Business Place Approval on Maps - with Multiple Edits

[IlankovanT]

A doubt worth talking about!

While attending several meet ups throughout the #Mapyourworldweek I noticed an interesting thing on the ground.
We were adding several places throughout the Geowalks getting together as teams. For instance, more than one person pinned one business place at one time and each one of them got approved at the time.

Sample Image made for this post (this is not the location)

What made me confuse was, each one of us may have added the pin at various other places on top of the roof (using Google satellite images) of that business place. In such case, only one pin is shown on the map. My question is which one is shown on the map? Is it the one that is pinned first? If so what happens to the rest of the pins? Does anybody know about this?
Not only adding places, this is applicable while relocating/moving/ editing places.

[Pea]

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@IlankovanT wrote:

For instance, more than one person pinned one business place at one time and each one of them got approved at the time.

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What business is this that was added, what's the name can you provide a link to the live listing(s)? I can't see anything listed at that location, let alone two different listings?

[JeroenM]

Hi @IlankovanT,

I went to Lily Ave on Google Maps and found your example building, however not a single POI was listed at that location.

If I undertand your question correctly, this is what happend (please correct me if I am wrong):

During your group walk, different people added the same business, close to each other. So multiple POI were added for the same business. That would make it duplication. Normally it is bad practice if you duplicate an existing POI and the Google system will notice your unreliable behaviour. In this case, I don't know if the "Google automated review magic" uses the time-stamp and realizes that the submissions were too short together for the second person to realize and not penalize this person in the reliability score.

From personal experience, I have made edits that were marked as NOT APPLIED, yet the change I made was applied on the map. I concluded that somebody else before me, made the same change and was accepted first and therefore my edit was not longer applicable. 

For the sake of good practice, I suggest that on your next group walk, you alternate between participants who get to add the next missing place on Maps. The other participants can then review this contribution, once it shows up under the tab "Check the Facts".

With kind regards,

Jero

[IlankovanT]

@JeroenM @Pea sorry guys I think I forgot to indicate the attached image as "SAMPLE" and it's manually made / edited by photoshop for this purpose, and there are no any places marked in that specific building. What I was trying to tell is, several meet-ups local guides try to add missing places individually and the same location is marked by many. and all got approved.

(please don't refer the image and it's just a dummy sample I made)

[Flash]

 Hello,

We cannot help you without the real data.

Please don't feel that anyone is going to be punished for making inappropriate edits.  Mistakes happen, they are only an issue if they are purposeful.  The idea of this forum is to educate people about their mistakes so that they don't make them in the future.  Your question is very appropriate, and we want to ensure that you and all the other LGs on your walk learn how to handle such situations in the future plus ensure that there is no bad data currently on the map.

[IlankovanT]

@Flash thanks for the comment. We have to improve the maps, and that's the only reason I have created this post, and this is not only my doubt, a similar question has been raised by our community members after the Geo Walk. I have hosted more than 15 successful meet-ups, and I always try my level best to guide everyone in a correct path to deliver quality edits. As I have mentioned in my main post, there are chances that the places are added by Local guides simultaneously. For instance, there were about 15 participants on the Geo Walk (March 17th) everyone was editing the map. After completing the Geo Walk only, we found this issue. I just wanted to clear this doubt and want to guide others. As you have requested, I have attached an image with information. This place was added by myself "Ayurvedic Medicine Shop" and the same time another local guide who have participated in the Geo Walk added the same. I feel it is worth to discuss.

[Pea]

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@IlankovanT wrote:

This place was added by myself "Ayurvedic Medicine Shop" and the same time another local guide who have participated in the Geo Walk added the same. I feel it is worth to discuss.

Hi @IlankovanT

In this example you will have noticed that the attempt to add the place was Not Applied, which is to be expected. That means the system is working correctly and not allowing duplicates to be made even when they are added at the same time. 

This however is different from your initial comment where you said "each one of them got approved at the time".  That's why I was asking for a link because it would have been a more surprising outcome

[Flash · Accepted solution]

If a reviewer notices a duplicate they will not approve another attempt to add it.  But that requires them to notice it, that won't always happen.

They especially cannot notice them if the other instance is itself pending approval.

And if they were added at the same time, then they will often come to the top of the queue at the same time.  So it's quite possible that attempt 1 is being reviewed by one operator at the same time that attempt 2 is being reviewed by another operator; thus meaning both will see at the time that there are no duplicates.

Remember too that when people get a "Not applied" they often don't try to figure out why; rather the most common response is to say "I know I'm right!" and simply try again.

Now add to all of this that edits are also approved by algorithms rather than human operators, and that the algorithms might not pick up on differences in naming of features.

It basically comes down to the more times people try to add a place, the greater the chance that duplicates will end up on the map.

It's thus probably best that during such walks that you implement a system of ensuring that each place only gets entered once.  There's many options; perhaps a person calls out to the group if they are going to add a place.  Perhaps people wait and add the places once they are home, and you use a group spreadsheet to list the added places so they can check if someone else already added it.  Or any other system you want to try.

[IlankovanT]

@Pea thanks you. I apologize for the confusion in this post. I will explain clearly here, when we edit/mark places in google maps we will get notified by email says "your edit to _____ has been Published" and if your using an android app there will be a popup says the edit is live.

During the Geo Walk, the same thing happened for all local guides. we received Published emails and says Approved. I have edited a place just now and the same place edited by another local guide. Please check the screenshots here. Both got published. and approved, but we both did the same edit in a minute gap. like this it happened last week.

User-2  User-1

 

@Flash thanks for the information and it helped a lot but can you please see this also. just edited the name of the bank and both got published and says approved.

[Pea]

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@IlankovanT wrote:

just edited the name of the bank and both got published and says approved.

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Hi @IlankovanT

Again this is a different scenario from your original comment where two of you were adding the same place at the same time. This is editing an existing place at the same time. It's not unexpected that both these edits would be approved.

Regardless of that though I think Gregg has already provided the best advice, when on a group walk, be clear to divide up the places so you don't work on the same one - even if it doesn't cause map duplication issues, you're duplicating your efforts!