Caption: An image showing the multi-tiered structure of the Top 100 Photo Views Leaderboards ( @AdamGT )
Introduction:
As Local Guides we have a passion for taking photos and together with reviews of the places that we visit, we share our photos with the world on Google Maps. Because of this, we are interested in the number of views that our photos achieve. This post contains a set of leaderboards each containing up to 100 Local Guides ranked in order of their Google Maps photo views. The first of these leaderboards was started in early November 2020 and was progressively enhanced and updated through December 2020. This post continues on from there and shows the Top 100 Photo Views leaderboards progressively updated on an approximate weekly basis through January 2021 A summary index to these weekly leaderboards is shown here:
No |
Photo Views Data |
|---|---|
1 |
31 December, 2020 |
2 |
11 January, 2021 |
3 |
19 January, 2021 |
4 |
24 January, 2021 |
5 |
February, 2021 |
As well as the photo views data, some analysis is performed which provides a number of different ways to look at the performance of your photos contribution. Additionally, as well as being able to monitor your own progress you can compare this with that of other Local Guides and more specifically with that of your peers, other Local Guides at your level. This is not just an exercise in numbers! As well as helping you keep track of your progress over time, this analysis can help you learn and improve on your photos contribution, and in a fun and easy way. Regardless of your Local Guide level, you can join in and become one of the Top 100!
The Leaderboards:
There are 6 leaderboards in total. The first is a leaderboard of the Top 100 Photo Views of all participating Local Guides regardless of their Local Guide level. This leaderboard is then broken down into individual leaderboards for each Local Guide level with the photo views of Local Guides at levels 1 to 6 shown consolidated on the one leaderboard. The essential idea here is that all things being equal, one would expect that a Local Guide at a higher level would have done more guiding or perhaps been guiding for longer than one at lower levels and hence, would have likely attracted more photo views. Having leaderboards for each Local Guide level is an attempt at creating a more level playing field, at least for comparison purposes. In this way you can see and compare your photo views relative to your peers; for example, a Level 8 Local Guide can see his/her photo view performance relative to other Level 8s, a Level 7 Local Guide can see their photo view performance relative to other Level 7s, and so on! Note that each leaderboard contains up to 100 Local Guides ranked in order of their Google Maps photo views and thus, while you may appear on the leaderboard of your respective Local Guide level, you might not make it onto the overall leaderboard!
Sakes & Ladders:
As well as tapping into the element of gamification in the Local Guides program, with aims of showing the Local Guides having the top 100 photo views, this post includes a bit of fun! You can think of this like the ancient Indian board game of Snakes & Ladders however, as depicted in the image above, in our case itās a 3-dimensional version of this popular game. We have a set of 6 Snakes & Ladders leaderboards, one stacked above the other. These leaderboards are dynamic in that they will be updated (see FAQ #4 below) and at each update both your photo views value and your Local Guide level as well as that of all other participating Local Guides, including new entrants, will determine your position on the leaderboards. Because there are only 100 squares on each board, as new Local Guides enter that board you might also drop off that board, shoosh!
When you jump from one Local Guide level to another, you will jump from one Top 100 leaderboard to another, for example, from the Level 7 to the Level 8 Top 100 board! What this means is that if you were on a crowded board (say the Level 8 Top 100 board) this might be a blessing as you might jump up to a less crowded board, in this case the Level 9 Top 100 board and being less crowded there you will have less chance of dropping off the bottom of the board. However, if you jump onto a crowded board (say from the Level 7 to the Level 8 Top 100 board) then this might not be such a blessing! In fact, if the next Top 100 board is full, you might not even make it onto the higher board. So as you can see there are different ways you could drop off the Top 100 leaderboards. Itās very much like Snakes & Ladders; we roll the dice each time thereās an update (FAQ #4), and both the changes in your photo views and Local Guide level (as well as that of all new entrants and others on the leaderboards) determine where you end up! Your changes could bump others off one or more of the Top 100 List leaderboards and similarly the changes of other Local Guideās could bump you off the leaderboards! Keep in mind though that you can re-enter at any future point in time should your photo views increase sufficiently enough because of your improved photo performance 
What do other Local Guides say?
