Places: Problems, bugs and suggestions

[Jacquilynne]

If you've got feedback on our new Places feature for linking to restaurant and shop information, please let us know in this thread.

For more information on places, see Jane's introduction here: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/417592#2717191

For FAQ information on linking to Places, see:
http://www.chowhound.com/faq#linkmean

[Jacquilynne]

I've created a summary of the outstanding problems with Places and Hubs in this thread: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/44358...

I'm closing this one, and referring updated reports to the other thread. If there's anything from this thread that I missed, that hasn't been fixed, please comment in the other thread.

-- Jacquilynne, Community Manager for Chowhound

[Robert Lauriston]

I think this is a new bug. I can't find a report of it in any of the four active topics.

1. I searched for Nippon Sushi / 314 Church St, San Francisco, CA. Google Maps doesn't know it, so I was not surprised that it was not among the search results.

2. I clicked the Add a Place button. That worked, gave me an option to add a phone number.

3. I clicked the "Add place" button, but nothing happened. Waited a couple of minutes, tried again, still no response.

4. I clicked Cancel and then Search, and it showed up in the Chow Places.

5. I clicked the Chow Places link, and there were three links in the post.

6. I clicked Post, only one showed up. All's well that ends well as regards that post.

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/44328...

[maxzook]

You *really* need to have a separate category for "Coffeehouses" ...

... which are not the same as "Coffee Shops/Diners" ...

and not to be a noodge, but you really need to fix the LTAP search function as well!

[Robert Lauriston]

The "Search" button doesn't work when composing the opening post of a new topic.

[Jacquilynne]

This is working for me, can you confirm that it's still an issue?

[Robert Lauriston]

Opening-post problem appears to be fixed.

Nearby zip code issue also appears to be fixed.

Are you removing posts about the wrong-link bug?

[Robert Lauriston]

I see you rolled out the hubs. Doesn't seem like a great idea given that the link-to-wrong-place bug has still not been fixed. This link resulted from my clicking on District Wine Bar.

-----
District 7 Democratic Club
4909 3rd St, San Francisco, CA 94124

[maxzook]

I take it you've never been to the Democratic Club.

[rxenergie]

I'm having problems getting a street number to stick to this place

http://www.chow.com/places/8840

When I first edited this place, I added the correct street number of 39504 to the address, but now it won't stick. Is this a problem on my end? Thanks

[silverbear]

I have that problem every time I try to add a street number to a place that lacks one.

[Robert Lauriston]

The Remove button's not working during the edit window. It's there but clicking does nothing.

[Robert Lauriston]

Places generally seems to be working for me now, except that if search finds more than one place, clicking on one selects another.

To work around that you can copy and paste the exact name into the search box and re-search, so there's only the single correct result.

[maxzook]

The problem is that that unless the place you're looking for is recognized as a "Chow Place", it doesn't matter how specifically you enter the address -- it will link to another location instead of the one you're looking for.

I think I could enter it as a new place but I'd rather not, because that will increase the number of duplicates. But the longer this problem goes unfixed, the more duplicates will get plugged into the database.

[Robert Lauriston]

Ah, you're right. Duplicates.

-----
Old Krakow Polish Restaurant - closing June 15, moving
385 W Portal Ave, San Francisco, CA 94127

Chopin Cafe
1574 Palos Verdes Mall, Walnut Creek, CA 94597

[Robert Lauriston]

Partially fixed as regards duplicates? I added a couple of links that were already had Places entries. They showed up under Other Results rather than Chow Places, but the links created were in fact to the existing Place entries.

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/44219...

Still have the problem that if there's more than one search result the wrong place gets linked.

[Robert Lauriston]

When searching for a place, last week, nearby zip codes worked fine. Now it seems like they have to be precise.

E.g. if I search for incanto / 94110, "Chow Places" is empty, the restaurant shows up in "Other Results."

If I search for incanto / San Francisco, CA, it shows up on "Chow Places."

The correct zip code is 94131 but 94110 is a block away.

