2022
Road Mapper has been quite the buzz since they reopened the enrollment. It's necessary to remind everyone that what we're doing in the program has REAL implications for the Maps & the people who live in the Challenge areas. I want to review the rules and give examples of how we can all be better Road Mappers.
First of all, any new Road Mapper should familiarize themselves with the Help & Guidance section. Here, you'll learn how to draw, adjust, delete, identify, and submit your roads. Everything you need to know is outlined in the Help & Guidance.
The Road Mapper approval process seems much looser than editing roads directly on Maps, which is unfortunate because fixing these errors from the Map Editor is hit or miss. So, mistakes made in Road Mapper can leave a permanent scar on the Map.
Let's look at the rule for Un-usable Roads - Limited Use:
As you can see in the photo above, by zooming out and viewing the surrounding area, you can identify whether a road is really used as a means of throughput and should be drawn. Look for main roads, or arteries, and follow the line you're about to draw back to them. If there's no connection - Don't draw it. In the image above, you can see a village is connected to the East/West road, but the lines drawn North/South are going to nothing but a couple trees - Delete these.
Even if you see a defined road, take the time to verify whether it's for public use. Again, checking to see if there is a connection is a quick way to confirm. In the above picture, you'll see someone traced out a very defined road, but looking outside the box, there is no turn-off from the main artery.
In this image, I've verified that what I'm tracing has a clear branch from the main road, and outside of the screenshot is a connection to a populated area. This is a useful road.
Another rule for approval is Alignment - Does your drawing "closely follow the shape of the road you are trying to map."
Per the guidelines, we need to be within 10 meters of the actual road on the image. In the image above, it's pretty darn close (I still moved it to center), but because of updating satellite images, sometimes there is a HUGE shift in the road layer from the image layer, as we see here (from actual Map):
Getting approvals and taking the time to edit misdrawn and poorly drawn roads on the live Map is a drag. So, if you see something in Road Mapper, fix it ... and make sure to slow down and focus on providing quality over quantity. Again, these are Challenges, not Games.
Look for telltale signs of vehicle usage, like tire tracks or center lines painted on the road. I try to follow the gap between tire marks on dirt roads, and right along the centerlines for drawing, and I'll edit roads I come across that do not line up.
Road Mapper is an opportunity for us to make a tremendous impact. If you read the stories of the LGs and people who live in the Challenge areas, you'll understand what it means for these communities. By getting into the Road Mapper program, we're being entrusted with the mission to help "everyone, no matter where they are," use Google Maps.
I'll leave you with a shocking image I came across when reviewing an area in the live Map that I had worked on back in 2021. Let's clean these messes up & prevent them from happening in the first place. If you're a stickler for the rules, I'd look away now!
@gabito705 Thank you. I fully agree with your point. The difficult part about adding roads from the other side of the world is knowing the purpose of the road itself. You're absolutely right; the tire marks we see could be from a farm tractor, and never appropriate for Maps to direct a traveler down. That's the point of looking at the beginning and end of a road and determining the use.
I've found entire towns on the Maps side that are off-center due to satellite updates, and it is tedious to report each road or stretch of road. Unfortunately, I've had most of my manual edits rejected, so I've resorted to using the 'Other' edit:
This, of course, is not within Road Mapper. But, looking back at the areas I've edited in Road Mapper on the Live Map, I can see that a lot of the "crazy" roads are clearly the result of approvals from Road Mapper. We have an opportunity to fix them while doing Challenges, but I suspect the deduction of KMs keeps a lot of Road Mappers from making these corrections.
That's why I say it's not a game. It doesn't matter how many kilometers you have if they're garbage, or if other garbage is ignored.
Yes, Google could handle this while reviewing the individual submissions, but that's a huge task. All of us are stronger than one of us. If we focus on making quality contributions, this program will be all the more better.
@tony_b I'd feel very honored if I've inspired anyone to get involved - especially you! - and, even more so if I can convince the active members to be mindful of what we're trying to accomplish, and treat the task with respect.
I do remember talking about adding roads in Barbados. I went in and made some edits on GMaps to show that it was not one of the blocked countries. It looks like you got over the hurdle of the 1st approved road, that's the longest one to wait for. At the moment we're dealing with an issue viewing Edits on our Maps profiles, but you should be good to go.
For me, reading the purpose and the stories of why the countries within Road Mapper were chosen, and the impact it has on the people, was enough to get excited to add my small portion of the overall contribution. You can (and should) still add the roads in Maps directly for Barbados. I can think of no one better to do it than the Boss Man Tony B!
But, there comes a limit to what's around us still to be found. Road Mapper is focused on areas that specifically need attention due to the vast amount of space to be covered. There are no points to be given, no awards, no levels. That's the appeal for me. I just want to be sure we're all treating these areas with the same respect we'd treat our own home countries when drawing.
