05-26-2018 07:18 AM - edited 10-17-2018 03:15 PM
[As an experienced Local Guide, I now sometimes come across inconsistencies or notice that errors have been made that I used to make myself when I started out. So I am publishing a few 'best practice' posts, in the hope it can help others.]
By submitting suggestions for edits, you build up a reputation in terms of certain types of edits and/or certain regions or countries. This is very important for the way the algorithms evaluating the suggested edits are taking your reputation into account: if your 'trust level' is high for specific factors, your suggestions will more easily be approved.
Let me illustrate this with some specific examples. When I came across a chain of discount supermarkets that is operational is several countries, and noticed that quite a few of them had an incorrect category (either 'grocery store' or 'supermarket' in general) I obviously had the unstoppable urge to correct this (look around a bit on this forum to find out how addictive being a local guide can be). The category edits I suggested in my own country, where I had already made loads of edits, were approved within seconds. But similar edits in a neighboring country, where I had already some, but not really a lot of approved edits, got status 'Pending'. After a while most of those 'Pendings' were approved, and since then much more of the edits I make in that country are also approved instantly.
Another example is linked to the post offices in Belgium. A number of years ago they were renamed from 'De Post' (in the Dutch speaking part of the country) or 'La Poste' (in the French speaking part) to 'bpost' - all lower case. On Google Maps a lot of them had their name incorrectly spelled: some had 'Bpost', other 'BPost' and a few still the old name. While correcting those, the ones where I suggested to change 'Bpost' into 'bpost' were approved without a problem, but the ones with 'BPost' or the old name (so: where the suggested edit was more then simply changing the initial character from upper to lower case) went 'pending'. After a while those 'Pendings' became 'Approved' (as it happens: while I was typing these last few lines, one of them popped up as 'Approved'), and when I suggested some new 'bpost' name edits earlier this week, all of them were approved instantly, no matter what it was.
Other posts in this series:
Best Practice: Entering Opening hours
Best Practice: ALL CAPS / all lowercase
Best Practice: Correcting pin location
Best Practice: Choosing a more specific category
Best Practice: Submit changes one by one
Best Practice: Find the right zoom level
Best Practice: Reporting duplicates
Best Practice: Adding places without house number
Best Practice: Correcting errors you accidentally made
Best Practice: Filtering 'Check the facts'
Best Practice: Find the right category
Best Practice: Create on mobile / Complete on desktop
Best Practice: The best order for suggesting edits
Best Practice: Get rid of legal names
Best Practice: Attempts to add bus stop or train station
Disclaimer: the practices described here as best practice are my personal interpretation, and I don't claim any level of official endorsement
05-28-2018 08:26 AM
Hey @JanVanHaver,
Thanks for taking the time to write these series and compile this list of best-practices. It very useful indeed.
05-28-2018 08:50 AM
Thank you @GeorgesHR for the kind words.
06-01-2018 01:41 AM
thanks for sharing.
06-02-2018 01:41 PM
Excellent post @JanVanHaver!
Also, a very clever idea to record your knowledge and super generous to share them as resources with the community.
I can see why you enjoy being a guide, you really do like helping people and making sure things are right!
Thanks again 🙂
06-02-2018 01:46 PM
Thank you @Steena for the appreciation, and keep looking out for new posts... I have a few more scheduled 😀
06-02-2018 01:51 PM
That's great to hear @JanVanHaver, I look forward to reading them and learning more!
(I'd love to give you a kudos for your reply but I only seem to be able to do so for original posts. Kudos to replies don't seem to "stick" for me. Any chance you know how to solve that?)
06-02-2018 02:00 PM
No, @Steena, unfortunately I have not heard of that before. Have you tried if this is the case both on your mobile device and on desktop?
06-02-2018 02:04 PM
Ah, that's a good idea @JanVanHaver. I'll check it out on my laptop later as I've only been using my phone.
Thanks 🙂
06-02-2018 08:06 PM