Drinking Water Fountain is at least at the moment a category I'm able to add to the map, I've already added several water fountains that I know of, and every time I see one, I immediately add it, and take a snazzy picture of it, as soon as it gets approved, I add the picture!
Every single Starbucks has the same name, what's the difference?
I really don't understand why drinking water fountains shouldn't be on google maps, especially when there are a category for them.
City officials who repair and maintain drinking water fountains and toilets etc. could easily make a bulk upload spreadsheet and upload them all to Google Maps, thereby improving their city and helping their customers aka citizens and especially tourists.
Google has become a government organization. We're discussing simple feature requests for months! May be the difference between Starbucks and water fountains is that in the former you pay $$$ and there's no financial incentive in mapping the latter.
I think there's lots of reasons to map water fountains and public toilets.
If people use Google Maps to find everything because it's the best, then they also use it to find Starbucks, Apple Maps sucks but it's preinstalled on every iPhone, and casual users don't know the difference. I'm happy using whatever map, as log as it shows me what I need. Google is ahead, but maybe not forever.
Microsoft/Live/Bing Maps is a complete joke (at least outside the US) and Nokia Maps as well, Yelp tried to map businesses, but has withdrawn from everywhere except the US. Facebook and Apple are the only real contenders, and Facebook is gaining fast because they've managed to gamify the map editing and correction. It's the same reason google even has a local guides program.
As @Pea has noted, these are not features that can be added to the base map. The category exists to be added to other features as a secondary category, which is not something that can currently be done via Google Maps but was available in Map Maker.
Features added to the map need to have a proper name.
The base map has limits on it to keep it quick and free from clutter. It is not a "feature enhancement" to ask to add clutter to the map. You are free to map fountains, but to add features that shouldn't be on the base map should be put on a custom map. Google provides several ways to make custom maps, the most appropriate in this case would likely be Google My Maps. Such maps can be made searchable, which means with good choices of map title and the naming of the map elements then they should show up in Google searches. Such maps can also be called up as a layer over the main map within the Maps app so that people can navigate to and from points on it.
Flash - LG Connect Moderator, Maps Platinum Product Expert, Map Maker Platinum Product Expert, RER and Regional Lead
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2022
