We’re excited to continue our Ask a Googler series with our next guest, Hongzhi Chen, a software engineer on the Google Maps team.
With this series, Local Guides like you get an exclusive behind-the-scenes peek at the Google Maps features you love. If you missed our other posts, you can check out more information on Ask a Googler here and read our Q&As from previous guests like Capella Yee and Ishwar Dhanuka here.
Next, we’ll be joined by Hongzhi. He will be on hand to answer Google Maps product questions in various categories like his work on badges, emails, contribution stats, and any questions you might have about what it’s like to be an engineer at Google in Tokyo.
If you could ask him directly about these things listed above, what would you ask? We know great minds think alike, so if a fellow Local Guide has already asked a question you had in mind, please tap the “like” (heart button) so we can see that there is more interest around that topic.
Unfortunately, we can’t accommodate every single question submitted, but please feel free to ask your questions in the comments and we will answer all that we can. It’s also possible that your question could be used in a future post on Connect, so don’t be shy.
Have a question for Hongzhi? Leave your questions in the comments section below before the end of the day on Wednesday, May 26!
Thank you for these Ask a Googler series. They are very interesting and interactive. Below are my questions for Hongzhi.
Nice to meet you Hongzhi 🏼
My first question is are these updates badges, points, Emails etc of our contributions done manually or by some programmed algorithm?
The second is why does it take longer than ascertained on Google to update these points etc. I have drawn at least 50 roads on the maps and it takes at least 3-4 days before they are reflected on my profile that is after they have been approved, so that I do lose track of the approved ones.
The 3rd is, alongside our monthly report as local guides can we also get a report or general accessment of how many of our reviews and photos are marked private (if any). Infact to know if we are at risk of being suspended or not if possible??? Or whatever other issues we may have with our profile as regarding our LG activities
It is great to see this opportunity to ask from an engineer who works in such fields.
I wanna to ask from Hongzhi about:
Why sometimes we receive emails not in a regular basis and we see a long delay to receive pending/approval email?
Why Waldo was just an occasion badge? Is there any plan to enable it again?
I didn’t receive points/stats for many of my road reports although the applied on the map. So what’s happened to my reports?
When a road report denied, why in the edits history, there is no info about the location, name, etc? In this condition, we’re unable to check and report it again.
The stats bar in previous LG homepage was good and informative. Why Google discontinued it?
Thank you Hongzhi for your support of our contributions
Cuando agregamos una calle ó ruta y ésta es aprobada recibimos un email diciendo que nuestra modificación fue aprobada, pero no así cuando es rechazada, cómo podemos saber qué hicimos mal en nuestra edición para que no haya sido aceptada? Sería bueno saberlo para no volver a cometer el mismo error.
Con respecto a las badges: están pensando en crear nuevas y/ó aumentar los niveles de puntos para adquirir las ya existentes?
I would like to ask Hongzhi how accessible is Google Maps and the features? Can persons with visual impairment confidently contribute? What percentage of the features can be read using Screen Reader?
Thanks @KatieMcBroom for informing us about the continuation of the series, and welcome to Hongzhi.
There are a lot of interesting points here, so let’s start with contributions stats:
Over some level of contributions, it is very difficult to find, or fix, an old one, so it would be great to have the possibility of more filters on the various contributions tab on our profile, to easier find our old contributions in a way easier than just scrolling down, down, down. Is Google planning to improve that part?
Some of the information in our contribution summary are very unclear. We see the number of reviews, but we don’t know how many are Long (or short) reviews. We see the number of edits, but we don’t know if the edit is related to a Business listing or a dish name, and my feeling is that not all edits are counted in the list of Approved Edits for the Fact Finder. My personal difference is of around 700 edits, and I think should be explained. Again, is Google planning to improve that part?
Communication:
I personally like how the new email are, and how our improvement is shown. But I know that many Local Guides are worried because they don’t receive the “old” email about reaching milestones and new levels. is Google thinking about to restore that kind of communication?
Sometimes we receive some weird pop up message, or a message with some mistake, like the one here below. Do you think in the future it will be possible to report the error by sending a feedback about the message itself?
I have a question about Google Maps Level badges. Will there be any plans to add additional levels than Level 10? Because Many of Google maps Contributors “Local Guides” already crossed Level 10 and unlocked all badges (like me except Master Direct Badge) So can we see more badges or Level Ups after Level 10 on Google maps for boosting more excitement?
I want to know about any features like accessibility or Other which we as local guide working on, if that facilities not available at visited place then can google map team will provide ?
Thanks in advance, & looking forward to your Answer…
Hello, @KatieMcBroom Thanks for the post. I have two questions for Hongzhi. Before there was an option to Check the facts and Add Missing info on Google Maps to verify the place or information by other Local Guides, but now it’s no more. Is Google confirming by itself about the information which is being added by Local Guides? Will it come back again on Google maps? And my last question is, Can Google Add a feature on every place with Accessibility information about the place? So it will be easy for people who are using Google maps to know specific information about Accessibility in such places, businesses, or restaurants
Thanks for this opportunity. I was pleased to meet Hongzhi in person during “Ask a Googler” session at Connect Live 2019
Hi Hongzhi,
I would like to ask some questions for you :
As a Software Engineer for Google Maps, are you focused on front end or back end development?
