Google Maps just fucking SUCKS now

[kphoger]

It's Google Maps; are we sure thinking was involved?

I mean, somebody made a decision, and someone approved it.  There were probably meetings about it.  I'm sure that, at some point in that process, at least one person engaged in thought.

[pderocco]

The color seems like a random choice, but it's being applied according to some algorithm, and that algorithm doesn't seem to make sense. Why do these ramps need a different color? Further west on that road, half a ramp has that color. Go figure...

[Rothman]

Huh.  Route shields just got a lot uglier...but maybe more visible at more levels on my desktop.

Eh. maybe not.

[Scott5114]

It's Google Maps; are we sure thinking was involved?

I mean, somebody made a decision, and someone approved it.  There were probably meetings about it.  I'm sure that, at some point in that process, at least one person engaged in thought.

You're assuming someone made a decision, but that's often not how things like this happen in software development.

They could have decided to change the color of something else entirely to green, and not noticed that for some reason there was some code saying "the color of this other thing equals the color of some particular subset of ramps". That code was probably put there since that was the easiest way to fix some other problem, but it was done years ago by someone who doesn't work for the company anymore, so the person making the recent change had little reason to think it even existed (I have never done software dev for a huge company, but I would guess that Google doesn't require someone to read through the entire Google Maps codebase before working on it, and even if they did, some innocuous little thing like that isn't likely something that would stick in your mind months later, if you even understood the implications it might have).

Or it may have been something like what caused that problem a few months back with AAMaps, where it was mistakenly drawing county lines (and equivalents) as national boundaries. That happened because somebody working on a project called Planetiler added some code which improved the way that it handled the hierarchy between different levels of numbered route data. AAMaps uses Planetiler as one of the tools that generates the graphics from the raw map data. When Planetiler changed, it unexpectedly affected AAMaps county lines, because they have a similar enough parent-child relationship in the underlying data that the change affected how they were handled too. The Planetiler folks didn't know how it would affect AAMaps because it's just one of many hundreds of map programs using it. So the guy who does AAMaps had to tell the people upstream of him (OSM Americana) he was having this problem, they confirmed they were having it too, and then they all got together and told Planetiler what they had broken, and then I guess  Planetiler got fixed and everyone was happy.

[kphoger]

everyone was happy.

That's true, I haven't yet seen an AAMaps just fucking SUCKS now thread pop up.

[Road Hog]

A lot of these "mapping decisions" aren't being made in the United States, if you get my drift.

[Rothman]

According to Google Maps directions generated on a laptop, I drove at least 962 miles today.  Google Maps Timeline reports that I only drove 704.

Next time, I'll set the stupid odometer.  Always forget to do that...

[Scott5114]

According to Google Maps directions generated on a laptop, I drove at least 962 miles today.  Google Maps Timeline reports that I only drove 704.

Next time, I'll set the stupid odometer.  Always forget to do that...

If wanted to go full nerd, you could do a bunch of OSM Overpass API queries to get a third, conflicting number.

[Rothman]

According to Google Maps directions generated on a laptop, I drove at least 962 miles today.  Google Maps Timeline reports that I only drove 704.

Next time, I'll set the stupid odometer.  Always forget to do that...

If wanted to go full nerd, you could do a bunch of OSM Overpass API queries to get a third, conflicting number.

If only my nerdity was full...

[Scott5114]

According to Google Maps directions generated on a laptop, I drove at least 962 miles today.  Google Maps Timeline reports that I only drove 704.

Next time, I'll set the stupid odometer.  Always forget to do that...

If wanted to go full nerd, you could do a bunch of OSM Overpass API queries to get a third, conflicting number.

If only my nerdity was full...

It has to be at least waxing gibbous by this point.

[pderocco]

According to Google Maps directions generated on a laptop, I drove at least 962 miles today.  Google Maps Timeline reports that I only drove 704.

Next time, I'll set the stupid odometer.  Always forget to do that...

A GPS logger app in your phone would give you another answer to choose from.

[flan]

I guess Google Maps now considers Jacksonville, New Orleans, and Destin to be of comparable significance.

[Molandfreak]

I guess Google Maps now considers Jacksonville, New Orleans, and Destin to be of comparable significance.

Don't forget Pigeon Forge.

