In reply, I did say that while this was not the intended purpose of the original post, my thinking is that I can jump in here to help even further simplify the whole process, and committed to give this some thought.
To start this process off, and given that it’s that time of the month to start updating, you will see that the star photo and star video data entry section of the T100 Leaderboard System, now includes a requirement to add the Maps Share Link to your star. For step-by-step instructions on how to locate your link, select the help icon. Once you paste your link, simply click Extract Photo to verify that your star photo/video image previews correctly before saving.
Once the September Leaderboards have been posted and we have more time for the necessary development work, we will take this enhancement to the next step and introduce a refined way of generating and showcasing our stars.
Please note that I’ve created this separate post instead of having this update buried deep in the discussion of the original post and also given that it’s that time of the month to start updating.
Thank you for implementing this enhancement so quickly, @AdamGT!
I have just tested it by pasting my Maps share link and extracting the photo preview—everything worked smoothly as shown in the screenshot below. I also noticed that the views are not showing on the screenshots. Looking forward to the next steps after the September leaderboards!
Well done @PrasadVR, and it’s great to see that you have tested this new feature for both your star photo and star video. Exciting new feature(s) to come.
Thanks @Ssiddharth2000 and I look forward to your feedback. The plan is to make this so simple that even Local Guides like @StevenBerlin who have had some difficulty in the past will be able to join in and showcase both their star photo and star video.
I also have tested this @AdamGT, but I don’t understand the intended result. The extracted photo and video are now saved on my Star data pages, but I didn’t do anything else. I plan to update all my end of month information tomorrow or Tuesday.
@AdamGT . Thanks for taking out tume and effort to simplify the process. I will try it in this month update. On a separate note, i think the old system was equally good and simple
This is a great improvement and a very helpful addition. It also makes it easier to check whether an earlier Star Photo/Video is still public or has been hidden. It helps avoid cases where participants have changed their Maps profile, but the earlier profile ID is still linked to their Star Photo/Video.
Thank you so much @AdamGT for not only bringing this improvement but thinking out of the box to bring this change. I checked it with my Star Photo in the T100 Leaderboard System, and it is working absolutely fine. Really appreciate the effort.
The only thing I did was the extraction test, and scrolled down the page to click Save. Later, when I do my usual monthly update, I’ll do the regular screenshots, captions, and tables in the albums.
Did you know, the link to a photo is different, depending on whether you share it from the POI or from your contributions page? For now, it doesn’t matter which of the (at least four) different links, you use to paste into the field “Google Maps Star Photo Share Link:”
The advantage: If you use that link, you also see the number of views (while others using the same link see the photo, but not the views).
Note, after clicking the “Extract Photo” button you might see a message in red “Error connecting to extraction server” just for a couple of seconds, before it changes to “Photo extracted successfully!” and shows your photo below.
Thanks for testing this @WilfriedB and yes you are right, there are different links however as you say, while it doesn’t matter which link you use, that from your contributions list where the views count is shown is the one that should be used. My hope is that no one permanently lands on the connection to the extraction server error.
