Message to users SPY, RT, and VICTORY (and Google Map Maker)

[Gorio]

STOP APPROVING EDITS THAT YOU KNOW ARE INCORRECT!!!!!!!!

I have spent hours over the last couple of days cleaning up the
incorrectly added features that you three keep approving even though
you know that they are incorrectly categorized. I know you know
because you tell the user they are incorrect but then you approve it
anyway.

GMM: These three users keep approving incorrect edits and I have no
way, other than this discussion forum, to communicate with them or to
give them "black marks" so their ability to approve edits is
diminished. If you would be so kind as to cut them off or, at the very
least, break through their impenetrable barrier to the rest of the
user community (i.e. no profile with an email address) and tell them
to stop. There has to be something you can do to stop this utterly
ridiculous practice of allowing users to moderate any which way they
like with no avenue of recourse other than the discussion forum.

-Gorio

[rjhintz]

A possible immediate step to to change policy to allow moderations
only to those with a profile that includes the ability to send a
message. Having said that, I found a mapper with a profile who's been
deleting features worldwide and who is not responsive to email, so
it's not a real solution.

Gorio, are you rating the edits as "should have been denied"?
--
Rich

[pejise1]

hi all,

You have reason gorio. it would be necessary that a system be to
install allowing this moderation kind according to the number edit
and the participation place.
I does not understand that a person of a country moderates the edit of
another person of another country.
when one draws a place one is supposed the connaitre and if this is
not the case to watch out and especially not approved a moderation of
a place that one not connait or that one knows that the moderation
contains errors

On 5 nov, 13:07, Gorio <greg.emb...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Cesser d'adopter des modifications que vous sont connus !!!!!!!! INCORRECT
>
> J'ai passé des heures au cours des deux derniers jours, le nettoyage des
> incorrectement ajouté des fonctionnalités qui vous trois garder approuvant même si
> vous savez qu'ils sont mal classées. Je sais que vous savez
> parce que vous dire à l'utilisateur qu'ils sont inexacts, mais alors vous l'approuver
> de toute manière.
>
> GMM: Ces trois utilisateurs de garder l'approbation des modifications incorrectes et je n'ai pas
> Ainsi, autre que ce forum de discussion, de communiquer avec eux ou à
> leur donner "points noirs" de sorte que leur capacité d'approuver des modifications est
> diminué. Si vous l'obligeance de les couper ou, à tout le
> moins, briser leur barrière impénétrable pour le reste de la
> communauté d'utilisateurs (ie pas de profil avec une adresse e-mail) et leur dire
> d'arrêter. Il doit y avoir quelque chose que vous pouvez faire pour arrêter ce tout à fait
> ridicule pratique consistant à autoriser les utilisateurs à modérer quelque manière dont ils
> comme avec aucun moyen de recours autre que le forum de discussion.
>
> -Gorio

[Gorio]

Rich,

I have rated many of them as "should have been denied" but that
doesn't really do anything. They are still allowed to keep approving
incorrect edits.

> > -Gorio- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Vaseekaran]

I have a suggestion here

 

Why not allow people who have registered for Neighbourhoods of Interest. But that has some disadvantage as we may have to endlessly for days, weeks, months for an edit to be moderated.

 

Otherwise we can fix some criteria like the following

 

People who have more than say 1000 edits or so with an direct approval percentage of more than 75% or so.

People who live in a particular area to moderate only those edits in their area / Neighbourhoods of Interest...

People who regularly post in the GMM groups

 

 

If something of these sort of restrictions are not in place, the quality of the Google maps will take a beating for sure.......

 

It is better to wakeup early rather than it becomes too late.....

 

 

Sorry the above are suggestions and the more experienced members can add their cents.............

 

 

 

Vasee

 

2009/11/6 Gorio <greg....@hotmail.com>

[Cool Runnings]

Some examples will definitely help understanding the issue with these features better  :)

I suppose the features you are talking of are genuine errors that cannot be corrected once published?

[Vaseekaran]

Hi I am giving below some more explanations to what I have already written.

 

1. The moderators who dont know about a locatlity can moderate only for the correctness of  the attributes, description, naming etc only. They cannot assure the correctness of the data or the length, names given etc. These can be moderated only by those who know the area.

 

 

Otherwise we may have logically correct, physically bad data.