Este es justo mi forma de pensar también.
Desde mediados de 2019 me enfoque en mejorar las vías de mi ciudad de manera productiva con al menos 10 cambios por día. Creí que en un plazo de unos 6 meses estaría cubierto todos los problemas de mi localidad... y vino la pandemia. Mucho trabajo desde casa, incertidumbre social, familiar y laboral también (bendecido y odiado zoom) y busque refugiarme en algo que hacer que no involucre exponerme al virus. Continue haciendo ediciones increíblemente más productivas y cerca de 50 por día. Agregando lugares, negocios, fotos, etc.
Si algo me tenia un tanto irritado es que comparaba mi localidad en MAPS con otros servicios como Apple entre otros y era que las imágenes satelitales eran demasiado antiguas (2014 en el mejor de los casos) y pues no reflejaban calles, autopistas o edificaciones nuevas en muchos lugares de mi ciudad, suburbios y pueblos a su alrededor. Así que empecé a remitir "errores" a google solicitando la actualización de los mapas satelitales día a día a finales de 2021. Realmente no se si alguien en google mira eso o si tuvo impacto mis al menos 300 solicitudes que realice hasta mediados de 2022 y de una día para otro: google había actualizado las imágenes de mi localidad. Estaba maravillado por cerca de 10min. Ahora sentí horror, ya que todas las imágenes de mi ciudad ahora presentan distorsiones y errores.
Estas imágenes no representan las vías de mi ciudad. 1. Simplemente una distorsión muy marcada de una vía completamente recta. 2. es un puente con accesos peatonales con una marcada pendiente en ambos lados del mismo que en la imagen satelital antigua era perfecta. Ahora sin esta explicación simplemente no se entiende.
Me sigo sintiendo culpable, talvez si yo no hubiese insistido hubiese quedado las imágenes antiguas mas tiempo, capaz hubiese generado mejores en un mejor momento, no lo se.
Y bueno, con este antecedente y un tanto desilusionado de este resultado, a mediados de 2022, me entere del programa Road Mapper y esta comunidad de Local Guides Connect y me uni y solicite acceso, creyendo erróneamente que podría editar y agregar mas rápido ediciones en mi localidad e incluso ver si puedo nuevamente, de manera mas rápida, tener un contacto con alguien de google y solucionar los errores de imágenes satelitales de mi localidad. Lo se, no lei todo el FAQ, es mi culpa.
Y ahora, desde que tengo acceso (4 meses aprox) he realizado unos 1000km de cambios en diferentes países (mayormente en Sudáfrica) pero realmente no me siento cómodo ya que demoro mucho en analizar si es pertinentes mis cambios o no. Y al igual que @JustJake y @tony_b lo dicen sabiamente este programa se siente ajeno ya que no puedo causar impacto en lugares que conocemos. Si algo bueno tiene es que no hay trofeos o medallas en el mismo y estoy de acuerdo se mantenga así para evitar acumuladores, si ya de hecho he visto usuarios con 10k o más ediciones en tiempos récord.
Igual manera, no escribo mucho en este tipo de foros, pero me gusta editar y me pareció oportuno el día de hoy unirme a esta conversación.
@gabito705 First off, thank you for taking all of that time to focus on your City to make and suggest the edits to Google. You shouldn't feel blame for anything that occurred when the images and maps were updated. It's a BIG world, and it takes folks like you and the rest of the LGs to locate and notify them of local issues. You should definitely keep at it. I've noticed that directly highlighting errors using the 'Other' box has been working well. The Maps Help Community is also a great resource for getting some issues directly relayed to the Maps team.
I really appreciate you jumping in to be part of this conversation, too. Especially because you seem to be an exemplary Road Mapper that we should all be looking up to for guidance. 1,000km in 4 months is great. You've taken your time, you mention analysis (even if not in this context) ... that's how this should be done. It's in the FAQs, it's in our instructions, and it should be the reason we're all participating.
So, thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience. I hope you decide to get involved more with other Road Mappers as they discuss their experiences, too, as you feel comfortable. I look forward to reading more from you soon!
@tony_b That's awesome both of those issues were resolved at once. I think you've got plenty to edit around Barbados. The two times I've taken a peek, I've found at least one road immediately in the area that needed to be fixed/added.
Around me, I was hunting down new housing developments and comparing them to the property tax maps to get road names and correct location data. It took a very long time, but it was gratifying. Now, most counties in Arizona have connected with Google to load their property data directly, so I've been forced to go elsewhere to find roads.
I'm stoked you're getting into it. The challenge of finding and fixing is cathartic for me, I love it. I hope you get some pleasure out of making your area ready to navigate better!
