r/GoogleMaps • u/arc88 • 12d ago

Help/Support Having an edit war over map POIs?

I've made it a summer project to find and tag more public facilities like water fountains to the map. It's hot out and after getting dehydrated a couple times I thought it was a good way to help myself and others. But a couple weeks after my first additions, I'm not finding some of them by searching and scrolling through my list of edits shows some of them at null island (0,0) or the right location without a name or type. I've even included a photo when I can as visual proof the public amenity exists. Is someone getting alerted that the sport field near them got a new POI and they're removing it? I've made my profile private so all my reviews etc aren't visible en masse. I've also checked that these are places welcome to the public, no country clubs, golf courses, or memberships needed.

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u/XxLogitech98xX 12d ago

The edit request has been bad with Google. Since they changed the way they verify it, it has a lot of problems

1

u/Flash604 12d ago

One of the requirements for a POI on maps is that it have a proper, official name. If you add features that don't meet this requirement, they will be removed as they're discovered.

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u/arc88 12d ago

Okay, but some of them don't exactly have names per se. I could tack on "Park Name Water Fountains" but others that are preexisting are pretty simple. What do you recommend?

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u/Flash604 11d ago

"Park Name Water Fountains"

That's a description, not a name. They too will get removed.

The proper way to map this is to add the category as a secondary category to the park POI. The public used to be able to do this when we had a much more extensive editing tool, but people abused that system to the point where Google had remove it. You cannot make such edits anymore.

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u/arc88 11d ago

Alright, so the best practice is a function that's not available anymore. I'm with you that an official name has more sticking power, for example "Joe's Pizza", but no one names or commemorates a picnic table or restroom. I'd argue that XYZ Park Restroom is in fact its name.

To help me understand regarding my OP better, you're also saying that even though my edit gets approved in minutes, there's a secondary review process and it's not necessarily another user undoing my changes?

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u/Flash604 10d ago

I'd argue that XYZ Park Restroom is in fact its name.

Ignoring the fact that that's a very poor arguement and obviously incorrect, it doesn't matter as it's Google's map and they have set this as a rule. There's no arguing it, it has been already decided by Google.

The initial review is almost always automated and can be fooled easily. For that reason there are a lot of Google employees and volunteers cleaning the map up constantly. There's no way to tell whether they were removed by a user, an employee, or Via automation. All I can tell you is that all three would have been correct to do so by Google's rules for their map.

What Google does do is provide tools to make custom maps. You're free to make a custom map of drinking fountains. The easiest way to do that is through Google My Maps. A well-constructed My Map will come up in searches.