 

2. There has to be a lesson or some kind of tests which a moderator should pass to gain knowledge about what all should be looked into and ensured before approving / denying / asking for explanation etc. Now whatever is moderated is based on what a person knows or based on the knowledge he has gained from others who have moderated his edits.

 

There may be some users who just approve whatever they come across without asserting the correctness just like what Gorio has mentioned...

 

 

If you look at many of the roads which were created are being created at much lower resolution imagery than at the maximum possible resolution which makes the roads to be positioned very much away from the actual location.

 

This can be avoided if the GMM ensures that the roads can be edited / created only at highest resolution possible in that area. otherwise editing should be disabled.

 

Sorry I am just scribbling my thoughts / difficulties / problems which I came across during the past 50 days of association with GMM.

--
John Vaseekaran
+919841297993 / +6584024507

[Gorio]

Cool Runnings,

The features have errors that can be corrected once published. The
point is that when a moderator knows the edit is incorrect they should
request information, deny it or fix it themselves otherwise the
incorrect information remains published, which degrades the quality
and usefulness of the map and perpetuates the addition of incorrect
features by the same and other authors. If a moderator knows it is
incorrect and publishes it BUT then immediately fixes the error
themselves then I have no problem with that. Approving the incorrect
feature, and then hoping and wishing that someone else will fix it
later, is not good policy. The problem is compounded when there is no
avenue to communicate with or educate the moderator. They are
impervious to all comments and accountability to do the right thing.

Simplest solution is to force moderators to have a profile with email
(so you can communicate) and be able to rate the moderation and have
"bad" moderation impact thier ability to moderate in the future. It
really doesn't matter where they live as long as you can give feedback
to keep them from bad moderation practice and from moderating things
they know nothing about.

-Gorio

> > On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 10:10 AM, Vaseekaran <john.vaseeka...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> >> I have a suggestion here
>
> >> Why not allow people who have registered for Neighbourhoods of Interest.
> >> But that has some disadvantage as we may have to endlessly for days, weeks,
> >> months for an edit to be moderated.
>
> >> Otherwise we can fix some criteria like the following
>
> >> People who have more than say 1000 edits or so with an direct approval
> >> percentage of more than 75% or so.
> >> People who live in a particular area to moderate only those edits in their
> >> area / Neighbourhoods of Interest...
> >> People who regularly post in the GMM groups
>
> >> If something of these sort of restrictions are not in place, the quality
> >> of the Google maps will take a beating for sure.......
>
> >> It is better to wakeup early rather than it becomes too late.....
>
> >> Sorry the above are suggestions and the more experienced members can add
> >> their cents.............
>
> >> Vasee
>

> >> 2009/11/6 Gorio <greg.emb...@hotmail.com>

> +919841297993 / +6584024507- Hide quoted text -

[Map Maker Guide]

Hi Gorio,
I generally agree with your observations about approving features
that are known to be incorrect. If a minor edit that is approvable but
has minor changes to be made, then ideally the person approving the
edit should themselves correct it. However, if the change is major,
then probably makes sense to ask the author of the edit to fix it
themselves.
Additionally, we have contacted the moderators advising them about
your observations. You can also contact them using the 'Send a
message' option on their profiles.
For example, here is the link to Spy's profile.:
http://www.google.com/profiles/109790780283692323507?hl=en . You can
get to this link when we select 'View full profile' on the Map Maker
profile page.

We hope that they will agree to the points that have been bought
forward here.

We appreciate your patience.

Thanks & Regards,
Map Maker Guide.

[Baجwa]

hello all,
I am baجwa from Pakistan. I want to published my edits in google
earth. I have 250 edits in mapmaker and they all approved from
moderator. I ask from all when my edits will be published. and what is
porpuse of i am going to a moderator.

reply

Best Regards

[Jabran]

Hello.

hello all,
   I am baجwa from Pakistan. I want to published my edits in google
earth. I have 250 edits in mapmaker and they all approved from
moderator. I ask from all when my edits will be published.

Your question is answered here.

http://groups.google.com/group/map-your-world/web/top-5-frequently-asked-questions?_done=/group/map-your-world%3F

 

and what is
porpuse of i am going to a moderator.