[Robert Lauriston]

The dropdown list for cuisines is nice, but it needs to be in alphabetical order.

[squid kun]

Dropdown list quibble: So many Italian restaurants in this country offer dishes from all over Italy, but the "primary cuisine" list forces us to choose between Italian (Northern) and Italian (Southern).

Related curiosity: The "primary cuisine" list includes Chinese but also Szechuan and Hakka. Then under "cuisine tags" the explanatory note says "e.g. Hunan." It's confusing to designate just two regional Chinese cuisines (one major one and one minor one) as "primary cuisines." I'd suggest using the more flexible tag field for all regional detail about Chinese restaurants.

[davina]

I think you're right, squid kun. That list needs refining a little now that it's being used in that way. Primary cuisine is supposed to be the more general, vague cuisine (which will be fed into the places hubs). And tags refine them.

[maxzook]

For the last several hours, the search function has failed to link to the correct location. To link to the Green Room on Hollywood Blvd in Los Angeles, I searched on:

Name: Green Room
Location: 6752 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA

The results come up as follows:

CHOW Places

Sorry, no CHOW Places found for that region.

Other results by name and location
Green Room
6752 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA
Green Room
4006 San Fernando Rd, Glendale, CA
Green Room For Men
9911 W Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, CA
Green Room Inc
1733 Abbot Kinney Blvd, Venice, CA

From here, no matter which of the four items I click on, it links to the Green Room Inc. on Abbot Kinney in Venice.

-----
Green Room
1733 Abbot Kinney Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90291

[Robert Lauriston]

Similar problem. I found and clicked on Xenia Restaurant and it added a completely random link.

http://www.chow.com/places/8795

[maxzook]

Now it's completely haywire ... i click in the Link to a place and it shoots up to the top of the page but it doesn't open the ltap dialog ...

[Robert Lauriston]

Testing ...

After I search and select, I get the "will be added" message, but I don't see the link, and the link doesn't actually get added to the post.

[Robert Lauriston]

Haven't had that problem again. I seem to be able to add places.

[Luthien]

I'm getting the same problem trying to link to Minhs Vietnamese Restaurant.

[Robert Lauriston]

Bug in the revised "link to a place" dialog:

- search for K&L / San Francisco, CA

- results show K&L Wine Merchants and K&L Gates

- click on K&L Wine Merchants

- link appears to K&L Gates

[Robert Lauriston]

Another bug: the "add another" button has disappeared, so you can only add one place per post.

[Robert Lauriston]

The Add Another Link button is back.

[Seth Chadwick]

After the latest round of maintenance, I am unable to get the Places search to work on initial posts. I just posted a review of a restaurant and had to post the review and then add the Places as a reply.

When I did a search in places autobox that popped up at the bottom of the screen, it simply bounced me to the top of the page with the name of the restaurant and the location still in the search box.

[Robert Lauriston]

The address of this place is actually 336 O'Farrell. Edit fails if I try to add the apostrophe.

Also, there are multiple duplicates.

-----
Naan-N-Curry
336 Ofarrell St, San Francisco, CA 94102

[DiveFan]

I don't know if these would be considered Bugs or Features.
- When your (Google) search results in apparent duplicates, I've found that the lowest numbered Place link is probably in the database already. I usually select that one.
- The Places coming from Google usually have resolved Zip Codes.
- Searching by the first word of the target name often results in quicker searches.
- Searching by including the completely spelled out State with country acronym also helps speed it up. With our Spanish named cities in Cali, Google searches sometimes land me in Spain or Latin America :-).

[DiveFan]

Clarification - the entry at the top of the search result list with a Resolved Zip code is usually in the CH database and is usually the first entered, lowest numbered Place with the same name.

[Robert Lauriston]

Duplicates:

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/438395

[foodiegrl]

I haven't been able to link at all recently. I'm running IE on Windows. When the feature first came out, I was linking like mad.
Now, I can't get it to respond to any entries. When I enter a name & location and hit search, nothing happens. This is in new threads and old threads, and is for established restaurants that I KNOW can be found.
Help?

