[RECAP] Local Guides Clean The Map session at Community Live 2020

[JanVanHaver]

Image by Adrian Lunsong

At Community Live 2020 there also was a session about Local Guides Clean The Map (#LGCTM), the project I started early 2020 aimed at removing content from Google Maps which no longer should be there, or which was never supposed to be there in the first place.

I’m not going to elaborate on the details of the project here - please check the original post, which contains a lot of links to related material such as tips, case studies, Meet-ups and more, and is still being updated when new LGCTM-related material gets published.

What really thrilled me was to afterwards read all the comments that were entered in the chat during the session (I had no chance to have a look at them during the presentation, as the session needed to be finished in time in order for the participants to be able to attend the next session), and I gathered from it that especially the live demo parts were highly appreciated. I guess I will have to do some more of those 🙂

Also for Q&A there was no time during the presentation, but I have already published a separate post for that a couple of days ago.

In case you missed the session or if you would like to relive the experience, you can watch the full recording here:

What I still want to add here is some follow up on the first live demo section. There I mentioned that “Brantano” was closed and that a new shop, “The Fashion Store”, had been opened at that very location. At that occasion, I also noticed that there was no picture yet for “The Fashion Store” - a situation any decent local guide couldn’t possibly live with. Especially since I had noticed that the new hamburger restaurant just bit down the road (where I had marked the old POI on that location as ‘Permanently closed’ during the session) also did not have a storefront picture yet. So I undertook a small trip, resulting in what you see below (with Streetview images added to illustrate that personal observation is beyond any doubt thé most reliable source of information for local guides).

The new shop at that place & the Street View image still showing the old one

The new place at that location and the StreetView image still showing the old one

For those wondering what the outcome was of the edits made during the live demos: all of them were instantly approved, except for one, which is still pending.

Extract from my mailbox showing the results of the edits suggested during the live demos

And last but not least: a big thank you to the fellow Connect Moderators @Velvel , @AlexandreCampbell  and @PaulPavlinovich  for supporting me during the session and @AdrianLunsong  for coming up with the idea of Community Live and the gigantic effort before, during and after the event to make sure everything went as smooth as it did. Adrian, you rock!

[Vaskar_Bhattac]

Described the great experience. 

[Velvel]

Hi @JanVanHaver 

Thanks for sharing the recap from Local Guides Clean The Map session on Community Live 2020.

Happy to assist you. 

I would like to inform that you mentioned the wrong Local Guide's name on Connect when it was referring to my name hehehe 😄 Please revise it with the correct one. Thanks!

Btw, this is a very good initiative of yours to do the follow up (personal observation) to some of the places above. I wish more and more Local Guides will support and follow you to clean the map 😃

[JanVanHaver]

I already see what happened @Velvel : I forgot to adapt the tags from my draft post 😀 Thx for pointing it out.

[RosyKohli]

@JanVanHaver 

Thanks for the recap it was very informative session. Thanks to all google moderator for this initiative. We are oblige. 

Merry     Christmas 🎄🎅🔔❄🎄

[JanVanHaver]

Glad you enjoyed it @RosyKohli and merry Christmas to you too!

[PaulPavlinovich]

I really enjoyed this session @JanVanHaver and while I was able to answer some of the chat questions, at the same time I learned some great techniques.

Just this week I was able to apply one of them when I found a duplicate place that was spelt incorrectly. Initially I tried to close it as a duplicate but got the dreaded "not applied", and then I remembered your tip to edit it to be the same name as the main entry, and only then report it as a duplicate and sure enough "applied" and the duplicate is gone.

Paul

[JanVanHaver]

I did not see you answer any chat questions @PaulPavlinovich , it was @AdrianLunsong who did all of that 🤪

[For those who were not there: due to tech reasons other moderators had to log in using Adrian's account]

The tips in the session are all evidence based, meaning I figured them out/stumbled upon them during actual edits. But still it is nice to get this kind of external confirmation.

[PaulPavlinovich]

Will the real Adrian Lunsong please stand up @JanVanHaver ?

I think perhaps we should all get a print out of @AdrianLunsong 's face for the next time we're together so we can all attend as Adrian 🙂

Paul

[AdrianLunsong]

@JanVanHaver Great recap and I'm glad you had fun doing the demo! 45 minutes is really not enough so I hope that you will do more sessions in the future and perhaps break it down to specific areas so that you can do several examples and have discussions with the attendees! 😁 And it's great to have the Adrian collective (hey Borgs!) and their hive minds to solve all problems as one! 😂😂😂

Huge thanks too to @PaulPavlinovich @AlexandreCampbell and @Velvel for the support in the sessions! 😎