I have submitted hundreds of road edits to Google Maps. However, apart from automatic approvals, only a handful were reviewed. Some of them started to exceed the 3-month line and were auto-rejected. Why is no one reviewing my edits? What is the point in submitting any edits if nobody looks at them? Is there anything I can do to ensure my edits are reviewed?
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I guess there was no-one to verify them⌠I have a similar problem (but on a much smaller scale) with my edits in Italy - they pertain to a rural part of Italy and I guess there are not that many local guides there interested in verification of my editsâŚ
I would be very interested to learn if there are any methods to find and stimulate the people that could approve the changes in a given area.
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Who can approve them? Only Google employees? How does one apply for the job?
Good point @qnstie I never realized there must be at least one more local guide to approve an edit. A made the same experience in Italy. Until recently, all my edits were refused (âCould not be verifiedâ). A few weeks ago, I was able to add some paths for pedestrians and bikes, but many others are standing in line, possibly waiting to be refused. 
No, not exactly - it depends. Someone described it well here: https://support.google.com/maps/thread/16284606/how-can-i-verify-edits
Is seems the algorithm decides if a change requires a manual validation or not. You never know on what basis.
In my case only about 20% of changes in the road layout got approved automatically, even if most of them should be in theory pretty obvious for the AI as they matched the satellite images very well.
Admittedly, in some cases I made a mistake and made too many edits in a single submission - some of the more experienced colleagues on this group recommend to submit simple, almost atomic changes. Next time I will try that.
But all in all - many of my small changes wait for something. I am pretty sure that the algorithm decided that they need to go through a real person. Which may be hard to findâŚ
I believe that the local guides (meaning: we) do that when we contribute (e.g. using the Contribute/âcheck the factsâ option in the Google Maps mobile.
So in a way, you have the job already 
The problem is that I am not sure how the algorithm selects the people to verify the facts. I was only ever asked the simple questions to validate e.g. if the restaurant has a toilet or if popcorn can be purchased in a given shop. But I was never ever asked about the correctness of a road, a one way street or about a house number⌠And these are the types of questions that the validators should answer to validate my latest contributions.
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Arenât we all local guides? If so how can we approve these edits? Why are there so many people submitting edits and none who are reviewing them?
I have no issues with the automatic edits. I know how to make them and they get approved within 24h. But abusing the automated approvals to fix roads is not the way to go. This also creates a mess in the road network which ends up even worse than before. Automatic approvals are not a solution.
Yes we are.
I wish I knew the answer to your question. As I just wrote above - I never ever was asked by Google Maps to contribute regarding the streets or house numbers. So I do not know on what basis and how Google Maps selects the local guides to verify the edits and how that validation process looks like.
This post seems to claim that local guides have to be level 8-10 to review edits. https://qr.ae/pKXDq8
This suggests something similar: https://qr.ae/pKXDBy
Not sure if this information is up-to-date.
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Hi @Dharman
âWelcome to Connect! If this is your first visit, youâve come to the right place. This post will serve as a guide for everything you need to know about contributing content and engaging with the Local Guides community on Connectâ. This is the first of the information that you will find in âYour guide to Connectâ , the introductory Guide of the community. In there you will find all the necessary information to know how to better contribute in here
The approval of a road edit is made through a combination of AI and trained operators activities based on a series of priorities:
- Roads in densely populated areas are given priority over areas with low population density. In practice, the paths that can be useful to a greater number of people are analyzed first
- Simple edits (with few segments) are analyzed faster than complex ones, which an AI has more difficulty analyzing
- Edits that are not approved within three months are automatically rejected. This doesnât mean they canât be submitted again. In fact my last 2000 approved roads are all related to rejected and resubmitted edits
Local Guides have no role in road approval, and Checking the Facts does not apply to road approval, @qnstie , @WilfriedB
Furthermore, there are some absolutely essential conditions for a road to be approved: that the road is clearly visible in Sat mode and that the added road is connected to an existing road. The only exceptions to the last condition concern only roads added through Road Mapper.
