On the 16th of April, I got the change to host my first virtual meet-up. Initially, I was quite nervous as earlier, I used to be on the other side of the table - to be an audience. But, to be honest, it’s been an amazing experience leading the session from the front. Before beginning my recap, I would appreciate that you must read this post regarding Hosting a meet-up and you will learn some good skills to manage it. Moving on, I have also tried to follow the basic tips for writing a recap and you can find these tips as well on HOW TO WRITE A RECAP.
Purpose:
Being a Local Guide is a husky responsibility. We like earning points for every contribution we make, sharing beautiful sights in our photos, answering the questions, liking photos of other local guides and much more. But, are we creating an opportunity in the society or just messing up with the technology. To know the answers, I wanted to hear the opinions of other Local Guides and wanted to share my thoughts with them. These below-given questions were in my mind before starting my session and wanted to focus on:
- Are we reviewing our pictures in the Map?
- Are we taking any possible action against useless pictures?
- Do we have the same businesses in the same locations?
- Are we posting single liner reviews or extending reviews up to 200 words?
I also wanted to know tips regarding the above queries too
- Tips for taking the best pictures and avoid duplication in pictures.
- Tips for writing helpful reviews
Discussion:
We started the session right on time and discussed the above queries. @MahabubMunna shared his strategy of uploading only 2 or 3 pictures of a single place, making sure that it fits best for the visual display of that place. @TravellerG sir highlighted a very useful tip of storing the pictures on “High quality” rather than on “Original quality” on Google Photos allowing you to get free unlimited storage. For this, we requested him to have a separate virtual meet-up to understand the quality of photos and pixel science.
We wanted to know more about the duplication algorithm of photos on Google Maps, so @OmerAli brother advised us to keep reviewing our photos and deleting the duplicate ones would be the best option. Further, he also suggested us to keep our photos in different device so that we don’t face duplicates on Google map. (Thanks OmerAli bhai for the little Loca Star 
)
To get a better understanding of the Local Guides Connect policy, the link to “Maps User Contributed Content Policy” and emphasized us to understand it for future contributions. He also talked about the single-liner review. @Sarbland and @Muhammad_Usman brother mentioned that they always describe the whole experience without limiting any word count. And @Ddimitra G keeps her reviews interesting by usually opt to write in her Local language which in her view can help her countrymen around the world.
End But a New Begining:
It was a one hour plus discussion and I enjoyed the active participation from the Local Guides. It gave me the confidence to plan something more interesting in the future.
I would like to say special thanks to @StephenAbraham brother for helping me out in arranging the meet-up and guiding us throughout the discussion. It was so helpful session and hopes everyone had benefited from it. Thanks to @KashifMisidia brother for his efforts and support for helping me out to take this initiative and
thanks to all the participants @Gabuu , @Bilal_shaikh who supported me in the meet-up and apologies for missing out some names due to limitations.
If I have missed something useful from the meet-up, please do share it in the comments below. And Stay safe everyone.
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