Google launches Map Maker in the U.S!

[rickmastfan67]

I once caught someone on OSM drawing a fictional town, complete with a couple new freeways, in southern Illinois: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:West_Harrisburg.jpg . There's certainly not much vandalism though.

I assume that the purple lines represent the freeways there?

That's really blue.  The compression wreaks havoc on it.

[Zmapper]

Here is the problem segment on Google Earth,



Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/52377790@N03/5727962424/sizes/z/in/photostream/

[rickmastfan67]

Here is the problem segment on Google Earth,



Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/52377790@N03/5727962424/sizes/z/in/photostream/

I can't seem to find that exact location.

EDIT: I just found it.
http://goo.gl/maps/Jvso

But I just also looked on Google Map Maker and couldn't find it.  It seems somebody already "edited" it to remove it.  It just hasn't made it yet to the main map.

It also seems that all of US-30 in Nebraska was tagged with it.

[Alex]

Some of changes are simply not worth editing due to frustration:

I made a change to up I-381 from an arterial to a freeway, here are some of the comments back:

Hi, thanks for your efforts. The priority of the road seems to be inappropriate, because the I-381 is a spur route of I-81. Hence, the priority of this road need to be major artery. So please discard this edit by clicking on 'Undo' from the left hand pane under the 'My Edits' tab. Please refer to this link http://goo.gl/dt60w for more information on road priorities. Thanks for mapping!

Now their definition of major artery:

Major artery: Any moderate or high-capacity road in an urban area can be classified as a major arterial. They're the most important roads in any city that supports large volumes of traffic, and they also act as city entry or exit points. These roads have few residential entrances, and support commercial areas such as shopping centers, gas stations, and important businesses.

Their definition of a freeway:

Freeway: The highest priority roads, with high capacity and high speed. Walking and bicycling are prohibited. There are no crossroads or stops on freeways, and they're only accessible by ramps.

I have pointed out the distinction of Interstate 381 as a freeway twice now...

The comment before indicated:

Hi, the changes you have made from 'Major artery' to 'Free way' is inappropriate as you can see a number of intersections along the road. Please undo the edits. Thank you.

   

[rickmastfan67]

Alex, I have your back on that one.  I just commented on it.

Everybody else help out.  Let's stick it to Google!

http://www.google.com/mapmaker?gw=26&ll=36.617164,-82.186725&spn=0.024801,0.055361&z=15&vpid=1305636321189&hl=en

[D-Dey65]

You guys ought to see the Infiniti dealership located on Middle Country Road east of the Village of The Branch, that's incorrectly shown as being inside Caleb Smith State Park. I saw that yesterday and told GoogleMaps about it.

[Mr. Matté]

Please undo the edits. Thank you.

Kindly, 'undo' the edit from 'My Edits' tab.

And this is why this site won't work. They expect us to revert our changes when we thought it was right in the first place; I'm surprised they don't have a revert function built in for other users to change "bad" work. Luckily for me, I'm giving up on this project after about five edits.

I used to be heavily involved in a similar site called "Wikimapia" where doing anything there was a lot easier. Drawing roads and marking places could be done very quickly and didn't require the approval of others first, others would see it and only remove if your place/road was bad.

The only problems I had with that site (which caused me to give up there) is that the higher-up admins allowed someone who drew a lot of roads very blocky and after giving him a bad vote, he went apecrap on me. Also, others were defending a guy who was marking all of the PA Turnpike's exits with their old exit numbers and when I tried changing them back to the actual numbers, he used Stephen Colbert's "Wikiality" defense on me.

[NE2]

Freeway: The highest priority roads, with high capacity and high speed. Walking and bicycling are prohibited. There are no crossroads or stops on freeways, and they're only accessible by ramps.

Hehehe. Someone should try to downgrade a lot of the Western Interstates that allow walking and bicycling.

