ALL of my edits NOT APPLIED today - why?

[FintoCubano]

Day 2: other places (nearby), same thing: all edits rejected:

[FintoCubano]

Day 3: in my hometown this morning, went to discuss painting my house's garden railings together with the builder and found that the painter's business name was incorrect as well as its marker on the map and category. Edit accepted? Nope. Then switched from my Google account to a family member's (who came with me) and edits were all approved this time. Please see below. I guess it is an account issue...

[Flash]

It could be an account issue in that you could have low trust with the algorithms that review edits.  The only way to fix that is to make a lot of good edits over a long period of time; Google does not override low trust score but rather your trust must be earned over time.

How that is different than what @BruceDM meant when he talked about your account status is that he (and from the sounds of it your also) is referring to a situation where an account has been flagged for bad edits and shut down so that the person can no longer contribute.  Such situations can be reviewed and overridden if appropriate, but that is not the case here as then you would not be able to log in at all.

As stated, however, we can't really further advise you about your edits without complete details on each one.  And when we do we might be advising that the edit looks good.  Whether an edit is approved, denied or delayed for additional human input towards the decision depends on a lot of factors including the required trust level of the feature you're editing, Google's trust in the data already collected, your trust level for the particular type of edit, and many other factors. 

Please also keep in mind that if your edits have caused your trust level to reduce; if you continue making the same type of edits without adjustment on your family member's account then you will cause them to also lose trust.

PS. While we need the details for most edits; the ones you posted just above are incorrect.  Combining two names into the name field is not appropriate.  Your thoughts that the rules are too complex doesn't really apply to the situations you've been supplying, rather for your examples we could judge so far are ones where you have decided to ignore the rules and make up your own.  The rules define what's acceptable as a name, but you decided to do something else.  On a previous example the rules stated to use an appropriate category, but you decided to use inappropriate ones.  Another time you tried to map something that was destroyed and is currently under reconstruction.  Yes, mapping can get complex, but these aren't cases of complexity, rather you're ignoring all rules and trying to map whatever you'd like to see on the map.  I am thus fairly confident your issue is a trust issue.

[FintoCubano]

Many thanks for your take and advice on this issue of ''low trust with the algorithms'' that is affecting my own account - as I suspected it was all along, which is somewhat baffling: after approving the edit, Google reviews it? Shouldn't it be prior to? 

However, if all of my edits - one by one - are not applied I wonder how I may fix, as you suggest, the issue going forward by making ''good'' edits? If they are rejected, I think the algorithm would be deeming them ''bad''? 

Also, I'm struggling to understand the reason why you ''cannot further advise on my edits without complete details on each one''. I think I've provided quite exaustive information on each of my edits in the three posts above (images of Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 etc) so I'm not really sure what other type of information and details you would need.

On the other hand, it was quite sad and shocking for me to read that I would be ''making up my own rules'' and ''ignoring all rules and trying to map whatever you'd like to see on the map''. Not sure which one of my edits in my three posts above - and indeed all my edits - ''ignore the rules'' in any of the edited fields (NAME, CATEGORY, MARKER etc) while in the past (Google Map Maker days and its Regional Leads) and currently (Google Maps and Google MyBusiness) there have been and are plenty of similar examples approved and published on Google Maps which:

• Do combine [name+name] or [name+owner's name] or [name+category] (e.g. here,  here and here amongst scores of other examples in Italy);
• Do feature destroyed historical landmarks (here is a famous example in Umbria, Italy where incidentally fellow Local Guides have done a great job in re-mapping and photographing scores of businesses and landmarks badly damaged by the horrible 2016 earthquake);
• Have category chosen that is the closest possible to the actual one (as also per recent advice on this forum here), following their mysterious disappearance from the dropdown list since MapMaker days.

To be branded as a rule breaker while all my contributions have always followed written rules, past customs, precedents and advice in editing which have been accepted by Google Map Maker and its Regional Leads, Google Maps, and Google My Business' algorithms in publishing these edits is, frankly, totally far from the truth and unfortunate too.

You say ''mapping can get complex''. Yes I agree, in Google Maps mapping is really becoming more and more complex and this is because of, I think, the clash of those clear written rules with glitches in the algorithms and conflicting advice (and other unwritten ''rules'' clashing with other sources of advice - making the whole lot a truly ''complex'' set of rules) plus some issues in the tool itself (e.g. the scores of missing categories) needing a tweak. This I believe is what makes the mapping experience for Local Guides at times quite frustrating.

And I'm not talking of myself only, there's plenty of examples of other Local Guides in this forum as well as those in my Local Guides community (in an area which would greatly benefit from an increased, precise amount of mapping information for its tourism activities - a key source of income for the local community - but where restrictions in place by the Google algorithms (or who knows what else) prevent us from doing it - and I've provided a few examples in the past still unpublished or rejected.

