I don't adding a place

[TuhinSir]

my informations are currect. but it didn't accepted.  I tried it 4/5 times. but failed everytime.

[Briggs]

It's great to see that I am not alone in my 'not applied' escapades, having this post the benchmark of the people's struggles and tribulations. However unhumbling that may have sounded, this still proves to be one of the biggest issues facing today.

Dear diary,

I haven't written in you for about ten days now, so consider this a little bit of an achievement. I wanted to get away from Google Maps, but as it's an ever-primordial state of the art, overseeing valiant force there is no escape from the necessity of using such. I did so via the following:

• I muted all notifications from Google Maps from appearing on my phone. So now I won't see anything about edits being live, or the other junk that comes by such as someone asking "opening hours" when it already exists on the listing, or "McDonald's is popular on Google Maps", or add your photos of this restaurant to the supermarket next door!
• I also turned off all notifications received via mail, because if I never received one, it meant it was immediately 'not applied'.
• I also deleted the 'contributions' shortcut app that you can add as well.

It was probably a good four days since last Thursday at North Strathfield where I hadn't checked the 'Edits' tab. I'm almost always on the go, having dinner with my family or heading to the dog academy to have my dog stop biting my ankles. I still take a hefty amount of photos though, and I still regularly make edits as I go along, although not in the same ferocity or passion as I used to.

But then I accidentally tapped the 'Edit' tab instead of the Photos. The first four, not applied. Saddingly, I scroll down back to my valiant efforts of visiting great places on Thursday all the way to now. Hours being updated or added, addresses corrected, map markers moved from hundreds of metres away to it's correct spot with it's address. I knew updating names or categories was futile because they would not be applied immediately, so I made no edits to such.

Every single edit, even the easy park 24-hour edits and the simplistic location edits, all 30 of them throughout four days in multiple suburbs around Sydney, all rudely not applied. Now I am starting to think that there is something very wrong with the algorithms as of late. The easy ones that I did prior to the mute were going through (from Emu Plains), but now virtually nothing went through. Do I want to continue making edits as I normally do? Oh absolutely definitely not. As what 6LinksRule visually (yet excellently) describes, it is a real and uncensored kick in the guts!

Turn away from your editing capabilities fellow comrades, you are just not trusted any longer by these altered algorithms. Just take a nice few photos, or review that lovely gnocchi that you had at Nonna's place, or answer the braindead questions that illiterate centipedes ask. Until further notice, I will have to cull all edits from being made, because clearly all our attempts at improving our local areas is being reduced to nothing, not even placed on the backburner, and even then do we find manually reviewed edits supremely inaccurate and unfair, contrary to it's own guidelines.

Turn off your heart (aka your phone notifications, email updates and edits panel) like I already have, it will help you for the interim. Save the violence for something else worth fighting for, you're literally screaming at a megalithic structure that does not care about a "presumed minority". Wait a few months or eons, it gets better... right?

I await further news as this is a final vent.

[Briggs]

Just disregard all that I say.

I only need to express my frustrations...

Spoiler

Tell that to someone who is rewarded for travelling and exploring a third of the Sydney metropolitan area by blocking all their edits. I know it's an algorithm that you decided to change the day the Local Guides Summit 2017 started, but it's been three weeks and nothing has been done yet. We're not a priority. Just shut up, ignore me and do your work and don't mention me until you're ready for me to test a fix. You don't value your dedicated local guides, you don't look at reports properly of irrelevant places that we've reported fruitlessly. But do you really believe in us?

Local guides have a strong feeling of personal responsibility for their community and their desire to ensure its information on Google was correct. There’s a quality of altruism, volunteerism — even activism — about many of these people.

---

Sadly, that statement falls on deaf ears, blind eyes and a shrouded heart. You cut off this feeling of personal responsibility, all out of our own free wills and dedication, in our spare time, efforts and monetary cost, and you gift us coal in Christmas instead. I would rather die than live without passion.
I'm not asking for anything, and Jeroen knows that I would've killed myself over and over if I didn't divert my energies to something much more amounting or engaging with the community. But I am severely depressed and disappointed by the way this has unfolded, and the dialogue between the both of us is just unhealthy and exceedingly empty.

I'll be gone for a couple of weeks, maybe I'll come back before Christmas. I'll still contribute, but I won't explore. I won't go somewhere I haven't been unless I had a purpose to. I'll still reach Level 10 by the end of the year, I'll just have to disregard edits entirely. Maybe I'll ghost around Local Guides Connect, who knows? But you and I know this has gone for far too long, so I must shapeshift and bid thee farewell.

Goodbye.

Edited from another post (14/11/2017):

I want to kill myself.

"Apologies if any of the previous advice was misleading. Genuine attempts to improve the map are not marked spam, but unfortunately the actions of a few bad actors can impact the experience for everyone, this includes giving out or following bad advice."

Let me explain the sudden shift of tone in dot-points, because that is the best way to get a point across.

