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What to do if following the rules lowers the overall quality of the map?

Rules are fine. Rules are needed if you want to get something organized in a decent way. But rules are often made with "ideal circumstances" in mind and can have unexpected consequences in some fringe cases. Let me illustrate what I mean with a specific example.

 

On Google Maps, there are quite a few categories for car dealers that include a specific brand in the category name (Ford dealer, Hyundai dealer, Volkswagen dealer, etc). The intended use is that the specific "branded" category is chosen and the "Name" field for the business contains the name as it is written on the storefront and website, e.g. "Garage Jones", without mentioning the brand. Some car brands, however, do not have their own category, although they are quite popular and have dedicated dealerships in a number of countries: Peugeot, Citroen, Skoda - to name just a few. Why exactly a popular French brand like Renault has its own category and another popular French brand like Peugeot does not remains a mystery to me, but then again: with regards to the topic of categories, Google Maps contains quite a few inconsistencies. 

 

The situation I now encountered was a business shown on the map as "Garage Jones - Skoda dealer". Following the rules for correctly entering the business name would mean: remove the " - Skoda dealer" part, as that is referring to the category, and is not shown as such on the storefront or website. However, as the category could not be changed to "Skoda dealer" is would need to remain the more generic "Car dealer". So following the rules in this case would mean: remove useful information and thereby lower the overall quality of the map, because "correcting" the name would result in one data point less - the fact that Jones is a Skoda dealer.

 

 

So, when I came across this business, I decided not to change the name, even though some will technically consider this to be breaking the rules (although it can obviously be discussed if doing nothing can be considered as breaking the rules - but you get what I mean).

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14 comments
Level 8

Re: What to do if following the rules lowers the overall quality of the map?

This is a complex topic @JanVanHaver. Inconsistency of the categories has been discussed many times. I think you correctly pointed out an example where the rules negatively influence the quality of the map. I guess that an argument for sticking up with rules would be that the maps should improve in future and having places that don't follow the rules means that the improvement won't be efficient. Here however the situation isn't so clear. Think about the businesses who's names include the category (cafés, restaurants, financial services). How would you consolidate that? After all I'm convinced that this particullar poi don't break the rules as out of all criteria, helping people is the king. And no, doing nothing is without doubt not breaking rules either.

Happy mapping 

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Re: What to do if following the rules lowers the overall quality of the map?

I would have to wonder if those categories came from the open free for all of Map Maker @JanVanHaver

 

Group Renault owns both of the Peugot and Citroen brands so perhaps there is method to the madness with the major brand being the one available on Maps?

 

Regards Paul

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Re: What to do if following the rules lowers the overall quality of the map?

Well, @CaptainHook, if Google would inform us that at some point in the near future more car dealer branded categories would be available to choose from, I will gladly start compiling lists of POIs that can be corrected once the categories are there. 

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Re: What to do if following the rules lowers the overall quality of the map?

It's indeed probably linked to the fact that the ability to add categories was removed at some point, @PaulPavlinovich. If 'major brand only' would be the underlying rule, there would be inconsistencies there too - Volkswagen and Audi both exist as category, just to name one.

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Re: What to do if following the rules lowers the overall quality of the map?

Yes I agree @JanVanHaver there are many inconsistencies :). It gets even worse when you cross country boundaries and familiar categories are not available.

Level 8

Re: What to do if following the rules lowers the overall quality of the map?

That's an approach I would choose as well, @JanVanHaver: start to fix something only when nowing it's worth it. For now, the category tree is a jungle and there's no light at the end of the tunnel. 

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Re: What to do if following the rules lowers the overall quality of the map?

On 18/12/2017 @Flash wrote in a comment here

 

"With the retirement of that tool Google is now working on adding advanced editing features to Maps."

 

(the tool being referred to is Map Maker). I wonder if we will get any update on that soon.

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Re: What to do if following the rules lowers the overall quality of the map?

@JanVanHaver, your argument that it provides more detail and thus shouldn't have to follow the rules would apply to almost everything everyone does that's against the rules.  Rule breakers did their actions because, in their view, it added more information.  Spammers inserting twenty word names full of descriptive words did so with the exact same intention as the extra words in this name.

 

Categories at one time were a lot more important as Maps was an independent product.  All that Maps knew about a place came from what was entered into the Maps database.

 

This is no longer the case, however, as now the information Google indexes in it's Search database and the Maps data is all combined.  Google no longer needs "Skoda" specifically in the Maps database in order to find it; as it knows from many other sources that a place is a Skoda dealer.

 

What adding "Skoda dealer" in the name field does is cause a place to be more likely to show up in search than other skoda dealers, as Google doesn't know if you're looking for that in the name or in the category, and so it gives preference to the one it knows has the category of Skoda dealer and also happens to have that in its name.  In other words, this is spam in the name field that gives it an advantage over places that have followed the rules.

 

That is one of the biggest reasons for follow the rules of the map, to ensure that everything is uniform and thus allows Search to produce the results as it was designed to do.

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

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Re: What to do if following the rules lowers the overall quality of the map?

FYI @PaulPavlinovich it seems there are new car brand categories, but for the time being only in English

 

https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t5/Mapping-Your-World/New-categories-added-but-currently-only-usa...

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