[flan]

Yeah that's pretty egregious too, but I'd at least heard of Pigeon Forge before today. Wikipedia says Destin is a popular tourist spot as well, so that probably explains it.

[TBKS1]

Yeah even I've noticed that, small towns with high tourism show up as higher priority cities. Branson, Myrtle Beach, Provincetown, among others.

[Scott5114]

I wonder if that means they're using some other data source besides population to determine label size. Number of search queries, maybe?

Quick, everyone Google Limon...

[kphoger]

Yeah even I've noticed that, small towns with high tourism show up as higher priority cities. Branson, Myrtle Beach, Provincetown, among others.

I wonder if that means they're using some other data source besides population to determine label size.

Well, honestly, maybe they should.

Branson has a permanent population of less than 15k, but that's certainly not an accurate reflection of its relative importance in the state of Missouri.  Nixa and Republic both have higher populations than Branson (especially Nixa), but how many people from outside this area have even heard of either one of those?

[hotdogPi]

It's not showing up this way to me when in private browsing (and therefore logged out), but it is when logged in. (This could be a simple A/B test rather than actually caring about accounts.)

[Scott5114]

Yeah even I've noticed that, small towns with high tourism show up as higher priority cities. Branson, Myrtle Beach, Provincetown, among others.

I wonder if that means they're using some other data source besides population to determine label size.

Well, honestly, maybe they should.

Branson has a permanent population of less than 15k, but that's certainly not an accurate reflection of its relative importance in the state of Missouri.  Nixa and Republic both have higher populations than Branson (especially Nixa), but how many people from outside this area have even heard of either one of those?

Yes, population counts generally shortchange any tourism destination, since they often have thousands of people in them at a given time who don't actually live there. This is especially true for seasonal destinations (e.g. the cities on the Jersey Shore), which often have a good chunk of people who only operate a business there during the busy season and thus may not get counted as residents.

So I'm not entirely opposed to Google trying something different than the cartographic convention of city prominence being tied to population. The problem is, because that is such a common cartographic convention, they need to be transparent about what exactly the data represents, or else it's just misleading.

[I-55]

Yeah even I've noticed that, small towns with high tourism show up as higher priority cities. Branson, Myrtle Beach, Provincetown, among others.

I wonder if that means they're using some other data source besides population to determine label size.

Well, honestly, maybe they should.

Branson has a permanent population of less than 15k, but that's certainly not an accurate reflection of its relative importance in the state of Missouri.  Nixa and Republic both have higher populations than Branson (especially Nixa), but how many people from outside this area have even heard of either one of those?

I only heard of Nixa because of Jason Bourne. Even then, I still had to look up where it was as I was typing this.

[Molandfreak]

Yeah even I've noticed that, small towns with high tourism show up as higher priority cities. Branson, Myrtle Beach, Provincetown, among others.

I wonder if that means they're using some other data source besides population to determine label size.

Well, honestly, maybe they should.

Branson has a permanent population of less than 15k, but that's certainly not an accurate reflection of its relative importance in the state of Missouri.  Nixa and Republic both have higher populations than Branson (especially Nixa), but how many people from outside this area have even heard of either one of those?

Why are Osage Beach/Lake Ozark nerfed in Google Maps, then? I would even consider Hannibal a higher-profile destination than Quincy, IL, but Hannibal shows up much later.

Even in the original screenshot posted, I have never heard of Destin. Montgomery, Mobile, Jackson, and even Biloxi are pretty well-known cities and they're seemingly less important on the map.

[flan]

Is Destin actually a bigger tourist draw than Pensacola or Panama City?

[kphoger]

I only heard of Nixa because of Jason Bourne. Even then, I still had to look up where it was as I was typing this.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that!  Carrie and I were just discussing the other day whether the boys are old enough to keep up with The Bourne Identity or not:  trying to decide if that would be a good Christmas Eve movie or if we should wait another year.

[CtrlAltDel]

So I'm not entirely opposed to Google trying something different than the cartographic convention of city prominence being tied to population. The problem is, because that is such a common cartographic convention, they need to be transparent about what exactly the data represents, or else it's just misleading.

I wouldn't hold my breath, though. Google Maps isn't transparent about anything.

[kphoger]

I wouldn't hold my breath, though. Google Maps isn't transparent about anything.

If Google Maps were transparent, would I be able to see straight through the monitor?