• A user on a different Google forum has complained that they have tried over and over again to edit details of a place and are continuously 'not applied' and are wanting to give up.
• I advise that it is currently due to the recent algorithm shift that has unfortunately made the AI reject even the most correct and complete of edits. The best way to go about rectifying the issue is to see if the listing can either be claimed via the Google My Business platform and the information updated seamlessly there, or to send in-app feedback to the team via Google Maps. That is what fellow Connect and Google moderators have advised here time and time again.
• The user has had a positive experience and marked my response as a good answer, not giving up and carrying on as they normally do.
• Tonight, a Google Top Contributor (TC) decided to unmark my answer and decided to denote my reply as misleading to even alluding to me as a bad actor (as quoted above). Then he goes on saying that we shouldn't learn any "tricks" which may exacerbate the problem, where I only have said that in consultation that in the process you'll learn through moderators imparting their knowledge which may come off as "tricks of the trade". There was nothing I alluded to about workarounds, because I know they might not be the best solution.
• He then marks his answer as the 'best answer'. And it's just as generic as any other answer you've read around.

See, it's this sort of behaviour that's really impacting on my heart and soul as a local guide. I only want to be able to help other people, as well as I want to help the greater community, but right now because of these god d*mn algorithms, all this us versus them mentality when it comes to people and users of a higher calibre we've been facing over the past couple of weeks, that we really should be coming together and helping each other the best we can.

I have no idea if the advice that I've been given is even right anymore, it seems as if the Google Maps product forums are a whole different world to Local Guides Connect and contrasting to the moderators that hover around each one. But being called "misleading" and a liar has officially made me dead to Google and the Local Guides program. I am so f*cking dead inside, and here I was hoping that I could have been making a better place and climate, with even thinking about writing an entire report (that would probably never be read) about how the moderation process could be improved.

But that is no more. I'm already incredibly heartbroken as it was now with a slowly mending recovery, but this behaviour I just witnessed is adding salt to the broken strings, and now I just want to throw myself in front of a train. And believe me, after attempting the most easiest edits like classifying 678 Korean BBQ restaurant from Restaurant to Korean Barbecue restaurant like it's city branch, it's been one of the most lingering thoughts I have ever faced over the past four weeks ever since Bruce and Gus told me the system were "working as intended".

I don't hate any one of you, but I hate myself, and only myself for making my own trust levels and authenticity become this bad. In a dire and passionate attempt to make maps accurate for everyone, the algorithm shifts and the responses I've had between some moderators and now on the product forums have not been the best experience, and I can only blame myself for being a whiny b*tch.

I am completely done. Everyone has always told me not to take a rejected edit personally. Eventually I managed to shut off my emotions and continue on as a local guide. But after what this certain top contributor has said about me being deceitful and being a troublemaker is something I cannot take lightly.

Google Maps is finally dead to me.
This post means it's goodbye from me as it likely violates policy.

[OStr]

@Briggs, I think the melodrama is uncalled for. Yes, the algorithm change from three weeks ago removed us from GMaps' trust, but I see no reason to take that as a personal affront. It wasn't done against you or me, it was just a poorly designed and sloppily tested software change. Your vindictive or passive-aggressive reaction is misdirected; no one meant to harm or slight you.

If getting a "NOT APPLIED" message is so upsetting for you, you probably shouldn't have been editing in the first place. We all mean well when we edit the map, and we all get frustrated when our good intentions are rebuffed by poorly written piece of code. Is that a reason to give up?  Whom are you punishing by turning off notifications?  Your work as a LG was for the benefit of other users, not for that of the programmers at GMaps.

I'd say, take a month off from editing, and hopefully by then they'll figure out what is broken and how to fix it. The world will not fall apart even if that map marker is placed incorrectly for a few more weeks.

Makes sense?

[BruceDM]

Hello @OStr,

We know that everybody is frustrated at this time with the tightened belt for approvals but please remember that we're all Local Guides and that we help one another here on Connect and via Maps and we want to ensure that we keep Connect a warm and welcoming place for all.  Please be mindful of your posts and the spirit in which you address other LG's as everybody has a right to their opinions and the way they choose to express themselves on these boards.

[wishmasterf]

Why we do not invite Google to this great community. I think google could be a very productive member of this community. Or do you think google does not want to be a part of us? It looks like...

[OStr]

@BruceDM, I'm not sure I understand. @Briggs and I are on excellent, friendly terms, and often support each other here on LGC. My comment was intended to encourage and cheer him up; is that a violation of some rule here?  Is there a list of prohibited words I should avoid when trying to offer someone help?

I'm sure that just like me, @Briggs is more interested in the content of our posts than in nuances of implied tone, but if anyone else here was offended, my apologies.

[BruceDM]

Hello @OStr,

Thats quite alright and i'm glad you two support each other regularly.  It can be tricky to read the tone of everyones posts at times so please don't feel singled out here.  At the end of the day, i'm here to offer support and keep things balanced here on the boards 🙂

[OStr]

@BruceDM, no worries, and thanks for your help.

[AdamGT]

@BruceDM et al I think this thread has drifted off the intention of my initial post and I would like to bring it back on track. As I wrote in my post, I strongly believe that the current Location Marker on Google Maps for The Treasury (Al-Khazneh) building in Petra, Jordan is wrong. I was there several month ago, took many photos and so have the evidence to show the correct location. so I cannot understand how my suggested change to the Location Marker resulted in an immediate "Not Applied"  Rather than just the canned "Not Applied" response if some explanation was given one might help one better understand but based on the photographic evidence I have and the subsequent verification research that I have undertaken, I'm convinced that I am right and my interest in the correctness and integrity of the information given by Google Maps compels me try to flush this out. Is there perhaps some other reason for the Not Applied ruling @BruceDM?