"Unknown place" for photos of a very well-known place

[KathrynH]

I uploaded some photos to the listing for The Alamo in San Antonio. Together they've amassed thousands of views and clearly the listing for the Alamo is still there (clarifying on that point as I know some Unknown Place issues are due to a business listing being removed from maps), but the photos are now listed as being associated with "Unknown Place". My review of the Alamo is still listed but the photos I uploaded don't show underneath it. Any ideas as to what's going on?

[Pea]

Is it possible you added your photos to a different listing, a duplicate of the one your review is on? If a duplicate gets deleted instead of merged then the photos will show as Unknown Place. Often a Local Guide will see two listings and mark one as spam instead of following the correct procedure which would be to mark as a duplicate and let Google merge the listings.

One other thing comes to mind, AFAIK map listings never have more that 201 photos so if people add more I assume some fall off. Whether that means they're just hidden or actually become disassociated and thus 'Unknown' is unclear.

Beyond that speculation I don't think there's any way to find out for sure, and there's probably nothing you can do

[KathrynH]

Thanks so much for the response. I guess what you suggest is possible, but I really don't think so. I'm pretty sure I uploaded the photos and did my review at the same time, and the review is still there on the current listing, but the photos are not. Additionally - and I don't think it's related but it might be - the Alamo map page looks like it's recently been spammed with tons of unrelated or barely-related photos. Some are of San Antonio (but not the Alamo) but some are of nothing related. One is captioned "vomiting cat", for goodness' sake. I wonder if older photos have been bumped for newer ones and if a lot of spam was uploaded at once...? I tried to go through and flag them all but there were so many.

[Pea]

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@KathrynH wrote:

I tried to go through and flag them all but there were so many.

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That in itself is a major problem across many map listings. It's been raised as an issue many times but sadly goes nowhere.  

[LucioV]

Hi @KathrynH maybe someone else flagged your photos for some reason, and the photo was, eventually, removed from map.

This often occurs when there is some "photo war" on a specific placepage: that's what's happened on Trump Tower the days after the elections.

I had a photosphere with hundred of thousands of views, then suddenly disappeared, replaced with other photospheres, with privacy and other issues.

Look at this thread: https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t5/General-Discussion/190-000-views-only-today-someone-could-imag...

[KathrynH]

Yes, I guess the Local Guide program is as open to corruption and stupid behaviour as anything else, but it's saddening. The photos I had uploaded were much nicer and actually OF the place, not like what's there now. I guess they'll have to start locking down the program soon enough.