For more information on being a moderator please have look at topics given at this page.

http://maps.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=23521

Regards,
جabran
www.dyzynz.net

[AM909]

On Nov 10, 5:16 am, Map Maker Guide <mapmakergu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Gorio,
>  I generally agree with your observations about approving features
> that are known to be incorrect. If a minor edit that is approvable but
> has minor changes to be made, then ideally the person approving the
> edit should themselves correct it.

Which they cannot do until the feature is published, which may take
additional moderation by other users, and requires the first
moderating user to keep a "to-do" list - something people may not want
to do.

>However, if the change is major,
> then probably makes sense to ask the author of the edit to fix it
> themselves.

Which they cannot do until the feature is published. Or, if the
feature is denied, they have to re-create it correctly, something they
are unlikely to do if they are (understandably) angry at having to
duplicate their work.

All of which is solved by allowing editing of features pending
moderation. Those that agree should vote for this issue:
http://code.google.com/p/google-mapmaker/issues/detail?id=27

[rjhintz]

Ok, dusting off this thread that we love so much. A similar scenario.
--A new user adds a substandard feature.
--I comment with some suggestions for improvement and a request to
undo, then redo.
--No answer from the original mapper.
--Google Moderator Shifa approves with no comment.

http://www.google.com/mapmaker?ll=11.539198,104.911521&spn=0.004588,0.008229&z=18&t=h&iwloc=7_0&gw=55&editids=z7gfDUWdCMTcyKlPmj&dtab=history
for feature BM Solution.

It may well be that my comments were wrong or otherwise off the wall,
but it's frustrating that they don't seem to have been considered.
--
Rich

[rjhintz]

Google Moderator Shifa doesn't have a visible profile. I assume this
is associated with the problem mentioned in another thread.
--
Rich

On Dec 4, 7:15 am, rjhintz <rjhi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ok, dusting off this thread that we love so much.  A similar scenario.
> --A new user adds a substandard feature.
> --I comment with some suggestions for improvement and a request to
> undo, then redo.
> --No answer from the original mapper.
> --Google Moderator Shifa approves with no comment.
>

> http://www.google.com/mapmaker?ll=11.539198,104.911521&spn=0.004588,0...

[rjhintz]

Great. Another feature approved with no reason by Google Moderator
Guts.

This is for road feature TOPAZ
http://www.google.com/mapmaker?hl=en&ll=11.548264,104.900959&spn=0.009177,0.016458&z=17&iwloc=7_0&gw=55&editids=z7gfDUWPiDDaVnsnR9&dtab=history

--
Rich

[Prasanth Rajan]

Gosh - that was a really bad edit to have been approved. The moderator had approved stating that it was wrongly marked "over" a building. If these sort of errors are approved with the expectation that the author would be correcting it later on, I believe moderation would be no longer necessary since there would no scope for a "deny" on any edit.

Atleast the moderators with the "Google Moderator" tag should not have approved.

Regards.

Prasanth

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[Jabran]

I had shouting for similar stuff.. 

Regards,
جabran

------------------------
www.local.com.pk
www.dyzynz.net

2009/12/4 Prasanth Rajan <raja...@gmail.com>

[Vaseekaran]

I also join you guys. I had asked for a clarification for an edit ( see the link below)as the entity was not existing at the marked place. But without any consideration to that other moderators have approved the feature.

 

 

http://www.google.com/mapmaker?hl=en&fll=12.994172,80.210136&fr=0.000105,0.000107&mpp=0.290937&gw=12&ll=12.995669,80.210098&spn=0.002702,0.005085&t=h&z=18

 

This gives a doubt in my mind,

 

In google map maker, whether we are concerned about the accuracy of the edits or just allow people to populate the maps with Junk data?

 

I think we are heading for a disaster.........

 

Lets wake up and do something to weed out the non serious moderators and editors from dumping junk material in to the maps...

 

 

Those who are concerned about this pollution please raise your voice. Otherwise genuine efforts are mocked at....

 

 

 

2009/12/4 Jabran <jabran...@gmail.com>

--

[rjhintz]

Another good example.
http://www.google.com/mapmaker?ll=11.580049,104.852319&spn=0.004456,0.007913&z=18&iwloc=7_0&gw=55&editids=wPQWrK9JJSiNfaWfZx&dtab=history

Scenario:
1. The original mapper, unidentified in the history, but shown as
very new, marks an "Address/Plot" feature on 21 November and names it
as Prieb So. No street address or road given.
2. Someone, unidentified, but probably the original mapper comments
that it is "Jesuit community and apostolic center in Phnom Penh Tmey,
Cambodia."
3. On 30 November I comment that there is probably a feature better
suited than the generic address/plot and ask the mapper to make a
profile.
4. On 6 December Google Moderator Jack, who doesn't have a visible
profile, approves.

