After shuttering Map Maker back in April after some nefarious images were uploaded using the service, Google is getting ready to reopen the Google Maps service. In a blog post surfaced by Search Engine Land, Google Map Maker product manager Pavithra Kanakarajan says that Google will look more toward the community of users to moderate Map Maker and help fill in the gaps that Google couldn't police itself.

Given that Google has a limited number of people it can put on Map Maker moderation, the company will select qualified community users in different areas to become "Regional Leads" who will be in charge of edits made within their region. Google's operators will still occasionally moderate maps, but the bulk of the work will be left up to the community moderators and the automated system. Kanakarajan noted that relying more on human edits over the automated system will cause edits to take a bit longer to become active, and is asking users to be patient until it grows the number of community moderators. Map Maker will begin rolling back out to users in phases, beginning in August.