GIVE CREDIT on Internet Query: How many people has (local guide) helped?

[Michael_Hogue]

I want something really simple: When someone types in an internet query such as "How many people has (fill your Local Guide Name, which in my case is my name) helped?" - Google should give that Local Guide's stats publicly & openly (unless toggled otherwise).   

Example: According to Google I've "helped" 3,117,329 people with photos & contributions.  Being disabled (USMC) I'd like to get a little credit for my contributions.  But the query "How many people has Michael Hogue of Grovetown Helped?" yields nothing on those analytics Google provides.  Needless to say, I've gotten rather dispirited with the whole program.  Give us local guides & contributors some credit so anyone searching for how many people a Local Guide has helped can find out unless that Guide has toggled or indicated otherwise in their Account Settings.

I hate not being able to "prove" I've helped someone (so many) on my dime & time, out of good nature, & for the expansion of mankind's overall knowledge, and I think it's sad, disheartening, and lousy no one can find out what I've done with a short and simple Google answer.

[waqarrandhawa]

Well.,., It should be given.,,.

[Csaba]

This is a good suggestion, I support it!

[LucioV]

Not sure about what this query could return, but I can tell you that I've helped a lot of people, here in connect or on FB Local Guides pages.

If you search occurrences of my username on Connect site, you will find how many times people tagged me, and is an amazing number I'm proud of, 5340 tags, more than any other person here, including Googlers and Admins: https://goo.gl/xiQFSB

I can also tell you that many people consider my answers as best answers, actually a number around 482 (may change, as some answers are often unmarked: https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t5/solutions/acceptedsolutionsleaderboardpage/timerange/all

Looking at public stats on my contributions, I can tell you that actually more than 50 million people viewed my photos and 260 people liked my reviews

So, I'm really proud having helped so many people in LG program and, more specifically, in photography and SV photography area. 🙂

[maheshss]

GOOD SUGGESTION

[Michael_Hogue]

I ran the query: "How many people has "Lucio Virzi" of Rome, Italy, helped?"

What I got was just links to Linkedin, your social pages (Twitter, Pintrest, F/B & the like), and your IVRPA Membership. It does not say *anything* about you helping anybody, anywhere, ever, even on Google.  Don't get mad!  It does the same for me, despite 15 years of doing free online mental health counseling, all my Nat'l Geo photos, and about a half dozen other sites I "help" or "contribute to".  So if I'm an employer, or a business fellow and I've heard you bragging about "helping so many" - I would think you had lied to me - and I'll be darned if I'm going to exert myself (hey, we're all here on the internet where being lazy is a good thing, I suppose) - typing in a lot of exotic queries to search hidden databases, forum comments, and the ilk.  I'm just going to be done with you & assume you did some moderate-to-high boasting.  And that's what I would like to see changed, a little bit of something added so a prospective employer, city, or outfit can type it in (a simple run on query like I did) - and get an answer, and one they understand. (I saw you, like me, are a bit of an engineer, and you know how hard that can be. 😉  

What I would like to see is a simple answer from www Google that simply states those numbers they show you & I and no one else - do the math in adding them in cases like yours with forum answers & comments, "likes" and "thumbs up" - and which would be "tied" to your Local Guide Account so that Google could come back with that answer right at the top - from Google - that says: "Lucio Virzi" of Rome, Italy, has helped xxx,xxx,xxx,xxx,xxx number of people on Google."  That would be enough for me, and any employer or in my case just give some bragging rights my grandchildren could easily access, or friends and family to see (especially my brother who says I am an idiot for doing this at all, much less for free, and denies I have done anything.  That one really ticks me off.)

[LucioV]

Hi @Michael_Hogue I can understand your request.

This sort of AI on our data could be easily done on Google side, but I think that something could be developed by users.

[Michael_Hogue]

Hello again, @LucioV. 😄  Good to read you.  Here are my thoughts on the thing.  Get yourself ready for some reading (I'm also a writer & author, btw - busy man):

Agreed: I could put together a simple SQL database app using crosslinks (think Crystal Reports) & via the web search for all the places you have visited, commented on, belong to; other databases such as comments on Youtube (which kind of count as a type of review in my view), as well as Facebook, Twitter, & the like (social media platforms, searching the servers for instances of your real name, handles, aliases, buried accounts, and any associated & publicly available emails that you use which are linked to those accounts; use that information to track any originating IP's from those accounts which lets me branch out & touch almost any file on the web that contains your name using that information; count all the pictures & videos you've uploaded & capture ("fetch") thumbs up or down, likes & that sort of stuff, number of views per item, plus all the comments you've made (assign a +1 for that) and a negative or positive (you could probably use the values 1 through 5 since all you have to do is "count" the number of instances some person gave it a rating, 1,2,3, etc - a rapid compile on a server somewhere or on your phone, add all those numbers up . . . and then I have the really hard problem that's almost impossible to solve, and really hard to do.  In fact, it takes a stroke of luck, like 1 in 10,000 (and that's the BEST of odds) - your app will "take off" and someone might use it.  I've been down (and am down in some ways in some projects) that ol' rabbit hole before, and would rather not run it - I've got enough going on & my hands full.  (REAL full, you'd realize - no offense! - Just saying, you know how life is! 😄 - better than being dead I'm told, LOL, so at least that's something, and having fun) - but when it's all added up . . . (sighing).  I know if you think about it you know how it is - you sound like an intelligent person, and doing a lot of good, nice stuff around here.  Sadly enough I can't easy find anything that gives you credit - for anything. At all.  So all us "users" might want to bang on Google's doors - demand what we want - a simple credit - which could easily be done by someone who knows Google's API real well, has access to some (at least Googles!  I'd love it if they could run a server-to-server search type system because it's easy to do, too.  Not much harder, anyway. 😉