Iâve written several posts on the topic to explain these things, to make the program easier to use, and to reduce frustration with unapproved roads. I therefore recommend reading:
The next two posts are from the beginning of the program, when only a few selected Local Guides were enabled to add roads, and all the edits were moderated by Googleâs operators
- Roads for Everyone - Helping others with the New Road Editor
- Mapping for Good - New roads in the Earthquake area of Italy
The next post was written during the transition step (Oct 2022) , when the AI started to be integrated
- Roads in Google Maps: 2000+ roads later ⌠. The post gives tips and explanations about the road editing process
With the beginning of the TRAC campaign I was invited to provide additional tips for the ones who want to add roads in Maps.
- This post is reflecting the actual conditions of the approval structure: 3000+, and counting. My tips for adding roads in Google Maps
- The next one is about rejected roads: Understanding rejected road modifications: how to turn a disappointment into an opportunity
Hope this will clarify the situation and help you to have more roads approved
Do you have a doubt about how to do something? The Help desk is here for you,with a long list of post with detailed indications on how to post.
Which kind of contents we share in the community? What are Connect topics? will give you an explanation
Thanks for taking the time to reply. Before posting here, I read most of your articles already. While they are helpful, they donât really answer the question why arenât all edits reviewed. I have made huge edits and I made tiny edits. I observed no real difference. Only creation of new roads is getting reviewed (mostly by AI). If itâs done by AI then why can it not approve simple edits? If human operators are involved then does that mean there isnât enough of them? It seems like a complete failure of this process. I have been suggesting edits for a few months, but it seems completely useless. They will get automatically rejected and all my hard work will be for naught.
Itâs fine that wrong edits get rejected. I can reapply them better. But the problem is that 90% of my edits are never looked at. I really do not want to abuse the AI, although I did use it on few occasions. The AI is pretty stupid and wonât check how valid the addition of a new road actually is. But if a road exists, it should be fixed rather than drawn again few meters away. But the system is so broken that itâs easier to add the road again than it is to move it by a few meters.
Additionally, the road mapper edits are approved 24-48h later. ALL OF THEM. No matter how stupid the change is or how big it is. No matter which country it is. But if I make the exact same edit using the normal tool, thereâs a 0.0001% chance of it ever getting reviewed. Somethingâs not right. The road mapper is cool, but it only allows edits in certain countries and most of the time it gives me some rural locations that have negligible impact on road network. But I want to make a real impact by fixing the blatant issues I know of.
I will give some examples of edits I made, but you can point out something obvious.
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@Dharman , Thank you so much for your quick reply, and for all the details provided. This makes your post much clear.
In the future replies kindly remember to tag the person you are responding to by using a tag ( just type @ and choose the name in the pop-up). Active members are receiving a lot of notifications as they respond in many post, and sometimes they simply skip the ones where they are not mentioned.
If you read my posts you know for sure that I was extremely active in fixing the shape of the roads (Correct Road Shapes in Google Maps - âFollow the Blue Lineâ ). With the change of the moderation system I simply gave up in doing this, because this kind of edit is getting a âlow priorityâ. This can be explained in various ways:
- The first priority is navigation: If a road in Maps allows you to reach point B from point A, the fact that the position of the road in Maps is slightly wrong is considered a minor factor, as the fundamental function of the road is respected.
- The second point, even if it is unpleasant, is that Maps wants to prevent anyone from earning points simply by modifying the Map in an irrelevant way, for example by moving a point very slightly. In practice, Maps prevents Gamers from earning points without efficient changes. In the current situation the AI seems to be unable to discriminate between important edits and irrelevant edits.
Personally, in the current situation I have stopped making edits relating only to the shape of a road. But I calmly correct the layout of a road connected to a ânewâ road added to Maps, and in this case the edit is almost always approved
I fully agree that the AI should be able to understand if an edit is appropriate or just a trick, base on parameters like the amount of points changed and the distance between the old and the new shape, also because this is affecting the visualization of the blue line of Street View.
I will continue to highlight the issue to the team, as it is also affecting the visualization of another Googleâs product: Google Street View, so thank you for mentioning the issue.
However I do not see a quick solution/improvement for this specific issue
Thank you very much @ErmesT , this is very informative and helpful.
I wish I knew about the TRAC campaign before, great initiative! But maybe iâll be able to join the next one.
BTW, the 6k+ roads you added during the campaign is really impressive!
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