Indeed it’s time @tony_b . Stay tuned.
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Hi @AdamGT ,
I consider this to be a very positive step. There will unfortunately be people who want to keep their identity hidden for purely privacy issues, which is unfortunate. However, whenever I find a profile gaming the Google Maps system, they have invariably made their profile private to reduce the risk of detection and punishment.
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@nigelfreeney The other instance in which I discover hidden profiles is when I get notified of new followers. I generally open the profiles of my followers to see about more about who they are and what their activity looks like, and to determine if to follow them back or delete them from following me. Why would a person want to follow me and not let me see their activity??
I know some of these followers may not be on Top100 and therefore not fall under the jurisdiction of the @AdamGT guidelines, but it’s a concern to me, nevertheless.
Hi @tony_b ,
I don’t have that many followers, 68, I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about why they choose to follow me. I can’t imagine any advantage that someone could have to gain from being aware of the images that I upload to Google Maps.
Cheers,
Nigel
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I see this as a total misunderstanding of how things work @nigelfreeney . Hidden profiles are hidden from the public but not from Google so while bad operators may be spared from public reporting, they can still be detected and punished and if I were running the show, it’s the hidden profiles that I would be checking first 
The Leaderboards are not the place for those concerned about their privacy and I can only reiterate the point I made in my earlier comment, as well as the transparency issue, the real importance of this is that hiding one’s profile means that when they update it is very likely that they are updating with the wrong data making it unfair to those that follow the rules.
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Exactly @tony_b , Why would a person want to follow me and not let me see their activity?? Very sus if you ask me!
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Hi @AdamGT ,
Slight misunderstanding of the point of my comment “I see this as a total misunderstanding of how things work” It’s more like I see exactly how things don’t work as you alude to by your finishing comment “if I was running the show”. I have tried to report a level 100 profile via @MortenCopenhagen with staggering abuse of their profile by posting thousands of images on the same POI and using it as their own online photogallery. Despite two attempted reports nothing has changed. For a lower ranked miscreant advertising their animal clothing product the volume was reduced but their images are still present and the their intent is clear,
What I was referring to was the use of private profiles in general - not specifically to the Top 100 Local Guides programme. I completely agree with your intention, as I mentioned in a previous post, to remove anyone who doesn’t play be the rules and make their profiles public.
On a brighter note it wasn’t ‘man flu’ I actually required ABS (Antibiotics and steroids) as I have a proper fully fledged chest infection 
I have also completed the update to my data for this year so looking for at least a bronze star for effort under duress! 
I have had time to think about my original comment that I couldn’t see anything to gain by following a Local Guide behind a provate profile. The reason I said this is because the only real information of value that I can see is for a stalker using the way that you work and relatively real time information to gain more information about you.
However they could achieve most of that simply by monitoring your profile each day to see where new content you had posted was from.
The obvious solution, apart from manually removing followers with private profiles, would be to have an option to automatically refuse to be followed by users who had profiles that were private. This would need to be reactive so that if tha LG started following you on a public profile then went private they would need to lose their existing follower connections.
Cheers,
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Thanks for your comments @nigelfreeney and @AdamGT , and apologies for taking this thread a bit offtopic.
I’ve asked unsuccessfully about followers and following in other threads before, so was glad for another opportunity to raise it.
We can leave it there for now, and I’ll continue to be cautious and slightly reserved about my participation in that aspect of the platform.
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@AdamGT Trying to put forward my view here as one of those who has kept the profile Restricted but still willing to participate in the top100localguides program. (Long post. If you prefer, skip to the TLDR version in the end and a suggested alternative just before that).
I, like everyone else here, post lots of content and thereby attract lot of attention with my reviews, ratings and even photos/videos. This is something I’m both proud of and at the same time also worried about. Privacy concerns.
I’ve been approached more than once in past by strangers regarding my posts. Thankfully, those were not with harmful intents but one can imagine how a 3 star review might rile up someone who understand the fact that posts by highly rated contributors are weighed more by the Map algorithms. While with my unique name, I’m still not completely hidden for stalkers but, Google Maps is the only place where I publish near real-time. Being a map-fluencer comes with a price.
After reviewing the privacy design for few months, long ago, I had decided to make my profile Restricted and removed all my followers (except two closely known people). Since then I have decided not to allow anyone to follow me. I still have 50+ follower requests put on hold. As per my understanding, followers count does not provide any advantage (there is not even a leaderboard for that). While that is also a deeper philosophical opinion about all Social Media platforms in general, it applies more so to Google Maps which thankfully does not pay much attention to followers counts.
In general, the privacy design for contributors program, in my opinion is a bit of concern. Specially for the fact that it is not even monetized. We all do it as a community service for Google and its users.
While top100localguides leaderboards is a great motivation for continuing to contribute, it is still not the top reason for me to do this. In fact, I was not even aware of existence of this wonderful program till very late in my contribution journey. (This is also a feedback that it should be made more popular for inviting more contributors).
On the other hand, I totally agree with the concern of competing contributors of the leaderboards that Restricted profiles could be misleading with made up numbers. That is a very genuine limitation of this leaderboard program. But, there is an easy solution to that. Instead of asking the contributors to make their profiles fully public, only the admins here should start following those who prefer to keep their profiles Restricted. The followers can see the numbers if they want to.
TLDR:
Having said all of this, I’d like to conclude that the Restricted profile is important for me and I’d like to keep that even if it is at the cost of losing my appearance here (which I will definitely miss). I believe, making contributors fully exposed as a qualification to participate here is equivalent of asking the Billionaires of the world to expose their bank accounts for public view, in order to appear in the Forbe’s richest list, etc. Bank account access must be provided only to Bank Managers.
Happy new year everyone. Keep contributing.
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@Getzafar You raise some interesting points. While the Top100 program puts a lot of focus on photos (and more recently videos), I’ve always noted that some LG’s contributions to Google Maps are more slanted towards Reviews and Ratings. It is evident than an LG could become a target for an angry business owner who received a poor review or low rating.
As you can see from my earlier post, I’ve been struggling for a while to get a better understanding about followers, and you say you took the drastic action of removing all followers and blocking new ones. I haven’t done that yet, but when I get notified that I have a new follower and I check and see they have zero activity (or their profile is private), I become a bit suspicious.
Anyway, it’s up to @AdamGT to determine how best to handle situations like yours in the new year.
Hi @AdamGT,
Thank you so much for verifying my registration. My Connect username is @ShamsurRahman and my T100 ID is 8523.
I have carefully read the Startup Guide and the Privacy Policy. I truly appreciate your hard work and I would love for the Top 100 Leaderboards to continue on Connect.
With respect.