Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Maps changed to show Lake Ontario as Lake America

cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 62 posts

Re: Google Maps changed to show Lake Ontario as Lake America

#32

Post by cbeach »

lwansbrough wrote: post #16
cbeach wrote: post #13

[flagged]

"Patriotic" and it's the renaming of a place with historic meaning and cultural significance to the region on both sides of the border. It's vandalism. Like when ISIS went around destroying historic sites. Does every Trump supporter have to be just woefully ignorant about every single topic?

[flagged]

Re: Google Maps changed to show Lake Ontario as Lake America

#34

Post by jacquesm »

bsian wrote: post #4
k310 wrote: post #2

For about the third time this morning (sigh) Google Maps users, please report this aberration. You need to be logged in to report it.

This is not a case of vandalism by other users. Google made this change because they use the names officially recognised by the government of the US.

It is definitely a case of vandalism.

Re: Google Maps changed to show Lake Ontario as Lake America

#35

Post by teeray »

matt_heimer wrote: post #17
DarmokTanagra wrote: post #12

Google is a perfect example of the banality of evil.

This isn't really on Google. Countries disagree on how things should be named. Google sources the US centric view from the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS). Blame the person causing the GNIS updates.

> This isn't really on Google

Yes, because it’s so agonizingly difficult to `s/Lake America/Lake Ontario/g` in a data feed. Truly the engineering feat of our time.

Re: Google Maps changed to show Lake Ontario as Lake America

#36

Post by SahAssar »

isleyaardvark wrote: post #20
matt_heimer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't really on Google. Countries disagree on how things should be named. Google sources the US centric view from the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS). Blame the person causing the GNIS updates.

Blame the person at Google who chose to source from GNIS, without edits.

So you prefer google to be the arbiter of what are official names within each country?

I think the US administration name change is childish, dumb and short-sighted, but if the authority of geographical names in an area designates it as such then I think it should show as such within maps within that area, at least as long as the clarification is readily shown. The same already happens for things like "Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)" or "Myanmar (Burma)".

I guess the question comes down to: do you want google to show the map that your current locality decides to be their interpretation or do you want google to be the arbiter of what a global real map is? Or is there a third alternative that I'm not aware of? (BTW the UN is not a solution to arbiter every countries and languages terms for every country/area/city/lake/ocean/etc.)

Re: Google Maps changed to show Lake Ontario as Lake America

#37

Post by [deleted] »

teeray wrote: post #35
matt_heimer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't really on Google. Countries disagree on how things should be named. Google sources the US centric view from the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS). Blame the person causing the GNIS updates.

> This isn't really on Google Yes, because it’s so agonizingly difficult to `s/Lake America/Lake Ontario/g` in a data feed. Truly the engineering feat of our time.

[deleted]

Re: Google Maps changed to show Lake Ontario as Lake America

#38

Post by weedfroglozenge »

lwansbrough wrote: post #15

While they show Lake Ontario (Lake America) in the rest of the world, I would like to suggest that they apply a more patronizing treatment to the alias: Lake Ontario ("Lake America") The quotes add a certain.. je ne sais quoi. I think overall it's not Google's job to decide the names of things. Half of America voted for the circus, enjoy!

If I'm swimming in Lake America, in America, greatest country in the world, I don't want to hear this "Je ne sais quoi" - Keep it in American, buddy.
Post reply on HN