On Google Maps, when we turn on our location history, do we need to keep turn on our phone GPS to receive the most up-to-date timeline both on Google Maps and email ?
When we edit the information on Google Maps, there are some factors to decide whether our edit can be approved or not. Does Googler always check directly to the place or ask the owner and management of the place to verify the information?
Wow, Congrats to Hongzhi Thanks for the information.
My question is simple to Hongzhi
There are many people in India using map some from village are uneducated they don’t to type nor know how use google assistance how google map will be helpful, labour class to search job, add my business on …How can they search query in google.
Let me know how you help such people. Following instructions they used map.
Thank you @KatieMcBroom for introducing Hongzhi and for the opportunity to ask him some questions and I can see that many Local Guides before me have already posted some amazing questions, well done to all. Here are a couple more that I’d love to hear Hongzhi’s reply:
There are a number of short comings in the area of functionality provided in Maps to help make the Local Guides’ job in terms of managing their contributions simpler, easier and much better - for example, the inability to quickly and easily scroll through both reviews and photos. Are there members of the Engineering Team dedicated to looking at the provision of better functionality to help Local Guides manage their contributions?
Would it be difficult to allow scrolling though both reviews and photos contributions on Maps in reverse to but additional to the orders currently provided?
Quite often when taking photos of places of interest for Maps, Local Guides are questioned about their activities. Because Local Guides don’t have any identification such an ID card, they could show their profile in “Your contributions” in the Google Maps app with those asking questions. For this reason, I’d like to see the date that we started as a Local Guide added to our Google Maps profile, perhaps something along the lines shown below. I believe this would add a bit more credibility and indicate much more explicitly and clearly our longevity and commitment to the Local Guides program.
In recent years in particular, Google has done commendable work in the are of accessibility and a number of Local Guides have also dedicated much of their efforts and made significant contributions to Maps when it comes to accessible life - they and we all know who these Accessibility Champions are! These highly commendable Local Guides have been featured here on Connect and also in other avenues including very recently The Keyword. There is one area where many more Local Guides could contribute, while individually perhaps in a smaller way but collectively it would make a significant contribution in the area of accessible life and this is in the area of adding and editing captions to their photo contributions both at the time of adding photos and retrospectively when reviewing and editing their contributions.
As well as explaining what a photo is about, and often without them Maps users will have no idea, captions would be a major benefit to those visually impaired who use assisted technology devices such as screen readers that convert text to speech or braille format. Local Guides have raised the problems associated with adding/editing captions as far back as mid-2017 and I too raised these not long after becoming a Local Guide and joining Connect. In September 2019, and this was 12 months after raising this, a former Googler here on Connect advised that the problems raised with captions “will be checked thoroughly.” Sadly, these problems still exist today and captions are mostly of the type Photo i of n (e.g. Photo 1 of 5). Is the Team looking at the problems associated with adding/editing captions?
OK that’s the easy questions so now let me ask Hongzhi, are you a Local Guide yourself and if so, what type of Contribution do you enjoy most?
Great @KatieMcBroom , thank you for very interesting series!
Here my questions for Hongzhi:
how the location accuracy for a specific POI is calculated? E.g. I mean when Maps tells us that we have been there and we would like to review that place, which factors are mostly relevant in assuming is that POI rather than the next door one? I hardly find that notification wrong
how stats in the emails are aggregated? I often see disruptions in the counters, e.g. congratulations you reached a new milestone of 1k views (I suppose starting from below milestone level) but the thumbnails show instead 5k or more, in my last mail last week even 80k which was in the upper milestone
what’s your best/worse (up to you) project idea you have got (if possible to be said) in the Google free dev time ?
hi @KatieMcBroom and thank you so much for this… I have a quick question for Hongzhi. Is there anyway to add diving spot in the middle of the ocean or particular walls/rocks (not attached to an island or piece of land) great for diving, in Google Maps. I have been trying to do so but not yet successful. Any particular tips perhaps? Thank you
Related to the new notifications about contributions that pops up
2-3 months ago I started seeing
To see notification to review the place I visited and there used to be a small line included saying you ranked in top 10% in Restaurant reviewers on Google
Will there be any updates where it will be visible on maps profile? Or we would have some badges for the same?
related to number of views calculation sometimes as soon as I update a picture and open it I see it already has 4-5 views within few seconds how does this work?
If I have contributed (review/ pictures/ answers) to a place but it has been permanently closed now does it effect the contribution stats?
When are the contributions calculated for email updates? Because I also notice some of my edits get approved at a time after we receive the monthly emails
My question is similar to @ErmesT 1st question. Is it possible to have a search bar on contributions made by local guides? Instead of scrolling way down to check?
This is my question for @hongzhi : is it planned in the future to insert a search field in the “Your Contributions / Your Profile” section of Google Maps?
Now there are “topics” available that collect only my related reviews (such as Pizza, Playground, Coffee, Ice Cream etc etc) but having a search field would facilitate the search based on activities not present in the suggested topics: I could also receive the result of my research divided into reviews, photos and places as in the image here attached.