How long should I wait for spam to be removed?

[Mike Williams]

I reported a spam boundary area a month or so ago but it's still showing.  Will it eventually be reviewed and removed by someone with the proper authority or do I need to do something else to get someone to take a look? To give an idea of the severity it's the 3rd largest gray/grey boundary area in the US state of Georgia after a couple of military bases.  From what I can tell it either represents a church "outreach" area or "food pantry" delivery area NW of Atlanta between I-75 and I-575. A general Google Maps user would have no idea that's what this area represents and it's quite difficult to even determine that's what the area is without trying to actually edit it.  It obscures all property lines within the boundary.

[Flash]

Can you please provide a link in Map Maker to it (not to the general area, but to the feature itself).

[Mike Williams]

Thanks for the response.  As far as I can tell the feature in question is here.  In this particular view the boundary is small and reasonable but if you look at the history you'll see a much much larger area (~10 square miles) including one edit for an "outreach boundary" that was denied but later that same large boundary was approved.

[Mike Williams]

If it helps here's a link that shows the entire boundary area:

http://goo.gl/o0ixj

[Chris Murphy]

I have tried removing this feature as well. I have commented on the feature and the original poster had simply replied that the grey "property boundary" is the servicable area for their food pantry. Regardless of their service area, they should not be classifying their area as the property of their business. It obscures property lines and makes it much more difficult to navigate. I agree whole-heartedly that this should be corrected.

[Flash]

Mike's previous link for the boundary did not work, but I figured it out now.

Chris, could you please undo your edit?  It is not appropriate to draw a boundary around a building; the building is already defined.  I'll escalate this towards having the boundary approved or removed by Google personnel.

[Mike Williams]

Thanks, Chris.  I've all but given up on trying to get this fixed.  I'm glad to know I'm not the only one bothered by this extremely inappropriate use of Google Maps.  What if restaurants start adding their delivery areas to Google maps?

[Flash]

It is escalated.

Actually, service areas can be defined.  One needs to use Google+ Local (formerly Places) to do so.  The service area is then invisible, but applies for searches, and can be seen if you look at that one business and click to specifically see the area.

[Mike Williams]

On Monday, February 18, 2013 12:11:45 PM UTC-5, Flash wrote:

It is escalated.

Actually, service areas can be defined.  One needs to use Google+ Local (formerly Places) to do so.  The service area is then invisible, but applies for searches, and can be seen if you look at that one business and click to specifically see the area.

Defining a service area that's only available via a specific search is certainly a more reasonable approach.  It's not like anyone just looking at the map would have any idea what this boundary represents.  It took me quite a bit of effort editing the map to even find the source.  I really can't understand how this was even approved to begin with.

Thanks for escalating this; I'll be very happy once this is removed.

 

[Mike Williams]

On Monday, February 18, 2013 12:11:45 PM UTC-5, Flash wrote:

It is escalated.

Since the spam boundary area is still there I assume that the escalation process takes much longer than I'd expect.  I really can't understand this.

[Flash]

I would expect it to take some time.  You can see that it is no longer connected to the edit in which it was created, so there is corruption somewhere that will need to be traced and might be deep set enough that it won't be simple to fix.

[Mike Williams]

It's finally gone.  Thanks so much for your assistance on this.

[Flash]

I was looking for this thread yesterday, as I received an email confirming my escalation had been completed.  Glad you already noticed the difference.