Improving Stafford's Google Map

Crimsonfox

Crimsonfox

Well-Known Forumite
I don't know if anyone noticed but Google's "Map Maker" was recently made available in this country. For those who don't know, Map Maker allows users to submit, suggest and improve maps with a pretty decent array of tools. It's all community driven and other users and Google administrators have a hand in reviewing changes.

These can be anything from roads, trails, paths, buildings, shops, rivers etc, the list goes on.

I've been tweaking bits and bobs on there since it came out, correcting positions of shops, fixing funky road placement and drawing in building outlines. Some of which is already live on maps, see the paths and trails through Vicky Park for example, I put them in.

Now I know not everyone would do this or even understands why some people would but it's something to do with the town and improving upon things so that can't be bad. :P Is anyone else doing this? Or even has anyone found anything wrong before and wanted to fix it but didn't know they could?

Edit: I probably should have pointed out you can get to it at http://maps.google.com/mapmaker !
 
tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Odd, I could add an underpass for the M6 but when I make a trail it always seems to say I'm overlapping a road?
 
WilliamTM

WilliamTM

Newbie
A friend of mine pointed me toward this thread - so I thought I'd drop in and say hi. :)

I've also been fairly active on Map Maker...in fact, quite a lot active. I've got over 1,700 edits on Map Maker so far since it launched (yes, I do have a lot of free time...) and I'm the reason Stafford has most of the building outlines within the...er...ring road (ie, the A518, the A34 (Queensway), and Chell Road/Tenterbanks/Victoria Road/Station Road).

Plus I've done some of the other stuff such as Tesco, Sainsburys, Asda, B&Q, Queens Retail Park, PC World, the prison, and so on, both the buildings and the car park lanes, some of Victoria Park's paths (I assume you (Crimsonfox) are the one that fixed the slightly wonky path closest to Randles Stafford?), and so on.

So...yeah. I've been busy. :D
 
Gramaisc

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
It only struck me the other day that it would be nice if Google Maps showed the public footpaths in the countryside, especially if somebody had actually walked them to see if they were obstructed. There is a back-pack Street-View camera available these days, too.

IMG_0107-660x495.jpg
One day...
 
Crimsonfox

Crimsonfox

Well-Known Forumite
WilliamTM said:
A friend of mine pointed me toward this thread - so I thought I'd drop in and say hi. :)

I've also been fairly active on Map Maker...in fact, quite a lot active. I've got over 1,700 edits on Map Maker so far since it launched (yes, I do have a lot of free time...) and I'm the reason Stafford has most of the building outlines within the...er...ring road (ie, the A518, the A34 (Queensway), and Chell Road/Tenterbanks/Victoria Road/Station Road).

Plus I've done some of the other stuff such as Tesco, Sainsburys, Asda, B&Q, Queens Retail Park, PC World, the prison, and so on, both the buildings and the car park lanes, some of Victoria Park's paths (I assume you (Crimsonfox) are the one that fixed the slightly wonky path closest to Randles Stafford?), and so on.

So...yeah. I've been busy. :D
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Haha that's so weird. I've seen your edits and was going to message you tonight about this thread in case you were interested! And yeah I think it was that path I fixed, been doing a lot of the pedestrian walkways around that I know. I've done a bunch of buildings expanding out from the Madford/Greyfriars retail parks as well.


I probably appear as Thomas Szabunia when I edit if it just takes my G+ name. If you want anything reviewed or need any info, give us a shout!
 
WilliamTM

WilliamTM

Newbie
Crimsonfox said:
Haha that's so weird. I've seen your edits and was going to message you tonight about this thread in case you were interested! And yeah I think it was that path I fixed, been doing a lot of the pedestrian walkways around that I know. I've done a bunch of buildings expanding out from the Madford/Greyfriars retail parks as well.


I probably appear as Thomas Szabunia when I edit if it just takes my G+ name. If you want anything reviewed or need any info, give us a shout!
Click to expand...