[NE2]

Mr. Matte, have you tried OpenStreetMap? It's primarily a road map, unlike Wikimapia, which started out as just drawing rectangles around features, and (if you care) it's under a free license so it can be forked if things go bad.

[Mr. Matté]

Mr. Matte, have you tried OpenStreetMap? It's primarily a road map, unlike Wikimapia, which started out as just drawing rectangles around features, and (if you care) it's under a free license so it can be forked if things go bad.

Tried it once and found it too confusing. Been wasting my time instead by building 3D models and uploading them to Google Earth (where the stringency isn't as bad as GMM).

[WillWeaverRVA]

I'm through with Google Map Maker. I tried to remove US 33 from a segment of Broad Street in Richmond that does not carry it (despite some erroneous signage to the contrary), and supplied VDOT route log and traffic data as evidence for the change. The change was denied, resulting in a screwed-up routing of US 33 that has it mysteriously ending at 8th and 9th Streets (it ends at Harrison Street, nowhere near this area). The reasoning:

Hello Will, Thanks so much for your contribution to Google Maps. I've had a chance to review your edit request and unfortunately cannot approve it at this time. The reason is that locally it might not be referred to as such but for folks outside of the area it is also known as U.S. 33. In addition, having that name in the system can also assist with routing. We really appreciate the time and please keep on mapping! Google Reviewer Erick

Right. Even though it's not US 33. Good luck to anyone who plans to continue editing this garbage but I'm through with it.

(This isn't the first time I've had edits denied despite providing links to VDOT documents...)

[CL]

Yup, the people who review these edits are all hosers. All my edits have been denied, save one. Heck, the people who make the changes are asinine too. Someone removed all the US-89 shields throughout Utah! C'mon folks.

[Eth]

Looks like they removed all the US-89 shields, period; apparently they decided that simply marking the entire route with the street name of "US-89" would be better!

Good to know that Google Maps will now be less reliable than ever.

[Alex]

I put in for US 98 to be removed from the right-angle stretch through Spanish Fort, AL (US 98 instead follows the limited access bypass). Here is what I got with my denial:

Reason: Incomplete or too sparse
Comments: Hi, Good to see you editing maps. I see that the US 98 and State Highway continues through this road(Spanish Fort Boulevard to a stretch. Thanks you.

Like others have said, if they want unreliable maps, they can have at it!  

[Brandon]

I put in for US 98 to be removed from the right-angle stretch through Spanish Fort, AL (US 98 instead follows the limited access bypass). Here is what I got with my denial:

Reason: Incomplete or too sparse
Comments: Hi, Good to see you editing maps. I see that the US 98 and State Highway continues through this road(Spanish Fort Boulevard to a stretch. Thanks you.

Like others have said, if they want unreliable maps, they can have at it!  

That's just nuts.  The person who replied can't even form a proper sentence in English, WTF does he/she/it know about roads in the US?

Anyway, I've stopped using Google for their search engine a while ago, and I find their maps slow to load.  I've found Bing to be much better, plus I like their bird's eye view.

[WillWeaverRVA]

Looks like they removed all the US-89 shields, period; apparently they decided that simply marking the entire route with the street name of "US-89" would be better!

This is actually a bug as there is no apparent way to add shields to a route. There are lots of posts on their forums about this and there aren't any clear answers.

[citrus]

This is actually a bug as there is no apparent way to add shields to a route. There are lots of posts on their forums about this and there aren't any clear answers.

Good to know! I tried to add shields to San Diego (CA) County Route S2, made an edit that was accepted, but nothing was changed. Mostly, I'm wondering if it's acceptable to put county route shields into Google Maps.

[rickmastfan67]

Looks like they removed all the US-89 shields, period; apparently they decided that simply marking the entire route with the street name of "US-89" would be better!

This is actually a bug as there is no apparent way to add shields to a route. There are lots of posts on their forums about this and there aren't any clear answers.

There is a way to add shields to a route in Google.

