i am contributing in Local guide since 2020. at that time i wasn’t too active caz i didn’t have any information about this field. then i saw a video of local guide getting swags/goodies from google. then i gain interest to be active in this field.
i saw lots of places of my country(Nepal) placed in google map are unknown ( they don’t have any photos and other information) but have lots of photos and information in their social media platform accounts. specailly the schools, hospitals, colleges, temples, restaurants and other place of rural places. then i decided to save their all photos from their social media accounts and started uploading/adding it in their place/location marked at map.
But one day morning when i open map to start contributing i didn’t found and local guide badge/level in my that account (old account). i did little bit research and found that my account is suspended. i still don’t know the exact reason behind it.
main question: Is that cause of posting photos of any places without visiting it or has any other reason ?
if yes, I haven’t added any false photos/information. i was all correct. i did well research before doing it.
I don’t have any hope of getting that id back. just tell me that, was that activity violates community guidelines or not ? and can i repeat it in my new account(this account) or not ?
When the account is suspended in the Local Guides program, it is against the rules to create a new account and contribute to it!
I wonder how you used other’s photos without direct permission from them to own their photos! This is not even the opposite of the Google Maps rules but it is not a good behavior all over the web and even in life!
The user should have all rights of the photos/videos to upload them to the map. When a place has no photo and we have not experienced the place ourselves to capture a photo, then there is no need to upload a photo! So your activity was totally in violation of the rules. Read this guide by @MortenCopenhagen .
You should opt-out of this Local Guides account, remove all copied content from your first account, and then fill out the appeal form and describe that you’ve removed all wrong content and activity so the Googlers can review the status. This guide again by my dear friend @MortenCopenhagen is helpful for doing better.
i posted all photos by talking with the owner of each place. and the photos i posted were posted by the owners on their social media. i talked with them and i posted it when i got their permission only. does it still means any violation ?
i appealed too but got rejected then i close that account from local guide connect and create this one.
Please note that all rights of the photos/videos should be owned by you. Permission to upload from other resources is not enough. From the Copyright perspective, you did the right job asking the owners but still, it is not something within the Google Maps guidelines.
It is clear that when still wrong photos are still in your account, Google rejects the appeal. You should clean your account and then fill out the appeal.
@Amiran is very correct. We are not allowed to download (steal) photos from social media and then upload them to Google Maps. Even with permission from the businesses. We can only upload photos we have taken ourselves. I understand you meant well, Google Maps is a different in the sense that we need to have taken the photos ourselves.
I think @MortenCopenhagen and @Amiran are giving you the correct answers, but there is an unanswered question: So now can’t I continue using this account in proper way without violating any guidelines?
The answer is no, you cannot.
The reason is that who violated the rules is not the account, the rules are violated by the person who manage it: you.
So closing a banned account and creating a new one do not fix the issue. The only correct way is to remove all the stolen contents from the original account and to fill an appeal form for being admitted again to the program. For more details you can read : Why was I removed from the Local Guides program?
"If you think you may have been wrongfully removed from the program and your account hasn’t been reinstated for more than 10 days, don’t create a new account … (That’s against our program rules, too.)
Instead, fill out the Appeal form, letting us know you’ve been removed.
Please close this account now.
Also please note that several of your contribution with this account are violating the rules too.
Some is taken from the web, even with a visible watermark, some is duplicated, many are redundant.