But anyway I thought I'd take a quick look, just a gander, under the hood of this thing and took a peek.

What I found is Google could easily take that "gadget" they show on our Profile page (www..../localguide/home/settings/).  As it stands pretty much right now you take a chance on whether it is seen through your privacy preference (which unfortunately only YOU, that Guide, can see, access, and control - theoretically at least, though I'm 900% sure a Google tech - the entire system - has a back door into your account where they can do - and access - anything they want to.  They can even use "cookies" (ASCII code text documents written to the client) and on their server to sort, compile, and store, on a daily basis, your sum totals so you can see them any time and they are constantly updated as long as you remain on the internet, PLUS it allows them to control what other users see by allowing them to write "private" information into a pubilic local on their server, and then display it.  What kind of information?  Sum totals with the words to say what each sum (and a graffic can be added, such as a GIF or an ICO, & by keeping it small & 2 or 3 color - B&W would be best, but who wants to look at that kinda scary retro stuff on their phone? - you can increase the download speed and thus releive the load on bandwidth. Using sans-serif letters with thin fonts helps too, but you consume battery life (the client's! Not yours) by keeping it white (having more powered LED or lighted "pixels" on).  A non-sequetor.  And there again it would be easy to do which is why I made the suggestion "When someone types in an internet query such as "How many people has (fill your Local Guide Name, which in my case is my name) helped?" - Google should give that Local Guide's stats publicly & openly (unless toggled otherwise)."  In this case it would be a table - YOUR table, just as it is displayed, IN the Google Search Results, right there at the top of the page (unless something confuses the Google A.I. system - meaning something in the search is wrong, or else you changed your name all over the internet (as well as every handle, alias, cover, social media platform, and anything else public you've got & some you don't know about) - and display it (if applicable), and I don't think, nor do I WANT such a system - which is easy to do if you are willing to pound your head in the sand (sand. Computer chips. Silicon, programming - get it?  It's like pounding your head on a pile of chips sometimes, LOL!!!).

But anyway I doubt Google is going to do anything about it - I know my big corporations really well, and Google's management has reached that overly - I don't know what to call it, but it comes from size, greed, upper businessmen, stocks & shareholders & a whole lot of other stuff, including us users - because, come on - there's nothing in it for them. Only us, and a whole lot of "hard work" (I'll cover my mouth & pretend to cough while I'm laughing) would do this thing, and facing facts . . . it's only got a fly's fart in a windstorm's chance of even happening, if it ever does at all.  Which is kinda why I quit (plus the whole time thing - remember the thing about me being 'busy' - I'm not BS'ing about that - I'm kinda raising some eyebrows around here and in other places & some of the eyes watching don't neccesarily liike the things I'm doing, but oh well - that kinda things on me & I'm used to it.  Old hand (58 yrs old).  So I know just a little bit about some of these systems and that strange character dance when the system goes futz and the screen goes white & blue. 😉

Have fun, people, and . . .
get your friends if you really want this kind of (using the word for feces now)
and if you can get enough of them (about 5,000,000 might do it, and only with a whole lot of complaining & withholding of our donations until our demands be met. Aargghhhh (sounding like a pirate & waving an old rusty cutless).  Sailers be dammed.  Ya'll are gonna have to do it because I've done all I can.  It's on the whole Community now to get something like this done, not me.

Signing off right now, & forever, I reckon (not that I'm gone!  Just kinda said my piece. 😄 )  I'll be around again, but I'm not going to answer anything thing else on this comment thread.  I think I've covered what needs done.  But I doubt anyone's going to do it.  If I've learned one thing, most people just want, don't work, and this is going to hold true right here on this subject.  

Ya'll have fun  and - keep producing, contributing, because - I am following Smithsonian's admonition - its kinda like my religion - to keep on pushing the boundaries of the whole of experience (at least mine, albeit limited to photos, videos, blog work, and a whole bunch of other stuff - I think we discussed that at the very beginning) for "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge" of all mankind.

[LucioV]

Will try to answer later. Maybe I'll need the full weekend to read and understand all 🙂