[Paul H]

"I haven't been able to link at all recently. I'm running IE on Windows. When the feature first came out, I was linking like mad. Now, I can't get it to respond to any entries. When I enter a name & location and hit search, nothing happens. This is in new threads and old threads, and is for established restaurants that I KNOW can be found.
Help?" -foodiegrl

I am having the exact same problem, from three different computers from two different locations and different browsers on each computer, so it seems like it _must_ be server related. I have also deleted all cookies related to chow/chowhound without anything getting any better.

[DiveFan]

I think that you're running into a (under the covers) Google limitation. CH is passing the Place link search to Google, and if Google is cornfused (which is Way too common) no result will be returned. Unfortunately, CH does not seem to 'time out' cleanly when this happens.

All I've found that you can do is to enter another search; sometimes you may have to close the browser tab/window and restart.

EDIT - found tip below :-)
This tip may be hidden above in the sea of posts, but searching for The First Word of a business may work better. Also, using fully qualified state and country can help e.g. California, USA. Searching for Spanish place names from California sometimes lands you in Spain or Latin American :-).

If you have the time, open another window for Google Maps, go to the nearest street intersection and Search Nearby. I've found many places humorously misspelled by Google's subcontractor data entry.

[eatzalot]

Same problem as foodiegrl and Paul H had. (It remains an issue, because the chance to search for tips on a technical forum like this one is apt to occur after the opportunity to post the link is past.)

Follwed "link to a place" directions, entered exact name and city of the business below, nothing happened after hitting "search" button. Tried this a couple of separate times. (Could someone maybe enter that business into the "places" data base, since I couldn't?)

This was in posting
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/441554#2946924

Dana Street Roasting Company
744 W. Dana Street, Mountain View, CA 94041
http://www.danastreetroasting.com/

[Robert Lauriston]

Searching for Dana Roasting / 94041 I was able to add it.

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/44155...

[Robert Lauriston]

Odd duplication in this topic:

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/433838

[DiveFan]

Sorry to be a pest, but I don't think anyone's brought this issue up.
I have concerns about viewing images uploaded to the Photo section of a Place.
When you click on an image and view it, it expands to only about two thirds of the page width.
Scanned menus are virtually impossible to read.
To temporarily overcome this limitation, I cut each menu page in half into separate images, see below place for example. Besides the viewing limitation, only single page double sided menus could be uploaded.
Please consider changing the viewing option to full page width (eliminating the right hand column) or full screen.

-----
Poblanita Express
14329 Hawthorne Blvd, Lawndale, CA 90260

[DiveFan]

Minor Place suggestion:
- Some other web sites use the small Google map but have a 'click here to enlarge' link at the bottom. It might fit under 'select placemark...'. The ones I've seen have a Print option like the 'directions' full screen map, very nice.
TIA!

[DiveFan]

Found the answer - a Barely Documented feature is that clicking on the word 'Google' in the map enlarges it!

[silverbear]

When I edit an incorrect address or create an address for a new restaurant not in the database, the street number is always deleted. Here are two examples. In both cases, I typed in the street number and saved it, but it continues not to show in the entry.

-----
Kai
5594 W. Wildhorse Pass Blvd, Chandler, AZ 85226

Dish
8977 N Scottsdale Rd, Scottsdale, AZ 85253

[DiveFan]

Sometimes, but not always, this happens because the street address is a duplicate in Google (where the info comes from).
I've searched for the street address and its wield Google permutations and found a very similar name at the same address.
Edit THAT Place to the correct name, maybe slightly different for id purposes.
Search again and Edit your unnumbered Place to append '-duplicate' in the name.
Hopefully I was clear on that and that it will work for you.

[DiveFan]

Yet another suggestion that may be a duplicate.

Consider adding a way to add a Place (Mentioned) to a topic WITHOUT putting it in a followup post.
Reason being, I don't want to bring an old topic back to the top of the list in a Board just to add a Place.
I want everyone to take advantage of that great Place feature - search for a Place, then read the topics associated with it. Preferably, sorted by newest first :-).

