My accepted features inactivated

I have been contributing features to Google Maps for years. I primarily submit places at Donner Summit in California. In the last few weeks many of the places I submitted that were accepted and displayed have disappeared. When I check on the My Contributions page the places are listed, but when I click on them nothing happens. To my knowledge I haven’t done anything against policies. Any help would be appreciated.

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Hi @GeorgeLamson welcome to Connect! :waving_hand:

I can understand how frustrating this situation must be, especially when those places were previously accepted. It sounds like the listings may have been affected by a verification or system-related issue. Hopefully a Google Moderator can review your case and provide more information.

Thank you for your continued contributions to Google Maps, and I hope the issue gets resolved soon. :blush:

Thanks for your quick reply. Just how do I get a Google moderator to evaluate my problem?

You’re welcome, @GeorgeLamson

Since you’ve already posted here on Connect, I’d suggest waiting a bit to see if a Google Moderator or experienced members notice your post and can provide guidance.

If the issue continues and you need more direct support regarding Google Maps contributions, you may also consider posting in the Google Maps Help Community, where Product Experts and Google staff regularly investigate contribution-related issues and account-specific cases.

When posting there, it may be helpful to include examples of the affected places and screenshots showing how they appear in your Contributions list.

I hope you’re able to get some clarity on what happened to those accepted features. Good luck!

Hi @GeorgeLamson , welcome to Connect!

Can you share more details about those places? Perhaps a screenshot of the contributions you refer to? Do the removed places have anything in common? Did you add them a long time ago?

Sorry to pile on such a heap of questions, but it is hard to give meaningful info without at least some level of detail :slightly_smiling_face:

Thanks for the reply. I have included screenshots of two of my contributions, one that is working (on the left) and one that isn’t (on the right). For both of these I first added the places that were both accepted. I then added a review for each that were accepted. After a couple of days the locations and reviews appeared on GMaps. After a couple of weeks, the feature on the left became inactive and disappeared from the map. You will notice that for the one that is working there is a title for the feature and when clicked on the review came up on maps. For the one that doesn’t work, the title is gone and nothing happens when it is clicked on. It was originally labelled as a Historical landmark at the location of a feature named “Roller Pass” which was one of the passes used by pioneers crossing Donner Summit. I have 5 other contributions that were made in the last 2 months that were initially active and now are also inactive.

Any help would be appreciated

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Hard to say what could be behind this - it is a known fact that contributions can be reviewed from time to time, but there is no public knowledge of the “rules” behind this.

Here’s a hypothesis (my personal guess, and definitely nothing more) of what could be at play here: the Wobena site contains man made elements, justifying a classification as historic landmark, whereas the other one is a pass, a purely natural element.

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@JanVanHaver I think your hypothesis fits really well. In my own experience adding places, the ones that tend to last have something physical and identifiable on site — a marker, a structure, a sign — while points tied mainly to a name or a historical event, without a clear physical object, do seem more likely to quietly go inactive later. A petroglyph slab staying live while a pass drops out lines up with that. No idea if it’s the actual reason, but that’s the pattern I’ve noticed. @GeorgeLamson I really hope you find what’s behind it :crescent_moon:

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Thanks @Ratte for adding that info!

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While I’m not sure that an Historical Landmark can’t just be a place, your hypothesis breaks down when you consider the contribution below. This Historical Landmark is a concrete arrow that was part of the early aviation airway system. You can’t get more man made than this feature and it is certainly historic. I also contributed another airway arrow location that was inactivated. In both cases the feature was accepted and appeared GMaps for a couple of weeks and then became inactive. It is rather frustrating that for all of these features that have been inactivated, there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason and there is no explanation from GMaps.

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