My sense is that the new moderators feel that their work is judged by
the number of moderations they perform and may only deny grossly
faulty ones. They don't want to take the time to go through the
comment, response, refine result phases.
--
Rich

On Dec 6, 10:44 pm, Vaseekaran <john.vaseeka...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I also join you guys. I had asked for a clarification for an edit ( see the
> link below)as the entity was not existing at the marked place. But without
> any consideration to that other moderators have approved the feature.
>

> http://www.google.com/mapmaker?hl=en&fll=12.994172,80.210136&fr=0.000...

>
> This gives a doubt in my mind,
>
> In google map maker, whether we are concerned about the accuracy of the
> edits or just allow people to populate the maps with Junk data?
>
> I think we are heading for a disaster.........
>
> Lets wake up and do something to weed out the non serious moderators and
> editors from dumping junk material in to the maps...
>
> Those who are concerned about this pollution please raise your voice.
> Otherwise genuine efforts are mocked at....
>

> 2009/12/4 Jabran <jabranrafi...@gmail.com>

>
>
>
>
>
> > I had shouting for similar stuff..
>
> > Regards,
> > جabran
>
> > ------------------------
> >www.local.com.pk
> >www.dyzynz.net
>

> > 2009/12/4 Prasanth Rajan <rajanp...@gmail.com>

>
> > Gosh - that was a really bad edit to have been approved. The moderator had
> >> approved stating that it was wrongly marked "over" a building. If these sort
> >> of errors are approved with the expectation that the author would be
> >> correcting it later on, I believe moderation would be no longer necessary
> >> since there would no scope for a "deny" on any edit.
>
> >> Atleast the moderators with the "Google Moderator" tag should not have
> >> approved.
>
> >> Regards.
> >> Prasanth
>

> >> On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 8:58 PM, rjhintz <rjhi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>> Great.  Another feature approved with no reason by Google Moderator
> >>> Guts.
>
> >>> This is for road feature TOPAZ
>

> >>>http://www.google.com/mapmaker?hl=en&ll=11.548264,104.900959&spn=0.00...

> >>> map-moderatin...@googlegroups.com<map-moderating%2Bunsubscribe@go oglegroups.com>
> >>> .

> >>> For more options, visit this group at
> >>>http://groups.google.com/group/map-moderating?hl=en.
>
> >>   --
> >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> >> "Moderating features" group.
> >> To post to this group, send email to map-mod...@googlegroups.com.
> >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to

> >> map-moderatin...@googlegroups.com<map-moderating%2Bunsubscribe@go oglegroups.com>
> >> .

> >> For more options, visit this group at
> >>http://groups.google.com/group/map-moderating?hl=en.
>
> >  --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
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> > .

[Gorio]

I have been trying to get some action on making moderators accountable
and competent for a long time now but it appears all is for naught so
far. Adding all of the moderators that are google employees was never
a suggestion given to fix any of the problems. I don't know what they
were thinking it would accomplish. It, in fact, doesn't make anything
better but only opens the possibility to make things worse. Just
because they are google employees doesn't make them more competent
moderators than anyone else (as evidenced by the experiences mentioned
above).

There are still no good feedback loops for moderation that include the
ability to negatively impact a users ability to moderate. Adding more
people to the current system only makes things worse. The only way it
gets better is to improve communication paths to the moderators and
add the ability to take away moderation privelidges.



On Dec 7, 11:13 pm, rjhintz <rjhi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Another good example.http://www.google.com/mapmaker?ll=11.580049,104.852319&spn=0.004456,0...

