The issue(s) I’m highlighting in this forum post have been reported before I think, but I couldn’t find the relevant post, and given that they continue to cause us issues I decided to repeat in a new post.
It really is a combination of two different issues.
Firstly, the map on the mobile app does not show all artworks when there are closely “clustered” artworks, that is multiple artworks positioned closely together. The web version of SAC works well in this regard, by showing the red circle icon and then showing the artworks in the tooltip when clicked. However on the mobile app, artworks are just missing, ie not shown at all.
Secondly, the inability to easily place artworks at accurate locations, is causing us to cluster artworks just so that the address shows correctly. In our city at least, a lot of the street art is found in small alleyways and laneways. When placing artwork on the map, I usually use the laneway name (eg “Hosier Lane”), then move the map pin to try to accurately reflect the correct position in the laneway, to avoid the clustering issue.
However, with seemingly nearly all our laneways, as soon as you move the map pin, even if the map pin is still showing on the map to still be in the laneway, the address will often (more often than not) change to show a different address, of one of the surrounding streets. For example, if trying to place artworks in certain positions in Hosier Lane, you can end up with addresses showing as Flinders Lane, Flinders Street or Russell Street (three of the surrounding streets).
So, you end up with a choice. Have the map pin accurately placed to avoid clustering, or have the address show the right laneway location. Personally, I am choosing to not relocate the pin, and keep the correct address most of the time. I mainly use the web app, and especially when I’m trying to do “audit visits” of certain laneways to check what is still there, if the correct laneway address does not appear in searches, and the artworks cannot be reliably found on the mobile app, it makes it very difficult (to the point that I’m avoiding doing them).
One suggestion that has been previously made (I think by Briggs, but I can’t remember to be honest), would I think solve the issue very elegantly.
I’d like to see the map pin location be stored accurately based on where it is placed, but allow the hunter to override the text address (maybe with an override “checkbox” or something), that would allow the correct laneway address to be manually written in. This would give us the ultimate flexibility, but obviously I have no clue how easy this would be to implement. So in the above example, I could place an artwork in Hosier Lane, and then if the address changes to a surrounding street when I move the pin, I could override the text address and change it back to “Hosier Lane”.
I’ve had a few comments from users about addresses being wrong recently, and even had a Community Note yesterday giving the correct laneway name for an artwork that had the pin moved, causing SAC to give it a surrounding street address, so I will continue to just use the laneway name I think, and not change the pin location, and add some clarification in the description (eg “….located at the south end of the laneway”). However, it has been obvious to me on a few occasions that a lot of app users don’t read descriptions!
Anyway, sorry if this is a repeat of previous posts, but I figured it bears repeating.
