it got denied.
My next issue is with a chain franchise called Cosi where a lot of locations got closed down in Boston, and I happen to work with them for my job so I know they closed because we don’t go there anymore since they do not exist. When I added that on Maps, that got denied. No surprise there.
So I guess the reasoning of “Google couldn’t verify your edit” is not good enough because it is not an acceptable answer for most of us.
We are physically here dealing with these issues and businesses and we need more to go off of than Google not being able to verify something when we are clearly providing evidence to VERIFY what we are editing.
The last issue I had was another business that I tried to add probably 3 times that did not even register on my list of edits and I have no idea why.
I went to a friends and family, soft opening of a restaurant called Lulu Green in South Boston, since it is vegan, and I am vegan so I got invited to the opening party before it opened for the public, I spoke to the owner and everything about adding them on Google and how to promote their local business on Maps, and when I went to add it, with photos, it didn’t even appear as being reviewed or anything and then it appeared on maps several days later, probably added by someone else. I don’t understand why this specific addition of mine did not even appear on my list of attempts.
Hopefully everything I just mentioned makes sense, summarized, and I hope something can be done to make our experience as editors a little bit better.
