"All edits are checked for accuracy" - are they being checked by people / AI that can't be trusted?

The updated “Edits > See your contributions” is a nice overview to see what’s been accepted, what’s outstanding still and what’s “not accepted” but I’d argue that the wording of “All edits are checked for accuracy” needs to be changed if you want to avoid irritating Local Guides more than you do already when rejecting these.

An example - someone has added a new bar in my local area but the map marker is 5 miles away because they’ve used:

Building Number
Street Name
City
Postcode

And not:

Building Number
Street Name
Town
City
Postcode

For some reason Google thinks these are two entirely different places despite the UK postcode being correct and theoretically limiting the location to within a few metres of its correct one. However there is a street with the same name in the major city 5 miles away so it’s put the bar there for some reason. I’ve seen it before with other businesses on this street and corrected quite a few years ago.

I’ve added two images of the new bar, obviously taken at the correct location, I’ve also tried to correct the address and the map marker while stood right outside it. The images are there for all to see, my edits aren’t.

The person managing the listing clearly hasn’t got a clue this has happened (and seems impossible to contact) and whatever is “checking for accuracy” hasn’t got a clue either, my edits are declined. I’m not bothered enough to visit the place and try to talk to them in person so fine, Google says they’re in a different city now, apparently that’s “accurate” following checks.

It’s the same when adding new roads, you can see them in the satellite images Google, you can see that my edit was carried out while stood at the very location I’m adding the road, your Streetview image of the road next to it shows it… yet you’ve checked my edit for accuracy and rejected it.

We all know, as experienced LGs, that this is perfectly normal and that we should just accept it as “Google being Google” but if you’re going to reject something I’ve taken the time to edit accurately don’t rub salt in the wound and tell me it’s been checked for accuracy by you and then left completely incorrect.

I don’t need or want your points, I just want people to be able to find businesses and help out, up your game and start trusting us more than some algorithm or an employee (I doubt it’s an employee but…) in another country with no local knowledge at all. Sure, we still make mistakes (and as I’ve asked before it would be nice to have an option to undo these if we realise) but in the main we’re the local experts, give us a bit more credit.

(as I type this I’ve just had the edit I made for the road right outside my house rejected - someone has edited it to be a parking lot road despite it being a street for years and I can’t get it back. I definitely live on a street, not in a car park but Google don’t believe me :))

10 Likes

These are great examples of the maddening experiences so many of us have. Thank you for putting this together, @turbotapeworm . I just had a flood of pending road edits from Oct - Feb pop up as rejected in the last month.

But, it seems like something happened after the Great Review Block from the end of 2022 through beginning of 2023, where we all seemed to have reviews and photos hidden, that made the decision making process a bit more streamlined. I’ve had roads approved within hours instead of months. I just had two new POIs added almost immediately yesterday. But, it would be nice to know what topics we’re ‘Trusted’ to edit with looser oversight, and it would be fantastic to get details of what we did wrong in rejected edits.

As an example, my two immediate approvals were adding parking garages for an office complex I frequent. However, I was unable to add ATMs to other locations I frequent, and have photographed. So I now have random photos on the map not attached to any POI. Has the AI determined that I’m likely to use my car often and know about parking, but unlikely to have money so don’t know about ATMs?

I think I have an idea; really bring back Check The Facts and let other LGs confirm. I think a lot of folks hoping for that Master Fact Finder badge would be pretty stoked!

3 Likes

Based on my similar experience with valid edits being comically rejected, I have to agree that artificial intelligence is clearly smarter than human stupidity.

https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t/are-the-maps-edit-reviewers-effing-kidding-me/464391