To Trust or Not to Trust?
(Cause: Relevance and Reliability of Information)
People are eager to share photos and comments on the Internet. We are overwhelmed by the amount of information on the www and on Google Maps, as well. However, is all this data relevant?
My passion as a Local Guide is to improve the reliability rate of the photos, comments and their appropriateness.
Since Google Maps is universally used, I believe that the information posted should be in English, so that people from different nationalities can get acquainted with places of interest and, more specifically, places in a non-English speaking country, like Bulgaria.
For me it has always been vitally important that the information added is meticulously precise and the photos accompanying it are descriptive and relevant. Personal photos taken on personal occasions at certain places and accidentally uploaded on Google Maps, do not have any informative value. For example, a mother has taken a photo of her child in a park and uploaded it as an illustration of the park, but the photo is a close-up of the child only. Another example is a group of friends enjoying a drink at a table and given as illustration of a restaurant, even though the picture depicts the people only and not the place and the viewer cannot get impression of the place. In other cases, there are photos taken at one place and labelled as a different one.
Because of cases like this, my primary cause is to ensure that all the pictures of a place are relevant and informative.
Another issues I have noted is that some of the comments do not follow the procedures and guidelines of Google Maps Local Guides, so although existent, they are not relevant and do not provide any valuable insights for the local community. This is the reason why I check, revise and add the necessary details. What is more, there are some tourist attractions and other important sites which are followed by comments which contain some valuable information but in the local language. To be really useful for foreign travellers, this information should also be present in English, since English is lingua franca. For this reason, when I spot such instances, I add the necessary information in English.
In addition to this, I am passionate about giving small businesses the chance to be discovered by potential customers. In order to achieve this, I check whether small local businesses are existent on Google Maps and if the given information about them (working time, contact details - address, phone number, website, etc.) are correct. The reason for my enthusiasm about doing this is that I consider that small and medium businesses are vital for the development of local economy.
I believe that with my technical background and curiosity for discovering new things, I can make my personal contribution to enriching the information on Google Maps and improving its reliability and accuracy.
So… To trust or not to trust?
I choose to trust and do my best to make it trustworthy!
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