> > > Ìabran

[rjhintz]

There are many points here, some with conflicting goals:
--ensure high quality edits where some edits require more than surface
knowledge in order to be accurate. For instance, it's not apparent
that there's a canal subtype of river.
--some POIs have variants, for instance, irrigation and canal. If
it's general practice in a region to name a feature "canal", it might
be a moderator's judgment that a feature named "irrigation" is
inconsistent and misleading. Same for names. "Tonle Sap River"
basically means "River Sap River." Many examples like this. We don't
have "best practices" guidelines and it might be frustrating anyway
for new, casual mappers.
--assume many more mappers start mapping. The queue depth of
outstanding moderations would get larger and larger. Having Google
employees work to keep the queue down, working with consistent
internal guidelines is one approach to dealing with this.
--establishing trust levels for mappers with, say, <100 edits is
difficult. I'd be interested in seeing data on how many mappers have
1 edit, 2-5, 6-50, 51-200, or whatever frequency bands are apparent
from the data. What role do negative comments and denials have in
establishing trust?
--how does a moderator establish the accurate of a negative comment?
--can the moderation workflow be more systematized, especially dealing
with one or more negative comments.
--how is Google employee moderation production judged? If it's
frequency per day with no consequence for ignoring negative notes and
comments, this criterion might need rethinking.
--how can moderators that don't share a common language communicate?
One thought was creating moderation forms with checkboxes for common
issues, so the associated common issues could be translated.
--communicating effectively with moderators. Yes, some moderators
don't have profiles, but a lot of recent cases have been that
moderators don't respond to comments. Do we need a higher order panel
of trusted, regional mappers to judge low level disputes about
features? (I don't mean national boundaries!)

I think we mappers have to recognize that GMM is evolving rapidly,
isn't mature, and has all the issues associated with a small, dynamic
startup. Service availability is very good. Performance is good.
Cost to the user (ha ha) is good. Value to Google is high. Google
employees are generally responsive, which is unusual, but welcome.
The easiest way to get things done is to keep making proposals and
then participate in their refinement.
--
Rich

[JenMazz]

Thank you Rich & everyone else for continuing this discussion. This is
definitely a tough nut to crack! There are lots of complexities
however we care very much about continuing to iterate on the problem
as moderation is pretty much at the heart of our community mapping
approach. In the coming year, we hope to make some strides in
increasing transparency of user trust levels and facilitating better
dialog between the editors and moderators. I'm hopeful that the recent
change around moderation that enables continued edits to pending POIs
& polygons will help. Also the ability to approve/deny at the
attribute level will give people more fine-grained moderating ability.
As you all start using these new moderation features, please keep the
dialog open and communicate early and often with feedback

In a perfect world, Google's participation in moderation is minimal to
none. Ideally everyone's mapping:moderating ration would be at least
50/50. That said, I personally have sat down with many of our internal
moderators and I have weekly meetings with the manager of the team. I
can assure you that the moderators are constantly coached and
monitored for their moderation quality, and that we act quickly to
investigate and take steps to improve when people post in this group
about bad quality moderations. Onward & upward!

Sincerely,

Jen.

[rjhintz]

Hi,
My sense is a lot of frustration would be reduced if a moderator
approving a feature would acknowledge an understanding of the previous
comments, especially negative comments, and give some credible reasons
for the approval.

Workflow for the cases we're discussing is:
--Person with local knowledge comments with reasoning
--Moderator indicates they *understood* the comments, then possibly
makes a decision showing justification in the context so far
--Person with local knowledge provides more information or rates the
moderator's decision or both
--Person with local knowledge posts significant cases on the forum
where the moderator (Google moderator at least) enters the
discussion. (Ha ha, cap lock key off.)
--
Rich

[Gorio]

Hi Jen,

I'll post this here now but if it is wrong to do so please tell me
where to post it in the future.

Please pass this along to Google Moderator LP and others: When
moderating roads where there is no potographic evidence or commentary
that the road even exists, let alone the route that the road takes, it
would be wise to ask the author how do they know the road is exactly
as it has been drawn. In a particular case the road he approved is a
local road that joins a controlled highway as a straight intersection,
no ramps, interchange, or cloverleafs. It seems fishy to me but he
just approved it with no questions asked.

Jen, I would tell this to Mr/Ms. LP myself but they have no profile
and email address. Please make sure that they all have have addresses
and emails. Thanks.

[rjhintz]

Google moderators are continuing to approve dubious edits.
http://www.google.com/mapmaker?gw=55&ll=13.105833,103.199934&spn=0.005099,0.007135&z=17&iwloc=0_0&editids=iwZvwKkKn3Yw7IS1ut

I see that Google Moderator Rajesh doesn't have a visible profile.
--
Rich