Google Maps just fucking SUCKS now

[Scott5114]

So anyone can just make up a fake road and publish it? What if somebody dies trying to take one of these fake roads?

I dunno, we point and laugh at them for blindly trusting everything they came across instead of using their brain?

OSM is really no different than a wiki in map form. That includes both the good (usually more up-to-date, comprehensive, and accurate, usually free) and the bad (from time to time people screw things up on purpose to be an asshole). The only real difference is that, since maps are more complex, there are more layers of caching than text-based wikis tend to have, so there's more chances for a bad version to get stuck in a cache somewhere. (Given that the particular source of the cache failure here was image tiles rendered from map data, I'm not sure that a directions tool would even be relying on these particular caches. I could be wrong, though; OSM infrastructure is so complex I can just barely understand most of it. There are way more moving parts to it than there are something like Wikipedia.)

Any consumer product that uses OSM data should be basing their product on known good versions of the database and not just supplying the most up-to-date data with no vetting. Not even the AARoads Wiki does that (our maps, based on the Americana project, pull from OSM every 7 hours or so, so it would take some phenomenally bad luck for us to have a pull just happen to take place between someone making one of these edits and the inevitable revert, which has always taken place within 20 minutes). So if something like this appears on a map other than the bleeding-edge OSM feed shown at openstreetmap.org, you know the app displaying it is probably being developed by a moron, and you should treat it accordingly.

[vdeane]

And it's not as if Google Maps hasn't sometimes had a fake road.

[Scott5114]

And it's not as if Google Maps hasn't sometimes had a fake road.

True. And with this vandal in particular, since their M.O. is to try to draw attention to how pissed off they are about being banned (previous instances of this included roads with names libeling the administrator who blocked them), the fact that something is wrong with the map is rather obvious.

[CtrlAltDel]

It's not Google Maps, but the Open Street Map, but there is a whole bunch of nonexistent streets in the Manatee River near Bradenton, Florida:

That's a vandal, and it's a known issue. It's probably already been reverted, but renderings take longer to update.

I found out that apparently, if you do a hard refresh in the browser (Ctrl+Shift+R in Firefox), it will usually force the site to cough up new tiles that don't have the vandalism on them.

Thanks for the info and advice. I've checked it, and it seems to be fixed now.

[thenetwork]

So anyone can just make up a fake road and publish it? What if somebody dies trying to take one of these fake roads?

Maybe the "somebody" is trying to fake their own death???

[D-Dey65]

Remember when I spotted this error in their map of Lakeland, Florida?
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=2017.msg2923379#msg2923379
Well, they're making it too difficult to send them a message about it and get them to correct it.

[epzik8]

Remember when I spotted this error in their map of Lakeland, Florida?
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=2017.msg2923379#msg2923379
Well, they're making it too difficult to send them a message about it and get them to correct it.

At this point, they want their site to look bad on purpose.

[Hunty2022]

I went on Google Maps today to mess around and got greeted by this over Georgia:



I don't know much about these two cities, but it was interesting to find these long names instead of just "Athens" and "Augusta".

EDIT: I found another one with bigger cities:

[Big John]

^^ It like if a highway has a secondary or honorary destination, it will be labeled as such instead of the primary designation.

[7/8]

I went on Google Maps today to mess around and got greeted by this over Georgia:

I don't know much about these two cities, but it was interesting to find these long names instead of just "Athens" and "Augusta".

EDIT: I found another one with bigger cities:

I see the same five names on google.ca/maps. Also, Macon, GA is shown as "Macon-Bibb County"

[mrsman]

I can't even express the stupidity of these name changes.  It takes up so much extra unnecessary room.  This truly sucks.

Next, Los Angeles will become:  El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula.  This is the official name, meaning The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the little portion. 

Wow.

[Bruce]

Seems to only be affecting consolidated city-counties.

[CtrlAltDel]

Next, Los Angeles will become:  El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula.  This is the official name, meaning The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the little portion.

For what it's worth, there is some contention on the origin of the name of Los Angeles.

Additionally, while Porciúncula does mean "little portion," it's probably worth noting that it ultimately refers to a chapel in the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels in Assisi, Italy, which is where Saint Francis started the Franciscan order and which was the order that Junípero Serra and others who established the missions in what is now California belonged to.

[pderocco]

At least they're not putting these names on the road signs.

This is also showing up on Google Earth. But what's the "(balance)" mean?

[Hunty2022]

I'm honestly surprised that they haven't done anything to Independent Cities (City of Balitmore, City of Carson City, City of St. Louis, City of Virginia Beach)...

But what's the "(balance)" mean?

That's what I was thinking when I first saw these.

