Questions about adding photos to reviews

[PaytLynn]

Hello everyone, I made a post about this just recently, but i'm posting to see if someone can offer some clarity on the policies. When we post photos with our reviews, we get additional points added towards our badges. But is there such thing as abusing this feature? Such as when someone just adds whatever photo they have to the review when the photo has nothing to do with the business, the review, or even anything to do with anything other that photos you'd post on social media; when someone uses photos like that and puts them in a review, is there a policy that states this is not something that should be done? Or is there a policy explaining what should and should not be used when posting a photo in a review? I would think it would be straight forward that posting photos that are off topic and irrelevant in order to just gain points but I haven't found anything on it yet. It's very plausible that there isn't a policy on it since i'd assume most of us are guides since we were posting reviews already.

A follow up to this question would be, other than badges, what would there be to gain for someone possibly "abusing" the system in order to gain points? 

Thanks guys!

[NadyaPN · Accepted solution]

Hey @PaytLynn,

Thanks for your questions. I'll try to give you some exhaustive answers.

As a global community, we do have quite detailed policy and rules. These are the guidelines that everyone who wants to be part of the Local Guides program needs to follow. 

Local Guides' contributions need to be based on real experiences, in other words, relevant to the Point of Interest they are posting to. Publishing duplicate or off-topic photos and reviews is against our rules as you can read in the above linked policy. For more information you can go through the Format Specific Criteria for different types of contributions. 

Photos and reviews that don't adhere to Maps User Contributed Content Policy will be marked as private. Private contributions do not count toward one's Local Guides level. Furthermore, if someone is caught abusing the system, they might be removed from the program.

Lastly, people might try to game the system for many reasons. Local Guides like you are offered perks (like special promotions from partners) and early access opportunities from time to time. This can definitely be one motive for some people to cheat and try to gain points fast.

[PaytLynn]

@NadyaPN

Thank you for your clarification. So when someones reviews are reported, if action is taken, it would remove the points gained from that photo/review correct? There is a user, specific to this post, whom I'm very familiar with. I come across the page frequently, and in addition to the photo issue, this user has blatantly lied in a review and advertised their own business all in the same review (reported a few months ago), then this issue started to come up when I noticed this a few months after the business post. I know that nothing can be relayed back to me on whether action is taken, but their points don't appear to have been adjusted at all. I also know this user consistently talks about his "high stature" in the google review community and about "all the perks" he gets. It's seems that this account is just playing the system and i'm not quite understanding why nothing has changed on their account, or why the post with a lie and advertising in the same review was never taken down either. The company even responded to him to try to fix the problem but of course nothing happened because the person never was at the store yet the store still gets a 1 star review for no reason.

From everything I've learned by being a guide, as well as helping create google pages for businesses, it seems that google is well regulated and kept very clean. I've even seen basic, but clearly fake, reviews flagged and taken down almost immediately that didn't even come close to this account's games. I don't have any personal vendetta against this individual, but they're clearly breaking rules and still maintaining a level 7 badge and bragging about it, while others are affected for going on a rant about a bad experience. What I believe is unfair is that businesses are getting bad reviews for the reviewers own personal gain, the persons reviews give almost no insight to the business they review on, plus the fact that this person is getting more points for doing nothing but posting whatever is in their camera roll that day. 

But anyhow, you've answered my questions and I appreciate you taking your time in responding and thoroughly explaining everything to me. Thank you!

[NadyaPN]

Hi @PaytLynn,

You're very welcome. I'm glad I was able to shed some light on our guidelines.

If you believe that this Local Guide is clearly violating our rules, I can send you instructions via PM on how you can report him/her. 

[PaytLynn]

@NadyaPN I have done so twice now, which is why i wanted clarification due to seeing things not changing point wise and the one false review remaining up. But at this point I will trust in the judgement of those who moderate. thanks again!

[PaytLynn]

@NadyaPN hi, me again. this same guide is still doing the same things. posting reviews of parks, but posting pictures of highways. or commenting on RV stores with random pictures of downtown. I know that technically I can't be updated about someone I report, but i'm wondering if you can advise me on why someone wouldn't be reprimanded for something like this? the reason I know of the park one specifically is cause it happens to be the park within a few hundred feet of my home and the road posted in the pictures is of a road in tooele. I cross paths with this reviewer frequently and continuously see these things. every few days the reviewer will upload 5+ reviews of places all over utah at the exact same time. it just seems odd to me that they are consistently doing this but points are still going up.

Again, I know you can't update me on someone, and would understand if you didnt reply to this cause its more of a rant than anything.