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As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

nytimes.com

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Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#111

Post by raldi »

jdietrich wrote: post #18

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…

Actually, you can copyright facts, or more specifically a work produced via a significant effort to compile facts:

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

This is precisely why mapmakers introduce deliberate errors, so they can prove that a plagiarizer produced a copycat atlas not by recompiling from the basic facts, but rather used the compilation as a starting point.

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#112

Post by dang »

toss1 wrote: post #104
paidleaf wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China is aware of this and they control any maps their citizens will ever see. Everyone is aware of it. Maps have always been political. Maps and borders are political creations. Why is it that whenever a controversial topic comes up, people always bring up china? Every HN thread that has a controversial topic, someone always sneaks in a reference to china? > "Of course all that ocean between Philippines and Vietna…

NO. China is NOT merely acting like anyone else in regards to international territories. China very aggressively uses every social, political and military means to change the maps in their favor and extend their political control. This ranges from building military bases by expanding islands in international waters and putting air bases on it and threatening others, to denying that they invaded Tibet, to getting fore…

Please don't take HN discussions into nationalistic flamewar. As the guidelines say, "Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

(They also ask you not to use allcaps for emphasis, since that's basically yelling.)

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#113

Post by raldi »

reaperducer wrote: post #87
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…

Your older Fiskhorn is no more 'right' than my new Fishkorn I'm not so sure. "Fiskhorn" was probably named after a person or family. Like The Bronx in New York. Changing it to "Fishkorn" erodes the neighborhood's history. If you've lived most of your life in newer states, you may be used to made up place names. But in older cities/towns/states, place names have meaning. Often historic meanings. Knowing a little bit a…

The Bronx was a corruption of the name of the Bronck family.

Why do you see that change as more legitimate than Fishkorn?

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#114

Post by paleotrope »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #41
sonnyblarney wrote: post #3

Because 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 isn't unique to China, or to Israel and Palestine. There's also Ukraine and Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Cambodia and Thailand, India and Pakistan, and a whole swathe of territorial claims in other places. Borders, especially when not naturally delineated by something like a river, are messy things.

Even rivers can change, making the borders delineated that way less unchanging then they would seem.

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#115

Post by dang »

knockingat3am wrote: post #66
paidleaf wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China is aware of this and they control any maps their citizens will ever see. Everyone is aware of it. Maps have always been political. Maps and borders are political creations. Why is it that whenever a controversial topic comes up, people always bring up china? Every HN thread that has a controversial topic, someone always sneaks in a reference to china? > "Of course all that ocean between Philippines and Vietna…

And like clockwork, China isn't even singled out, isn't mentioned first, but instantly it's pointed out how there's really nothing particularly bad going on there, for over half a century. Even bending so far to pretend this is a "controversial subject", and as if most controversial subjects didn't mention China at all. The latter is an easily demonstrable falsehood, uttered in the interest of discussion hygiene. You…

We've banned this account for using HN primarily for political battle.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#116

Post by raldi »

dsnuh wrote: post #54
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The guy's apartment building isn't called Silver Lake Heights, what he did was start using the term "Silver Lake Heights" to describe an area previously known as "Silver Lake". Realtors often drive the naming of new "neighborhoods", especially if it is lower class area that they want to gentrify. You know, branding.

How do you think other neighborhoods called [Something] Heights came to be?

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#117

Post by eruci »

Seems like the heart of the "East Cut" is on the intersection of Beale and Howard: https://geocoder.ca/Beale+and+Howard+San+Francisco

The wisdom of the crowds puts this location in the following Neighborhoods: https://geocoder.ca/37.78992,-122.39427

1. Rincon Hill,San Francisco 2. Chinatown 3. San Francisco,CA

Where does Google come up with these names?

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#118

Post by jonas21 »

wlesieutre wrote: post #91
huebnerob wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, the article complains about names 'just being made up' but fails to provide any evidence of that actually happening. Instead, all the other odd names they call out actually originated somewhere in the community, albeit perhaps from esoteric sources. What's more, NYT seems to willfully ignore that place names change and evolve constantly through natural social processes just like these. That Google is indexing…

>Indeed, the article complains about names 'just being made up' Unlike all those other placenames like "South of Market" which were decreed by god when he created San Fransisco :P What they're really getting at is that it was made up by the wrong people. Like anything else that once happened organically among groups of people, you can now wrangle up an advertising budget and push it along. My neighborhood has a "real…

From the article:

> In San Francisco, the East Cut name originated from a neighborhood nonprofit group that residents voted to create in 2015 to clean and secure the area.

How are these the "wrong" people to be naming the neighborhood?

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#119

Post by Rebelgecko »

It's hard to say what makes a neighborhood nickname "real", but when I use Google to search for one of the "neighborhoods" near me and the first results is a forum discussion of "what the hell is in Google maps, and why is it centered in swampland?"... then it's probably not a "real" area

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#120

Post by thesandlord »

eruci wrote: post #117

Seems like the heart of the "East Cut" is on the intersection of Beale and Howard: https://geocoder.ca/Beale+and+Howard+San+Francisco The wisdom of the crowds puts this location in the following Neighborhoods: https://geocoder.ca/37.78992,-122.39427 1. Rincon Hill,San Francisco 2. Chinatown 3. San Francisco,CA Where does Google come up with these names?

Google didn't come up with the name.

https://sf.curbed.com/2017/6/5/15730564/rincon-hill-east-cut...

Rincon Hill is the only name on that list that makes sense. Chinatown is no where near this neighborhood.

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