[pderocco]

Excuse me if I borrow this thread to complain bitterly about something just added to Google Earth. When Roads are shown, zooming way in on city streets shows ugly bluish gray line along th sides of streets, of varying widths, as if to denote parking, although they spill over onto the sidewalks and into the lanes. But the worst of it is: they're opaque. They complete obscure the pavement markings, not to mention parked cars, etc. This isn't everywhere, but it's certainly in Los Angeles and San Francisco. And I don't think it was there yesterday.

Edit: Also in Seattle and New York. I can't find any other cities that have these blemishes.

[bm7]

This is also showing up on Google Earth. But what's the "(balance)" mean?

It's a census designation.

In nine consolidated city-county governments in the United States, the formerly independent incorporated places maintain some governmental powers. In these cities, which the United States Census Bureau calls "consolidated cities", statistics are recorded both for the entire consolidated government and for the component municipalities. A part of the consolidated government is called the "balance", which the Census Bureau defines as "the consolidated city minus the semi-independent incorporated places located within the consolidated city".

[jakeroot]

Why are we discussing the merits of this "change"? It's clearly an error.

For the record, I don't see any city name changes on my Google Maps.

[pderocco]

It looks like it's been fixed.

[vdeane]

Excuse me if I borrow this thread to complain bitterly about something just added to Google Earth. When Roads are shown, zooming way in on city streets shows ugly bluish gray line along th sides of streets, of varying widths, as if to denote parking, although they spill over onto the sidewalks and into the lanes. But the worst of it is: they're opaque. They complete obscure the pavement markings, not to mention parked cars, etc. This isn't everywhere, but it's certainly in Los Angeles and San Francisco. And I don't think it was there yesterday.

Edit: Also in Seattle and New York. I can't find any other cities that have these blemishes.

It looks like it's something relating to showing parking, shoulder, etc. space vs. travel lanes in the road data, much like how at close zooms on Google Maps the road data varies by actual pavement width and shows crosswalks.

[ElishaGOtis]

So anyone can just make up a fake road and publish it? What if somebody dies trying to take one of these fake roads?

I dunno, we point and laugh at them for blindly trusting everything they came across instead of using their brain?

OSM is really no different than a wiki in map form. That includes both the good (usually more up-to-date, comprehensive, and accurate, usually free) and the bad (from time to time people screw things up on purpose to be an asshole). The only real difference is that, since maps are more complex, there are more layers of caching than text-based wikis tend to have, so there's more chances for a bad version to get stuck in a cache somewhere. (Given that the particular source of the cache failure here was image tiles rendered from map data, I'm not sure that a directions tool would even be relying on these particular caches. I could be wrong, though; OSM infrastructure is so complex I can just barely understand most of it. There are way more moving parts to it than there are something like Wikipedia.)

Any consumer product that uses OSM data should be basing their product on known good versions of the database and not just supplying the most up-to-date data with no vetting. Not even the AARoads Wiki does that (our maps, based on the Americana project, pull from OSM every 7 hours or so, so it would take some phenomenally bad luck for us to have a pull just happen to take place between someone making one of these edits and the inevitable revert, which has always taken place within 20 minutes). So if something like this appears on a map other than the bleeding-edge OSM feed shown at openstreetmap.org, you know the app displaying it is probably being developed by a moron, and you should treat it accordingly.

Waze has a similar risk, not only for roadside reports, but also for road segments in general. However, that map is only updated once every 24 hours, plus there's a very strict ranking system in place where certain users can only edit certain objects based on said users' editing experience.

I personally like that security measure, but I will say it does take a bit of commitment.

[Hunty2022]

It looks like it's been fixed.

They must've seen this thread. 

[vdeane]

Anybody noticing that street view seems to have gotten blurrier?  It's not nearly as bad as the old 2007-2009 imagery, but it's noticeably harder to see and read signs.  At first I thought it was a camera issue with the 2024 imagery that recently appeared, but it happens with older imagery too.

[hotdogPi]

No change here.

[pderocco]

Anybody noticing that street view seems to have gotten blurrier?  It's not nearly as bad as the old 2007-2009 imagery, but it's noticeably harder to see and read signs.  At first I thought it was a camera issue with the 2024 imagery that recently appeared, but it happens with older imagery too.

There are lots of places where they are allowing third parties to capture imagery, and it's always poorer quality. You can usually see the vehicle carrying the cameras intruding on the bottom edge. I don't object where it's from remote places that Google hasn't gone and isn't likely to go, but when they replace three-year-old clear imagery of well-traveled roads with crappy third-party imagery, that's when I wish they'd give us a button to disable it and stick to the older, better imagery.