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.
t/l note: Dobro means Good in most slavic languages.
As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
21–30 of 223 posts
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#22In 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.
Perception is reality.
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#23In fairness, Google Maps did not invent these names itself. It merely collected by rôte and systematized, without any quality control or fact checking, names invented and published by other people.
This is a general problem with deriving stuff indiscriminately from information supplied by unidentified people.
Wikipedia has a whole bunch of similar inventions, made up by people writing them into Wikipedia initially. (http://jdebp.info./FGA/legacy-encoding-has-no-definition.htm... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesis_...) And there is a fair amount of stuff that survived in Wikipedia for a long time, based solely upon a mention by other, highly credulous, WWW sites.
Google Web famously gives greater credence to some common spelling errors.
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#24Because of the power of mind share, Google has the power to control borders. The border between Israel and the West Bank is an odd one. 'Both sides' have their view of it. But if 7 Billion people on planet earth grow up seeing one version of the border, it's what they will come to believe as 'true' and effectively support - particularly those in modern nations that might have influence. China is aware of this and the…
At the very least Google should show it as "disputed" for anyone not involved in the conflict. Which is another can of worms of course, e.g. for Israel supporters viewing it from the US.
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#25Earlier 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?
Having seen much less impactful situations in large institutions: coin flips or even avarice.
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
How many grains of sand are in a pile?
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#27Because of the power of mind share, Google has the power to control borders. The border between Israel and the West Bank is an odd one. 'Both sides' have their view of it. But if 7 Billion people on planet earth grow up seeing one version of the border, it's what they will come to believe as 'true' and effectively support - particularly those in modern nations that might have influence. China is aware of this and the…
This problem didn't start with Google: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030822-00/?p=...
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#28This is especially funny in low google-activity/population areas, such as Finland, or even China.
I've been able to create/edit/remove cafes, restaurants, roads and businesses by just filling a simple change form. In a few minutes I receive an email that the change has gone through and anyone can see it live.
What a wonderful system. (:
...and this is without even going into the incompetent mess that is bilingual road/place names in Finland. 10 years since the first complaint and it's still not fixed.
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#29In San Diego, Google Maps uses the names of unremarkable apartment buildings and other multi-unit developments to label whole neighborhoods. Nobody uses those names but it's been like that for years. (Check out Hillcrest and University Heights by adjusting your zoom to the right level and those dumb names will pop up.)
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#30Because of the power of mind share, Google has the power to control borders. The border between Israel and the West Bank is an odd one. 'Both sides' have their view of it. But if 7 Billion people on planet earth grow up seeing one version of the border, it's what they will come to believe as 'true' and effectively support - particularly those in modern nations that might have influence. China is aware of this and the…
It can be helpful to look at a map of the world with no borders drawn on it and remember that (apart from natural boundaries such as oceans) border lines are entirely arbitrary with no inherent meaning.
And also to look at past maps of the world when the borders looked quite different.