[Robert Lauriston]

They already said they're working on that.

[DiveFan]

Thank you.
My eyes cage when looking through a post this large, now 150 entries and climbing...

[MMRuth]

Actually, you can add a place as if you were adding it to a post and then just not post the reply.

[Melanie Wong]

Yes, one 'hound emailed me that he has been populating the Places database in this manner cross-referencing other sources by cutting and pasting from lists that are on the web of restaurants open in another window. This is probably something that staff should be doing, as 'hounds should be focusing on posting opinions as board content and could later vet their work. Though I do thank him for making the effort!

[Robert Lauriston]

You can add an entry to the Places database that way, but the only way to add it to the Places Mentioned list in a topic is to add a new post.

[Melanie Wong]

I'm wondering if "jane" or "Tatum" (who hasn't posted since early July) can comment on progress on being able to add Places links to older threads without adding a new post. Likewise, whether the bug of Places links in the original post to a thread not being added to the Places database. It would seem that the new Hubs to be rolled out will be pretty skinny and missing important information without addition of historical threads or new reports.

[jane]

Melanie, sorry to take so long to answer, but I've been away from the boards for a bit. On capability of to add Places links without adding a new post: the engineers are working on it. I'm hoping that when the first Places hubs go up, we'll have a button to add a Place there. That would be in early September.

The new hubs will be pretty skinny, actually, but we're trying to err on the side of skinny/useful rather than fat/padded. We'll have the current Digests in the cities that have them, as well as links to Digest archives, links to current threads, and new ways to search and to browse. And then we'll grow from there. I know that Davina's been talking about how we're working on the "cuisine" browse -- it's always more complicated than you'd hope.

[DiveFan]

Maybe someone has suggested this before, sorry for the repost.
The Places feature needs a clean way to identify and resolve duplicates.
How about exposing the unique key value (hope there is one) for each Place, then having a field to let us post the values of another alleged duplicates.
I know that this could get messy:
- I've already noticed duplicate restaurant Places that have posts on each - arrgghh.
- There are many Places with the same exact address that house, say, both a restaurant AND a market - each deserve their own Places for tracking.
I know you want to automate this as much as possible and to let us do the rest, so TIA!

[DiveFan]

Well, the Add a Place feature just munged another address on me.
EDIT - Google would NOT suggest an obvious alternate address e.g. 1650 vs 1650 N Hillhurst.

I LOVE the Place feature BUUUTTTT...

This thread has been open for about 45 days and has collected a lot of data.
I think we've all been pretty patient.
Can the CH staff please read back What Are Place Bugs and a schedule for fixing them?
TIA!

-----
Best Fish Taco in Ensenada
1650 Hillhurst Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027

[Robert Lauriston]

Some of the bugs are errors in the Google data. In this case, Google Maps doesn't know of a North Hillhurst in 90027, only Hillhurst.

[DiveFan]

Yeah, I've noticed that a lot. I'm hoping that CH can work around some of their limitations/bugs/features.

[applehome]

I've - posted before separately and others have posted within this thread as well (ChucklestheClone on 7/5). Others, like hannaone, have added their concurrence.

There apparently is a minority of people who can't get places to work at all. When we put in a place and hit search, it just hangs with status bar saying "transferring data from google.com".

I've opened up anything and everything from google in my firewall. I've tried it with the firewall turned off - same result.

Here's my original report. Like I said, Chuckles put his report in on 7/5 - no answer at all from you guys:

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/424108

Is anybody looking into this? Any suggestions?

Here's a picture of what my screen looks like when its hung:

[DiveFan]

Another location can't be added: Huong Vi, 15170-80 S Prairie Ave, Lawndale, CA.
After Add New Place function used, address is munged. I'll try to add it here:

[DiveFan]

Arrggh. Just added this location AGAIN in this post
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/430187
and it came up fine! It took a few minutes before Search would find it.

[oolah]

Obviously this is trickier, but it would be freaking awesome if instead of having to click "link to a place" the system would scan my post for common restaurant names and just ask me if I wanted to create links to all those places. This would increase usage by tenfold. At least. I imagine this project will become easier as the db grows.

