one task governments perform is defining borders.
As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
151–160 of 223 posts
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's somewhat problematic when Google starts to become an arbitrator of real-world boundaries, as there is functionally no oversight or recourse for those affected. Google was not appointed by the residents, is not incentivized to avoid damaging changes, and is functionally impossible to hold responsible - they're an opaque monolith to anyone who tries to effect change or revert their decisions, and their black box-e…
You can't operate a map site and not be: > become an arbitrator of real-world boundaries, as there is functionally no oversight or recourse for those affected. If you do what people ask, you're being the arbiter. If you do what people don't ask, you're still being the arbiter.
Yea, a fine example is the china-india border which google displays differently to residents of china, india and pakistan.
This is one of those edge cases I love to hate in software dev. It's nice to imagine everything has a real value out there somewhere, but some data points don't actually have a clear definition _anywhere_.
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#153I deal with this with one of the web sites I maintain. I think, as noted in the article, that it seems Google sometimes uses names from advertisements as if they are canonical. In my case, the city in question puts out a very specific, very legally defined map of each neighborhood, and has for more than a century. But real estate agents make up names for the neighborhoods, or fudge the boundaries to improve selling p…
You have to wonder if this has anything to do with their Neighborly app. Maps are how we collectively tell our stories and controlling the language used in those stories affects the outcome. Remember when everyone was calling that chunk of SOMA with the shitty overpriced condos the East Cut? What ever happened to all the people that lived there after the crash?
TFA is literally about the East Cut.
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#154Why is this Google's fault? I walk through The East Cut nearly every day, and I admit I was confused by the rebranding. But it wasn't done by Google. There are people cleaning the sidewalks in East Cut shirts, banners that say East Cut, real estate companies that call it East Cut. It would be a little weird if Google ignored the name. Yes, "The East Cut" is a strange name. But that area as never part of South Beach (…
It is not the East Cut. It will never be the East Cut. That is Rincon, and the real-estate marketeers can bite me. Put another way, you can call things whatever you want, but a marketing campaign does not obligate me to accept your silly branding nonsense.
Names are kind of a consensus thing - that place is(will be) called East Cut if and only if a sufficiently large part of the people who talk about the area call it East Cut.
Conversely, if most people do start calling it East Cut, you will be obligated to do the same if you want people to understand what you mean, since if you'll say "Rincon" they'll (mis)understand it as an area that explicitly excludes territory which they now call otherwise.
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#155I deal with this with one of the web sites I maintain. I think, as noted in the article, that it seems Google sometimes uses names from advertisements as if they are canonical. In my case, the city in question puts out a very specific, very legally defined map of each neighborhood, and has for more than a century. But real estate agents make up names for the neighborhoods, or fudge the boundaries to improve selling p…
"I think, as noted in the article, that it seems Google sometimes uses names from advertisements as if they are canonical." --- "Currently the predominant business model for commercial search engines is advertising... We expect that commercial search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers..." - Sergey Brin and Larry Page, 1998 http://infolab.stanford.edu/~ba…
"...or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#156Earlier 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…
It's funny how the article simultaneously complains about using the "wrong" name for East Cut while also saying that the same area has three other names the locals know it by. It seems like no one agrees on the official name
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
What makes the maps that the city makes up better than the ones that the real estate agents make up? In this case, the city designations are important because each year the city divides a pot of money that goes to supplemental infrastructure improvements in each neighborhood. Because it's supplemental money, it is a fixed amount for each neighborhood. If a neighborhood's boundaries increase, then money available for…
That's a good reason for why the city shouldn't arbitrarily change its official definitions of neighborhood boundaries without also changing budget allocations. Why shouldn't everyone else define neighborhoods however they feel is most useful to them?
Why shouldn't everyone else pronounce and spell things however they feel is nicest?
Because chaos.
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
What makes the maps that the city makes up better than the ones that the real estate agents make up? In this case, the city designations are important because each year the city divides a pot of money that goes to supplemental infrastructure improvements in each neighborhood. Because it's supplemental money, it is a fixed amount for each neighborhood. If a neighborhood's boundaries increase, then money available for…
That's a good reason for why the city shouldn't arbitrarily change its official definitions of neighborhood boundaries without also changing budget allocations. Why shouldn't everyone else define neighborhoods however they feel is most useful to them?
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Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#159I asked for my city's government for a clearly defined line of where a neighborhood begins and ends, and they told me the local government did not name the neighborhoods but real estate did. Looks like google in this case is doing the same thing, hopefully their naming approach is not political or money driven as it is for real estate companies, that will extend the "borders" of a neighborhood to make properties price rise.
Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
City council determines the areas within a city; it is NOT made up. Some areas are much more popular than others. Leaving this to random people is absurd. The areas don't suddenly change. Anyway, this is how it is like in The Netherlands.
So the maps made by the city council are superior because they're a better reflection of how popular an area is?
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