If there is a "Are you the business owner?" prompt, it is unclaimed and thus none of the data came from the owner; at least not through verifiable channels. Even if someone is truly the owner, they are assumed to just be another mapper if editing via Maps instead of GMB.
Flash - LG Connect Moderator, Maps Platinum Product Expert, Map Maker Platinum Product Expert, RER and Regional Lead
Due to the volume I receive, I do not respond to unsolicited private messages
It would seem to make sense in that case that Google would only accept a Facebook URL from the verified owner and reject any other sources adding a Facebook URL.
My concern here would be if Bob owns Bob's Pets. Bob has information added to Google Maps but does not add a URL for a website. Sammy Spammer creates a crap Facebook page that looks like it belongs to Bob's Pets and adds it to the Maps entry. I suppose the same could happen using any URL pointing to a crap web page.
Undid the mod-forced "solution" tag. A solution would imply that as a minimum, we understand what went wrong, even if we don't have a workaround. Nothing in the thread has been shown to explain the behaviour that started since a GMaps software change in early October. Saying "the algorithm may have changed" solves nothing, and the other speculations regarding specific locations, address formats and suchlike have all been shown to be red herrings. The problem is widespread, applies to locations around the world that were editable until three weeks ago, and affect many experienced, trusted LGs. I'm sure it will be solved, but so far we don't even know what went wrong.
Please don't mark something as a solution unless it can be shown empirically to solve, or at least fully explain, the problem many of us are seeing now.
First of all, thank you for contributions and also bringing this topic for discussion.
We do indeed have billions of lines of code on Google Maps and, as any other software we may have bugs in the system despite all the tools and processes we have in place to make sure the code is clean, fast and work seamless for every one. However, as @Flash also explain, when there's a bug will not only break things for you.... it breaks for everyone and always has a very specific feature/system affected.
Here at Google we are constantly trying to improve and innovate in our products and, the Moderation system is one of them. As it evolves to keep up with the latest trends/issue, it will sometimes affect users who were used to map in a certain way but this doesn't necessarily mean you are a bad mapper (unless you are deliberately creating spam).
Our algorithm is our "secret sauce" to make sure we are catching bad edits before they know how to game the system (can you imagine if the RCMP published all their playbooks for catching bad guys?). As I explained in this post we are constantly monitoring spam levels and edits that comes in to Maps, and we are always fine tuning.
So don't worry if some of your edits are being denied, this happens to all the best mappers (including me) and as an active Local Guide you will be more sensitive to our changes but for now there's no bug, just the algorithm working on the backstage.
Due to the volume of private messages Google Moderators receive, I do not read or respond to private messages. Please post publicly so others may benefit from your discussion. Thank you.
@GusMoreira, as I explained above, saying "it's complicated" is not a solution. I will not revert your "solved" tag, since as a moderator, it is your prerogative to close any thread you wish to. Personally, I don't understand why you'd want to heavy-handedly stifle discussion on this topic.
If an algorithm intended to filter edits based on heuristic criteria that distinguishes valid edits by trusted editors from spam or careless edits by untrusted editors ends up rejecting most legitimate edits, it is not working as intended. You can come up with any euphemism you wish, but when software doesn't do what it is meant to do, we refer to it as "buggy" or "broken". This is a defect, not a feature. This thread isn't about me worrying about some edit or another. GMaps wasn't built to satisfy my need to edit maps. We are here trying to improve the maps, or at least to understand why we can't do so at this time. Your "solution" answered none of that, and certainly solved nothing.
Of course, in the end, LGC isn't a democracy, and if you or any other mod don't want people talking about this, leave it marked as "solved". I find it ironic--and perhaps fitting--that when the GMaps software rejects our edits, LGC mods stifle our comments about it.
I think the issue is less "more of my edits were rejected - apparently from newly introduced code" and more "essentially all of my edits were rejected - apparently from newly introduced code".
Since LGC is the "small army of volunteers" focused on improving Maps, it's somewhat disheartening if their attempts to highlight code issues (another entirely appropriate use for them) are met with, from their vantage point, arbitrary rationale.
Perhaps this occurrence was discovered within Google before it was really highlighted in detail in this group and perhaps that issue has also been dealt with but we don't necessarily know that because it is easy to overlap this with other issues we see on Maps with edits and there hasn't been information given in great detail regarding the issue for obvious reasons.
I think it is fair to say when valid edits are made but rejected - either by less-than-optimal heuristics or otherwise - we feel it's time and effort wasted. We would like these issues fixed just as much as everyone else.
Well said, @Jonesnco. I think "somewhat disheartening" is putting it mildly. Having spent much of my career as a programmer, I am intimately familiar with the debugging process. I take it as a given that highly complex systems such as GMaps will, invariably, go through iterations where bugs are fixed and heuristics are improved. What I didn't expect, though, is this "shut up and be thankful we let you edit at all", or "it's complicated and secret, if we told you, we'd have to kill you, haha" attitude we see from some of the mods here, especially when they themselves clearly have no idea what's going on.
It's one thing to say, "the Google team has been informed, and are working to solve the problem; stay tuned". It's a totally different thing to say, "things change, deal with it; problem? What problem? Everything is hunky dory."
If there is a problem--and there clearly is--start by admitting it, and don't go around closing threads as "solved".
Right. I'm not a programmer but I have a pretty good amount of experience in various aspects of IT. I really don't need to know the specifics of how Maps is handling proprietary information. I don't even need to know that perhaps an upgrade to API x caused issues with a particular type or source of submission, etc. But I think it might be OK to say if there were changes implemented that may have caused the issues we were seeing and they're being worked on...and maybe an ETA on when they think they might be resolved. Actually if I were Google I might even update the LG processes to allow us to submit issues that we see when making edits that appear to be bugs. Kind of like the bounty program for Chrome but without the cash award.
I guess we're back to where Google is arbitrarily rejecting any marker moves by local guides since I'm having no luck today getting them accepted after submission. At this point I'm strongly considering adding a review of the business in question to indicate that Google is incorrectly indicating where the business is located and that attempts to correct the map are being rejected arbitrarily by Google.
@Jonesnco, I've done this before - used the Review section to correct business hours when editing was rejected by the bot. Not the best solution, as most people won't go over all reviews to figure out which map facts are incorrect.
By the way, there's another thread about this topic here, also forcibly marked as "Solved" by a mod.
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