For restaurants not in the db, we'd still need the option to manually enter info.

Short of that, it would be nice if there was some way for me to tag or mark restaurant names within the post that the system would then auto-convert to place links. For example, I could write:

I highly recommend [link]Restaurant X[/link].

and the system would create a place link for Restaurant X.

This is trickier for some places with generic names, but it's a breeze if I'm writing about Peter Luger, DiFara, or some other frequently discussed place.

Love this feature tho, and I wish more people used it -- I just think it's too hard to use right now.

[Jacquilynne]

We did actually look at some types of auto-linking within your post (though it was just a little bonus feature on top of you doing the manual linking at the end), the problem, though, is that matching these things requires a degree of specificity that posts don't normally have.

Using your example, different people will refer to those places as Peter Luger, Peter Luger's, Luger, Luger's, Lugers, DiFara, Di Fara, Di Faras, Di Fara's, DF, while in the actual database--which is based on Google's place database--they're called something like "Peter Luger Steakhouse" and "Di Fara Pizzeria"--unfortunately, while it's easy for you and I to look at those and see that they're the same, fuzzy matching is pretty complex to program.

Add in that on the regional boards, it's not always going to be clear what city you're talking about, and how many similarly named restaurants there are in different towns out there, and the task of auto-matching becomes nearly impossible to do well.

It's unfortunate, because you're absolutely right--that would be the ideal function.

[Robert Lauriston]

Another glitchy one:

http://www.chowhound.com/places/2918

Should be 202 Stage Rd, Pescadero, CA 94060, USA. If you try to edit it to add the missing "Pescadero," when you save it's deleted.

[Melanie Wong]

Or here, http://www.chowhound.com/places/4061

I corrected the town, saved it, and the street number was dropped and it won't save it when I type it in again. This has happened for several spots where I've corrected the data in Places, stuff gets dropped that I didn't touch. Should I stop trying to correct the entries?

[jane]

No, no! Please don't stop trying to correct anything. The whole point of the wiki is that it's correctable. We'll get on it. So as I understand it, we've got two issues: the site freezes when it says it's searching for a place, and the addition of a city name to an existing Place (but not typing a city name when you're creating an entry) disappears after you save.

[Melanie Wong]

Opening an existing Place to add or correct non-address information results in street addresses disappearing or city changes after saving.

[DiveFan]

Partially correct.
Per my post above, addresses seem to be checked against some unknown 'master list'. Some addresses just can't be added or updated.
For an example, just try to update the addresses on the places I added above. I put the actual address in the 'local info' field.

[Melanie Wong]

Just reminded me of another street address issue . . . sometimes the result that comes back after hitting the search button has a garbled address (e.g., stray commas instead of periods) and when I try to select it, an error message pops up that it has an invalid address. I've tried to search to pull up these Places entries, but I guess they're in another database and can't be found. I end up having to create a duplicate entry and have to leave the bad info out there.

P.S. this thread has dropped off My Chow so I'm not notified of new posts. will try to remember to check back periodically.

[JasmineG]

Well, I corrected a wrong address for a place name, and it has the corrected address when you go to the place, but in the thread where it's been linked, it still has the wrong address. Let's check here to see if the wrong address comes up:

Ahh, here's the problem: there are two entries for this place in there, one with 455 Market St. #125 as the address, and the other used to have 125 Market St. as the address, which I corrected as 455.

...and while it says 455 when I search for it, it still says 125 when it posts.

-----
Fog City News
455 Market St, San Francisco, CA 94105

[Melanie Wong]

I added "duplicate" to the second entry. When I opened it, it still said "125", not "455".

[JasmineG]

Yep, last night it was saying 455 when I opened it (after I edited), but now it's back to 125.

[Robert Lauriston]

Depends on the address. Some corrections stick, some don't.

[AnneInMpls]

And some corrections create duplicate entries.

