Re: Check the facts: may replace review request to Regional Leads?
@LucioV wrote: This seems odd: you, google maps, are asking me to check if a user suggestion for an update can be confirmed... through a Google Search?
I believe the idea with 'Check the facts' is that Google asks you to consider places in your area. So you would use the same verification methods as you would normally use to make any normal addition/edit directly yourself, as set out by Gus above.
Your suggestion was: "creating some G+ circles of people that, on request, could target a zone and scroll the check the facts list searching for a specific update to approve?" The problem with this, as explained already, is that these people won't be in the area so won't have the Local knowledge. If by coincidence they are in the area, then they will already see the edit in their personal 'Check the facts' tab.
It's great to have ideas and suggestions, but this makes no sense Lucio, you're flogging a dead horse. Give it up, move on, there's plenty of other useful stuff you can contribute.
@LucioV wrote: This seems odd: you, google maps, are asking me to check if a user suggestion for an update can be confirmed... through a Google Search?
I believe the idea with 'Check the facts' is that Google asks you to consider places in your area. So you would use the same verification methods as you would normally use to make any normal addition/edit directly yourself, as set out by Gus above.
Your suggestion was: "creating some G+ circles of people that, on request, could target a zone and scroll the check the facts list searching for a specific update to approve?" The problem with this, as explained already, is that these people won't be in the area so won't have the Local knowledge. If by coincidence they are in the area, then they will already see the edit in their personal 'Check the facts' tab.
It's great to have ideas and suggestions, but this makes no sense Lucio, you're flogging a dead horse. Give it up, move on, there's plenty of other useful stuff you can contribute.
Re: Check the facts: may replace review request to Regional Leads?
@GusMoreira sorry bother you using again this thread: it's an amazing thing, i think that at least two other LG, in the same time, started to create something i theorized here: some exchange circle for Check the facts between LGs.
I wish to declare that I was already working on an exchange program for my Associate Members. It would not be like @LucioV was suggesting here, but actually looking into the possibility to have a campaign where Local Guides are encouraged to Check one Fact for every Map Edit they make (so actually promoting the Check the Fact feature and thereby helping the process to move along). My proposal and brief to my project team goes much further, (as in a monitoring system that checks if they fulfil their pledge of checking one fact per submission), but I do not find it appropriate to discuss this here on a public forum. No black hat or anything bad, and sticking to the above rules that people should only check facts that they know about.
The point I would like to make is, there are clearly multiple people already doing this or like me investigating to do it correctly and responsibly so it could be shared with unofficial LG communities. Since it would only work regionally, I think this could have a great positive impact on the unofficial LG communities as it would offer a very attractive member benefit.
@GusMoreira The ideal situation would be that Google comes up with this solution that I am currently working on, but I don't seem to be in a position to privately discuss this with any member of the LG team at the moment. Again, if this forum threat had not already been started by @LucioV, I would have kept quiet as I do not think it is responsible to plant seeds in people's head that might result in undesirable behaviour as I have explained here.(towards the end of the thread, not the original post).
With kind regards,
Jeroen Mourik
P.S. I got the idea from a Verification Offer in a supported LG community, which I though was under-developed and had great potential to be used by other communities in a sustainable and correct manner following the intentions of Google (as far as I can understand them).
Re: Check the facts: may replace review request to Regional Leads?
Update
I think I have come to better understand what is actually going on here, after the argument between Gregg and Lucio on this thread last night.
I should give credit to @Pea who has been educating me on the various Board threads that there are often different perspectives and one can easily jump to a possible wrong conclusion when not fully exploring/ considering alternative answers.
Listening this is what I have learned:
- Gregg is repeatedly saying that the Check the Facts questions are important;
- Gregg is saying that currently only Google Staff and Google-bots are involved in verifying (read: approve) Map Edits by contributors
- Gregg is saying that fellow LG (like Lucio) should not give false hope to other Local Guides by saying that Checking the Facts being answered will in the short term get their edit approved faster.
- Phil is suggesting that not using the Check the Facts feature as intended by Google, may mess-up the Machine Learning process
- Gus says: “…you should only add/edit/approve/deny an edit if you have first-hand knowledge of the place or you have personally checked that the information is real.” Followed by a warning of the possible consequences if you not do so.
- The app and the LG Team forum thread that Lucio used in his argument concluding that Check the Fact is part of the verification process, might be a misunderstanding. We are asked to help by verifying that a suggested change is correct, but that does not necessarily mean that it will help approve that suggested edit.
- If indeed we are helping the Machine Learning by Checking the Facts and not actually helping the approval process of suggested map edits, that by itself is cool. As most of us are committed to help, promoting more people to participate in the Check the Facts and if my assumptions are correct, thereby helping the Google-bots to learn faster, it is still in the interest of community members to contribute as it will help the system in the long term (faster).
My concern is this however:
By not clearly communicating to the community what the intentions are, one is asking for potential problems when people start to do things that are not desirable. Google has plenty of experience with the Black Hat movement when people were trying to use the “system” to get their website to the top of the search results as soon as possible. If people are left to believe (incorrectly) that Check the Facts does help their edits going through, it is human nature that some people will start cutting corners to achieve their desired result (getting their edits verified faster).
Considering:
The LG Program is a kind of partnership between the participants and Google, where Google has set the terms and conditions one may operate.
There is a tendency that some people feel we are doing Google a favour with our volunteer contributions, motivated by the positive impact it has on travellers and other users of Google Maps.
That most people here have a very positive feeling towards the Google brand.
Google is getting on “dangerous” grounds if they risk the trust of their devoted volunteers if they start feeling they are being played. By not being open about certain things, people might get suspicious, feel played or even patronized.
I am drawing a parallel here with a very damaging situation when a city council made its citizens go through the trouble of recycling things in the appropriate containers and in the end throwing it all together on the same garbage pile. That damaged trust and resulted in people losing interest in recycling..
I definetively DON'T want to do something like that.
Anyway, i didn't mean to act "against the system", i'm not a white/black/anycolour you like hacker; it's just for better understanding the approval process.
Despite the fact i'm not doing this in anyway, many are starting to think about this, just before i started this thread.
Re: Check the facts: may replace review request to Regional Leads?
Update
Thanks to Gus for clarifying the role of Check the Facts in the other forum thread, we can stop speculating, me included, so please ignore some of my incorrect assumptions based on incorrect, incomplete data.
I very much appreciate Gus giving us enough information to conclude that answering Check the Fact questions does contribute to the verification process, but not as a stand alone make or break.
Like @Pea already suggested, in the other thread it is part of a number of data points used in the decision.
Anonymous
Not applicable
05-18-201709:31 AM
05-18-201709:31 AM - edited 05-18-201709:37 AM
Re: Check the facts: may replace review request to Regional Leads?
I gave up to discuss about "How to", "What to", "What should" and to explaining same things a long time ago...
There is no point, Google will do and act what they want and how they want...and one "man" at google Product Forum gave me great answer about my questions and other statements and suggestions:
"Thinking about why Google do something or do not do something, can lead to madness"
In a fact they still do not understand "ordinary users" and they needs, and how can they, people are different from the place to place, from country to country...
As I always mention: "People from developed countries can not fully understand people from undeveloped or semi-developed countries, but people from those countries are able to understand people from developed countries"
But, it is nice to see great statements and suggestions 😉
2022