Some feedback, I still hope, Google may wish to consider: for its benefit and the enjoyability of the Local Guides who truly love, like me, their mapping work in making Google Maps an amazing user's experience. 

[LStefanoL]

Leave Gmaps to its doom FintoCubano, follow me to https://www.openstreetmap.org where you can really make a difference.

Leave these frustrated inhumane corporate drones in their misery.
Leave this filthy place they still have the nerve to call 'community', indeed just a sad cesspool of spammy posts and nothing more, where important contributions are NEVER acted upon. An example? A highway offramp where i live is missing its label. Don't know how many times me and my acquaintances reported it.

I hope Gmaps and all its useless frustrated primadonna moderators fade into oblivion.

[FintoCubano]

Thanks for the support @LStefanoL and the kudo @JanVanHaver to my previous post.

I too have been using OpenStreetMap before the end of MapMaker and while at University College London back in 2005 during my MSc GIS year we contributed to the development of the project itself with lots of enthusiasm for the free sharing of geodata in UK thanks to the framework set in place by the EU Directive INSPIRE.

It truly is baffling to have been here publicly rebuked for pointing out potential issues or for possibly making ''mistakes'' by following past approved customs and precedents. Certainly this doesn't or didn't happen with OpenStreetMap ! Mistakes which I honestly believe are exponentially minor with respect to the thousands of inappropriate added places or edited places eveywhere on the map day in day out - approved by the algorithm. 

We Local Guides, I believe, truly cherish our work when we add our knowledge to the map, and is then approved by the ''algorithm'', and grateful when we receive evey month a thank-you e-mail from Google telling us to keep up the good work. So I'm really really perplexed as the reason why there are these mechanisms in place where contributions are approved first, we are then rewarded by the system with an encouragement e-mail, and then we are reviewed and if you fall out of some obscure (i.e. not known ro us) parameters or ''rules'' you are banned from further contributions, even though you have thousands of approved edits and quality info/reviews/pics added. I think several LGs like me have long demonstrated not to be spammers or ''rule-breakers'' thanks to their several quality map edits, thousands of top quality pictures and truly informative reviews.

In the past days I've visited dozen of places, have seen loads of shops closed and new opened but I cannot edit a thing. What a pity, that's knowledge I'll have to keep for myself.  And in the coming days I'll visit the Gran Sasso National Park in Abruzzo, Italy where nothing can be added/edited because there may be a restriction in place - oh no it's not that, the moderators have said - but evidence from myself and our Local Guide community say otherwise. I'm sure you've encountered the same issues in the Teramo area of the park, too. Perhaps our Italian Googler @Sorbe may wish to look into this feedback or pass it directly to the Google folks as he sees fit?

Enjoy the holidays.

[JanVanHaver]

Well @FintoCubano, I hope that this particular case ends up in some internal review board as illustration to the question "shouldn't we try to fine-tune that part of the algorithm?"

Obviously I have no knowledge of all the details and everything that went on in the past in your LG account, but it looks quite obvious to me that your profile and behavior are not exactly what the designers/developersof the anti-spam measures (which are clearly needed, no discussion there) might have had in mind.

As for alternatives to Google maps, like the open source one you mention: it's quite clear to all of us that those have a user base of 0.something % of Google maps, and realistically speaking only a tiny chance of ever growing significantly. You can regret that, but that's the way it is and will be in the near future.

[Flash]

@FintoCubano

With many millions of entries on the map, every single possible mistake that could be made is somewhere on the map.  Finding an instance of how you would like to map something is not justification to map it that way.  "Past customs" and "precedents" are examples of other people making up their own rules.  You state you mapped in the days of Map Maker; the written rules of Map Maker most definitely did not allow the examples you're providing, nor do the current written rules of Maps.

Yes, when you get into the complexities of mapping you'll find things not in the documentation, but you can't move to the complexities until you master the basics.

I'm really unsure how we can help you further.  People having issues usually respond to advice by adjusting their editing.  If instead you're going to insist that you know better and thus will not change then I'm afraid you're probably not going to see a difference in your success rate.

I will acknowledge that in your region in particular there was lots of issues in the Map Maker days with RL's making up their own rules rather than following the worldwide rules.  I remember trying to address it with them, unfortunately they responded about the same as you are now.  That's regrettable that you might have been coached by some such people and encourage you to realize this fact as you try to adjust your mapping.  Actions such as theirs (and I'm now referring to people around that were highly trusted but abused the trust given to them) are one of the big reasons we don't have as much power to edit as we once did.

[JanVanHaver]

Hello @Flash, you mentioned

'the current written rules of Maps.'

What exactly are you referring to? The only set I can find are the ones on the Google My Business help section.

[Flash]

@JanVanHaver, Maps has its own support pages.  https://support.google.com/maps