As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume • Hacker News Board

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#11

Post by SuoDuanDao » Thu, Aug 02, 2018, 11:10 AM UTC

wwhitlow wrote: post #8

Piskvorrr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disputed territories are shown differently to each side: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2016/aug/10...

Yes, but what I think OP is more so referring to is the idea that if an international organization tried to solve the dispute most would be in favor of what they have seen for the longest time. Which brings the question of how does Google decide which map it will show the rest of the world?

If past behavior is any indication, it will show two versions depending on the local consensus.

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#12

Post by qrbLPHiKpiux » Thu, Aug 02, 2018, 11:13 AM UTC

If you tell a lie long enough it becomes truth.

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#13

Post by mantas » Thu, Aug 02, 2018, 11:20 AM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #9

ilamont wrote: post #7

In Los Angeles, Jeffrey Schneider, a longtime architect in the Silver Lake area, said he recently began calling the hill he lived on 'Silver Lake Heights' in ads for his rental apartment downstairs, partly as a joke. Last year, Silver Lake Heights also appeared on Google Maps. Google asleep at the wheel again. Developers wanting to create some tony new "neighborhood" as well as real estate agents attempting to shift…

Or not. This is the essential process that any place name goes through (really any name), someone starts using it and then others adopt it. Whether the first someone is an official isn't that important.

The difference is that Google makes it look like a legit name even if few people used it before.

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#14

Post by bumholio » Thu, Aug 02, 2018, 11:21 AM UTC

> named his new publishing start-up Fishkorn this year after seeing the name on Google Maps. “It rolls off the tongue,” he said

And there you have it, the exact same process that gave rise to all toponyms. It's debatable if Google has a fault for unwittingly altering a random walk. Your older Fiskhorn is no more 'right' than my new Fishkorn, and in many ways worse. If consensus forms, by whatever means, that's what's right.

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#15

Post by microcolonel » Thu, Aug 02, 2018, 11:22 AM UTC

qrbLPHiKpiux wrote: post #12

If you tell a lie long enough it becomes truth.

Well, it's like adverse possession: at some point it is more responsible to uphold the most current claim, even if it intersects an existing one.

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#16

Post by smallnamespace » Thu, Aug 02, 2018, 11:29 AM UTC

bumholio wrote: post #14

> named his new publishing start-up Fishkorn this year after seeing the name on Google Maps. “It rolls off the tongue,” he said And there you have it, the exact same process that gave rise to all toponyms. It's debatable if Google has a fault for unwittingly altering a random walk. Your older Fiskhorn is no more 'right' than my new Fishkorn, and in many ways worse. If consensus forms, by whatever means, that's what's…

> If consensus forms, by whatever means, that's what's right.

Seems a bit strange that you combined an absolute prescriptivist stance ('what's right') in support of an absolute descriptivist one.

It's not logically self-consistent: what if a consensus forms that your view here is wrong?

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#17

Post by mannykannot » Thu, Aug 02, 2018, 11:31 AM UTC

It's not just Google (though automation, through skimping on the hard-to-automate activity of effective verification, has clearly accelerated it.) Mapmakers insert small errors into their maps as a sort of watermark. In one case, a made-up place name was added to a map of the Adirondacks region of New York. When it appeared later on a rival's map, it turned out that the name had been adopted when a guy built a house nearby, because it was on the first map.

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#18

Post by jdietrich » Thu, Aug 02, 2018, 11:32 AM UTC

Most maps are deliberately inaccurate in subtle ways. You can't copyright facts, so cartographers use fictional places and deliberate errors to protect their work. If these features appear on another map, then it's reasonable to assume that they were plagiarised. Historically, cartographers have often created settlements or roads where none actually exist; inventing fictional names for districts or mis-spelling some place names may be a safer option in the age of GPS and autonomous cars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#19

Post by CPLX » Thu, Aug 02, 2018, 11:34 AM UTC

I've been a proud member of the greater RAMBO community for years. It's a real and thriving community nestled between DUMBO and DOBRO and don't let anyone tell you different.

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#20

Post by LeifCarrotson » Thu, Aug 02, 2018, 11:45 AM UTC

ilamont wrote: post #7

In Los Angeles, Jeffrey Schneider, a longtime architect in the Silver Lake area, said he recently began calling the hill he lived on 'Silver Lake Heights' in ads for his rental apartment downstairs, partly as a joke. Last year, Silver Lake Heights also appeared on Google Maps. Google asleep at the wheel again. Developers wanting to create some tony new "neighborhood" as well as real estate agents attempting to shift…

Doesn't seem unreasonable at all. Guy calls his apartments Silver Lake Heights, his tenants tell their visitors they live in Silver Lake Heights #4, visitors punch that in their phones but can't find it, get the street adress, and a couple enterprising 'local guides' suggest a place name.