Saturday, August 25, 2018

Mapping for Google

One of my hobbies is contributing to Google Maps.
I have provided, over the last five years, 455 reviews, 3581 photos and discovered for Maps 24 new locations. Consequently, I do have a reasonable feel for where it is headed.
And I am not particularly happy.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to do anything but review accomodation, shops and restaurants. On any marked public space, Maps will ask if you want to "claim this business" and it has a constant problem with out of town businesses declaring themselves as located on public lands.
At the same time, significant cultural sites can be ignored or poorly marked. It is hard to do.
I live in the national capital of Australia, which is strewn with significant sites, symbolic monuments, museums and galleries and thus often have very human juxtapositions that should be noted.
For example, the Australian War Memorial has, over the term of the current conservative government, been steadily more politicised with promotion of militarism over the waste of war. The adjoining Poppy Restaurant actually promotes a current political figure. This is not sufficiently represented in Maps.

Across Lake Burley Griffin is Old Parliament House which is well marked but colourless in its entry, confused with the reviews of the Museum of Democracy, the cafe and the restaurant that it houses.  What we should have is more historical photos that put it in context much as the Australian War Memorial does.  For example, why not the inclusion of the front steps at the opening and again at the famous moment when Whitlam was dismissed?
Opening 1927

Whitlam Dismissal crowd on steps of the Old Parliament House




But perhaps the best example is the controversial and culturally significant Aboriginal Tent Embassy, on the lawns of Old Parliament House

It is described by Local Guide Chris Forker as the "Informal embassy of Australia's first people" is poorly represented photographically(but is elsewhere) with no commentary or link back to Wikipedia and split over two entries. Worse, the best entry is obscured under the vague and difficult to discover name "Sovereign Tribal Original Embassy of the land now known as Australia (Aboriginal Tent Embassy)" The fight to take possession of the adjoining abandoned restaurant has been well-documented in photos

All three sites are difficult subjects to map but somehow Google does have to come to terms with how to best map the cultural dimension to such locations.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Like death and taxes, the gullible are always with us

Protestors in the Capital. Now the horned man, Jacob Chansley says he’s coming to terms with events leading to the riot and asked people to ...