Yup you show as "Thomas" here on Map Maker. I did notice a lot of new buildings added around that area and I think the two of us are almost certainly the top 2 mappers for Stafford. :D

My latest "project" has been comprehensively mapping out Cannock Chase - I'm up there about 2-3 times a week on my bike, and I help build the mountain bike trails there as well (volunteer once a week), and I know the area very well, so I've been adding all the fire roads, paths, etc.
 
Crimsonfox

Crimsonfox

Well-Known Forumite
That sounds like a great project, I can see it being incredibly helpful to people going up there. Nice one!
 
L

Lunar Scorpion

Anarchy in the UK
Brilliant! As a pedestrian it's always useful to know additional walking routes that may save time in unfamiliar places. I have a couple to add round my neighbourhood, how do I do it?
 
Vault_girl

Vault_girl

Well-Known Forumite
before map maker I contacted the company who send google the maps they use about the new Hough retail park area as streetview could see it but the road view was wrong. They sent me a file and I had to draw lines on to show the new route. That was fairly interesting! took them 4-5 months to update it though!
 
Crimsonfox

Crimsonfox

Well-Known Forumite
I marked Easy Tyre Autocentres as a duplicate of HiQ, yet it was denied and now all my edits have to be reviewed until I'm "trusted" again. -_- How annoying.

Vault_girl said:
before map maker I contacted the company who send google the maps they use about the new Hough retail park area as streetview could see it but the road view was wrong. They sent me a file and I had to draw lines on to show the new route. That was fairly interesting! took them 4-5 months to update it though!
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I didn't know they used to do that, seems you were almost part of a really early Mapmaker. :P

Lunar Scorpion said:
Figured it out - added 4 shortcuts in the Gravel Lane area. :) They're not exact but you get the idea at least...
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Nice one! Do they need reviewing or anything that we can do to help it along?
 
WilliamTM

WilliamTM

Newbie
Crimsonfox: http://goo.gl/uRUL4 - click on History and note my comment.

To add to that comment, go and have a look at the area on http://www.openstreetmap.org/ - the outline they have of the park is almost exactly what I mean - obviously as is the "norm" on Google Maps it should go right to the roads so it looks nicer, but you get the idea. Thoughts?
 
Crimsonfox

Crimsonfox

Well-Known Forumite
WilliamTM said:
Crimsonfox: http://goo.gl/uRUL4 - click on History and note my comment.

To add to that comment, go and have a look at the area on http://www.openstreetmap.org/ - the outline they have of the park is almost exactly what I mean - obviously as is the "norm" on Google Maps it should go right to the roads so it looks nicer, but you get the idea. Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Sorry I didn't respond sooner, been away for the weekend.

There have been some issues with playgrounds over time, they seem to appear and disappear as a primary category (currently, not a primary category). I've seen people on the discussion groups go about it two ways, either by adding a POI and selecting playground as a secondary or by adding a park boundary and again selecting playground as a secondary,

I haven't seen an "official" response on which is better but I believe there does need to be a distinction between the full park and smaller playground and I believe that's why a park with a playground secondary category renders a different colour as well. It probably doesn't help I didn't add the full park as a boundary first, which I'll do now.
 
WilliamTM

WilliamTM

Newbie
Crimsonfox said:
Sorry I didn't respond sooner, been away for the weekend.

There have been some issues with playgrounds over time, they seem to appear and disappear as a primary category (currently, not a primary category). I've seen people on the discussion groups go about it two ways, either by adding a POI and selecting playground as a secondary or by adding a park boundary and again selecting playground as a secondary,

I haven't seen an "official" response on which is better but I believe there does need to be a distinction between the full park and smaller playground and I believe that's why a park with a playground secondary category renders a different colour as well. It probably doesn't help I didn't add the full park as a boundary first, which I'll do now.
Click to expand...

Aha, I see - I wasn't aware they were a category. Sounds good!
 
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