If you're trying to edit an exsititing route that has their route numbers in "text" already, here are the steps:

1. First select a segment of highway (example
2. Click "EDIT".
3. Click "Edit entire U.S. 58"

Once you do that, you can see how they add the "U.S. 58" shields to the map.

====

On another note, Alex, you can really see that "Google Reviewer Nandu" doesn't really know his stuff.
http://www.google.com/mapmaker?uid=212817473817773024242&gw=66&hl=en

Just look at some of his "edits" and some of his "reviews".

[mightyace]

Here what I got:

Dear Author

Your change has been Commented on by Google Reviewer Tapasya, a trusted reviewer.

Comments: Hi, roads are assigned default speeds depending on their priority. Please leave the default value unchanged, if not sure about the speed limit. Here's a help link http://goo.gl/uUac2 for more details on the "Speed"  attribute.Please 'Undo' this road by clicking on 'My Edits' tab on the left hand pane. Thanks.

Jeez, I'm just editing the speed limit on a road I take EVERY day.

Plus, I've had problems getting continuous segment to all edit.

I'll fight for these, but that's it.  I've got better things to do.

Though with a name like Tapasya, is it possible that these "reviewers" are in Bangalore and know as much about Franklin, TN as I do about Indian roads?

[rickmastfan67]

Here what I got:

Dear Author

Your change has been Commented on by Google Reviewer Tapasya, a trusted reviewer.

Comments: Hi, roads are assigned default speeds depending on their priority. Please leave the default value unchanged, if not sure about the speed limit. Here's a help link http://goo.gl/uUac2 for more details on the "Speed"  attribute.Please 'Undo' this road by clicking on 'My Edits' tab on the left hand pane. Thanks.

Jeez, I'm just editing the speed limit on a road I take EVERY day.

Plus, I've had problems getting continuous segment to all edit.

I'll fight for these, but that's it.  I've got better things to do.

Though with a name like Tapasya, is it possible that these "reviewers" are in Bangalore and know as much about Franklin, TN as I do about Indian roads?

Just comment back with a StreetView link to one of the speed limit signs on the road and own that dude.

I mean, I edited a SL here on a local road and I had no problems with Google.  They agreed and changed it right away.  I'll link to it in a sec.

EDIT: Here's the link: http://www.google.com/mapmaker?ll=40.553999,-80.017848&spn=0.011722,0.02768&z=16&iwloc=0_0&gw=55&editids=tArDX5SAqnHhIuuBe8&dtab=overview

It also helps to correct a few business as well in your area to prove to them that you can be trusted in that area...

[mightyace]

^^^

You're probably right.

But, as I never suffer for a lack of things to do, I have more productive things to do with my time than argue with Google "reviewers."

[algorerhythms]

Dear Author

Your change has been Commented on by Google Reviewer Tyler Durden, a trusted reviewer.

Comments: Hi, we cannot confirm the name of this segment as 'U.S 77' as per our research.Please provide an extra information about changing the name.Thankyou.

[Scott5114]

The first rule of U.S. 77 is that you do not talk about U.S. 77.

[TwinsMetsFan]

I've been lurking without posting for a while, but this thread compelled me to finally post. I submitted several edits related to New York routes a couple of weeks ago (correcting termini, removing defunct routes, etc.) and to my surprise all of them were approved. It seems like this is the exception more than the norm, though.

Based on what I've seen in this thread and on my struggles to get my changes approved, the people selected to be moderators at GMM are based outside of the US and/or know nothing about highway systems. So, while moderators deny changes that actually fix an error (like those posted above), they apparently approved somebody's change that put made-up state highways in southern Herkimer County.

I've seen several other errors that I'd like to fix (such as a "spur" of NY 266 in Tonawanda), but the slow speed of the approval process and the continually degrading state of GMaps tempers my enthusiasm. It's certainly not something I'm interested in doing long-term.

[CL]

So if I wanted to add a state highway shield to a road, what would I do? Add "S.R. 175" or "State Highway 175"...?