December 9, 2021
OK, so we’ve got the biggest and best database of squash venues on the planet, but you’ve spotted that a venue name is wrong.
“No worries” you think. “I’ll just go and edit the name in the app, just like I do with so many other venue data fields such as number of courts, category, email address, etc.”
But wait a moment… the squash venue name doesn’t have an edit option! How can this be?!
The short answer is that the app data is bound, or tethered, to a corresponding place on Google Maps. You can read more about that here.
Which means that whatever the venue name is on Google Maps, that’s the venue name we display in our app. The same goes for other information we can automatically copy from Google Maps such as:
- Address
- Website
- Opening Hours
- Telephone
- Elevation (height above sea level)
So how then can we edit the venue name?
Answer: we can and should edit the venue name in Google Maps – for everyone’s benefit, not just the lovely members of our Squash Players App.
Google lets anyone suggest an edit to a place.
Note that we said “suggest an edit”, not “make an edit”.
Naturally, Google has their own checks and balances in places to try to ensure that only quality edits are made, just like we do with the Squash Players App.
Official instructions from Google on how to do this are here: https://support.google.com/maps/answer/7084895
For quick reference, here are a few ways to get to the point where you can suggest an edit to a place. One way, on a PC, is simply to:
1. Right-click on the place
2. Select ‘Report a data problem’
3. Select ‘Suggest an edit’
… and then you’ll be presented with the details of the venue and the fields you’re permitted edit.
In the above example we were reliably informed that the correct/better name for this venue is Hamborner Sporttreff, not Squash Inn Team Hamborn 88 e.V., so we made the edit.
Of course, the change is not instant. As mentioned before, Google do have their own methods of verifying the updated or new data, including alerting the owners of the place (if someone has claimed it) to the suggested improvements.
Assuming your change is accepted (might take hours, days, or even weeks) – congratulations!
But… there is just one final step. Sorry!
It can take anywhere from 1-60 days* before the name change appears in the Squash Players App. This is because there’s no technical way we can be automatically alerted by Google to the changes. So we have to constantly scan Google, at a rate of about 100 venues per day, searching for any changes that might have occurred since the last time we checked.
Quality is worth waiting for, we believe.
*If you ask us nicely, there is a way we can force our system to check a specific place for updates.
