I love adding new places in my city of Almaty. This love had several stages.
First I did it to add points to get higher level. Add a place, get 5 points. Easy. You know how fast you can move level up at the beginning.
Then I realized that it is not only about my level in Local Guides hierarchy. People using Maps should have the possibility to know. To Know about new places to eat, to go shopping, to see. Users should have the possibility to share their experience, share their pictures about the place they spent time at.
Then I started thinking that Owners should be given the possibility to show the creations - food, drinks, whatever they create and I could help them. So I started to add places to earn points and get views of my pictures.
A then I understood that those big restaurants and big shopping malls stayed but small places next to me don’t.
Kuk-si cafe didn’t survive a year
And sometimes it should be not about adding some pretty new restaurant what would give me many photos views. It should be about helping the owners of a small local cafe just to survive.
I’ve seen many POIs open and close, it happens now faster as we are still suffer the effects of the global crisis here in Kazakhstan. There are places next to my home that I “opened” and “closed” within 2-3 months…
Before and 2 month later: (a cute little kids clothes store didn’t stay for long…)
Some places are not managed well, of course. But I think that many of them lack promotion funds. And if my addition of their place to Google Maps will increase their possible clientele even by 1%, I am happy to do it! They try to do busyness and create jobs in this conditions so I will try to support them.
Recently we in Almaty as well as other places in CIS had a huge attack of trolls, who destroyed o lot of names of POI (Atsukot and other Googlers are aware). When I saw it I felt very sad and angry because those guys not only had messed with the Maps themselves but they had messed with people plans, travel routes, plans for evening, they had made some businesses lose the potential clients. So I (as several other LG) created posts on Connect (https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t5/General-Discussion/Known-Issue-Map-editing-in-Russia-Ukraine-and-CIS-countries/td-p/1263173) about this problem, and I believe that we together with Google team and great LG will win.
So to sum up, for me now, after 6 years in the Local Guides program, the most important and satisfying thing is to add new places to my city. It doesn’t give me many points but it is more closer to the real life of my community.