The Caribean

[sipes23]

Something just caught my notice. Someone just added St Croix (www.43places.com/places/view/3018114/st-croix) as a place over at 43Places. Which is not useful, since there's already a Saint Croix (www.43places.com/places/view/215994/saint-croix-us-virgin-islands-us-protectorates) in another place on the hierarchy.

Puerto Rico, Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula also have this problem, as can be seen here: www.43places.com/places/all_places/201417

I know that there is a multiple parent problem in the database, but this is a sticky problem to have. (And I'm not referring to natural features that cross international borders like Lake Superior, which could be slotted into both the US and Canada, thus triggering a multiple parent.)

I know zip about Ruby, nor do I know about the way the site runs under the hood, so I have no technical solutions.

The best I can think of is a forced redirect, but that would probably be a coding nightmare on the magnitude of a complete site redesign--so that's out.

Note: I'll not be fixing any of the duplicate places mentioned in this message, so anyone can see what I'm talking about.

[Joe Goldberg]

Hi Sipes,

Yeah, this is a problem we constantly have. It's the double-edged sword of letting all users contribute to the site.

There actually is a way to redirect one place to another. When you mark a place as a duplicate of another place, it will be redirected to the real place.

We're always thinking about "raising the bar" for allowing people to add places. There's already a small sanity check, e.g. you can't add a new state to the USA or a new country to Europe. We just need to balance that logic with the ability for any user to jump in and contribute to 43 Places.

Cheers,
Joe

[sipes23]

Cool. I knew there was a way to do it, but I hadn't known the official route.

As for raising the bar to add places: one of the big draws--for me anyway--is that 43Places is very open. It is impossible for a safe list of approved folks to be everywhere. I like that there are some strange places listed: admittedly, some of those get merged out of existence. I love how Danimatian adds tons of places and lists. He has added real flavor to the site. MFM has done the same. Would they have stuck around here if they needed their contributions vetted from the beginning?

I think the Data Janitors meet some of the vetting needs. Or at least that's what I try to do in my own limited way. It may be useful to have some sort of varying levels of Data Janitorial status to help spread the load.

[Joe Goldberg]

That's a good point, Sipes. Hopefully the new Data Janitors Portal will help us get more of the helpful folks to come out of the woodwork.