Click here to see what other Local Guides have to say about these Leaderboards.
How to join in:
While the effort required to maintain and update the Top 100 List leaderboards will grow as more Local Guides join in, it will become more fun and interesting as the inbuilt Snakes & Ladders feature kicks in so I do hope that many more will join in and itās very simple to do so:
- Read the FAQs below that explain the participation Rules and Terms & Conditions, then
- Complete this simple entry form!
Conclusion:
The leaderboard posts are more than just seeing who has the best photos or the most photo views. Being able to look at our photo performance relative to that of other Local Guides and our peers in a fun and friendly way, I see posts like these as a way of showing us how we can improve our personal contributions, improve the quality of being a Local Guide, and thus leading to better information on Google Maps; itās a win-win-win. If it were not for Connect it would be very difficult if not impossible to do this. Connect gives us the opportunity to connect and engage with each other on posts like this.
OK so here comes āthe fine printā, the FAQs. Thereās a lot of detail here but please read it because it will answer most of the questions that you might have.
Adam
FAQs - Participation Rules, Terms & Conditions:
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Is this a competition to see who is the best? While this post taps into the element of gamification in the Local Guides program and aims to show the Local Guides having the top 100 photo views, it also aims to provide a place where we can engage, discuss and learn how we can improve the quality of our photo contributions. Also, instead of having hundreds of photo views type achievement posts scattered throughout the Achievements topic of Connect, it creates the one simple and convenient place to show and compare these.
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I submitted my entry form but why donāt I appear on the Top 100 Lists? There could be a number of reasons for this:
(a) There was a problem with the information you provided on your entry form;
(d) I havenāt as yet done the next update (see FAQ #4)!
Please be patient while waiting for the updates but do look out for any messages from me, including emails and private messages. -
What happens when my āphoto viewsā increase or thereās a change in my Local Guide level? Yes, photo views and Local Guide levels can change daily however once you are on the Top 100 Lists there is no need to re-enter if and when your photo views and/or Local Guide level changes as I will manage all this for you. When your photo views or Local Guide level changes so might your position on the Top 100 Lists.
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Will the Top 100 Photo Views lists be updated? Yes. The lists will be updated on both a weekly and monthly basis as follows:
(a) On a weekly basis the Lists will be updated to include Local Guides that correctly enter during that week.
(b) At the end of the month the last weekly update in that month will be performed and the Top 100 Lists in that month will be closed. From that point on no more entries will be accepted in those lists and youāll have to look at the next month.
(c) On each update the data for all participating Local Guides is updated. In this way the photo views on the leaderboards for all Local Guides are on the same day and as close as is humanly possible, at the same time. -
What exactly happens after each update? To better understand what happens after each update you should also read the notes here.
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Are the Top 100 Photo Views lists automatically generated and updated? No sadly not. This is a totally manual procedure. Perhaps it might serve as a āproof of conceptā and if enough Local Guides like the idea of these leaderboards then you just never know Google might look at implementing the idea in an automatic way. Iād be out of a job but then again Iād get my life back and have time to do more Local Guiding and possibly move higher up on the leaderboards myself
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Disclaimers:
(a) When you enter this post as described above you give me permission to visit your Connect and/or Maps Profile to view and use your photo views data for the purpose of this post.
(b) As a participant itās up to you to check your entry on the Lists and if there are any errors or omissions to advise me by adding a comment on this post.
(c) The Top 100 Photo Views Lists are not official Google generated or endorsed lists. The lists are generated by me with your permission and from your photo views information!
) are used to give a quick visual indication on what features you like and this gives valuable feedback to further build and enhance the leaderboards. Your kudos will also encourage others to participate and I believe that the more that do, the better will be the overall comparative analysis, and the more we will all learn from, enjoy and have fun with these leaderboards!
) on a leaderboard indicates that there was some problem with accessing your photo views data on Google Maps at the time of preparing the leaderboards (see note 11 below).
The same thing happens if you change your Google Maps profile to private after first joining the leaderboards.