When I tried to correct the name of Izzy's Ice Cream Cafe in St. Paul (the original name was "Izzy's Ice Cream Production"), five new entries were created. Yeah, I tried five times to correct the name before I realized what was happening. What can I say - I'm a slow learner.

Anne

[JasmineG]

I've been having a pretty consistent problem when I try to post more than one (sometimes more than two) links in one comment. When I type in the place name and click search, it just freezes, and while the bar at the bottom says that it's searching google, nothing happens. If I switch the place, or change the city to a nearby city, it sometimes works though.

[Robert Lauriston]

I've found that when it hangs, I can usually get results if I change the location from city to zip code, or vice-versa.

[othervoice]

I think this is a great addition also, just had one question. Would it be possible to alphabetize the listings?

[DiveFan]

I'm not sure if the above comments address my issue, but it's good to see that a CH staffer (Jane) is monitoring this thread...
I've recently used the Link-to-Place feature but two sites were added with INCORRECT addresses that cannot be corrected. I haven't seen any explanation in the FAQ about what is being checked/validated on the Add screen - THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT TO DOCUMENT! If the validation doesn't work better, I would recommend Turning It Off!!
Hopefully I can add the two links in question. TIA, Mike
EDIT - I just noticed when adding links that there are 'near' duplicates and new entries are silently modified. Unfortunately, there does not yet appear to be away for regular CH members to quickly identify and resolve these.
FYI I've tried both Firefox 2 and IE6, doesn't make a difference.

-----
Shafaa Halal Restaurant and Market
12211 Hawthorne Blvd, Hawthorne, CA 90250

Acosta Taco
4539 W Imperial Hwy, Inglewood, CA 90304

[Chris VR]

I can't get the hang of making URLs in the text box work. Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong here: http://www.chow.com/places/1611

[The Dairy Queen]

Chris, I think it's not working because you have a space between the colon and the url. I fixed the first link in the text box. Do you want to try to fix the second one and see if it works?

~TDQ

[Chris VR]

Thanks! Duh.

[rworange]

Correcting an address line is sometimes not possible like in this record for Nick's Cove
http://www.chowhound.com/places/1574

This is the correct address:
23240 State Route One
Marshall, CA 94940

Putting that changed the address to a Southern California address

I change Star Route 1 back to Hwy 1 and the address changed to someplace in Georgia, IIRC.

Once it tried to download info to my computer.

The above was the best I could do. It doesn't allow Marshall in the address line.

Changing the name, not on this record, leaves the database with duplicate records sometime.

[Robert Lauriston]

I've seen a few problems like that, where Google insists that a place is in the wrong location. I think I can post another one.

[Robert Lauriston]

This one used to be wrong ... nope, they corrected that, now it shows up in the right spot.

-----
Mitama Restaurant
3201 College Ave, Berkeley, CA 94705

[squid kun]

Another address glitch: Search for Attilio's Kitchen, Denville, NJ, and the list includes:

Attilio's Kitchen
278 Diamond Spring Rd, Denville, NJ

But click on that place (http://www.chowhound.com/places/3113) and the entry omits the city; it just says 278 Diamond Spring Rd, NJ 07834, USA. However, the map appears to be correct.

[AnneInMpls]

Suggestion: I add the word "duplicate" to the name. That helps others know which entry NOT to select, because the search for a place shows only the name and address.

Anne

P.S. See these places links for an example.

-----
Jax Cafe
1928 University Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55418

[Jacquilynne]

This is an excellent suggestion.

Engineering is working on creating reporting for places so that you can flag duplicates for the moderators, but in the interim, it's very easy for us to find duplicates that are tagged this way using the places search options. As well, it alerts others to the potential problems in the mean time.

[The Dairy Queen]

Anne, how do you do that? Do you link to BOTH addresses, post it, then go in and edit one to be the "duplicate"?

~TDQ

[AnneInMpls]

Yup, that's it exactly. Except I do this while I'm still editing the post (before it's posted).

I include both (or all) links in my post, but before I hit "Post My Reply", I right-click on the duplicate and edit the name (be sure to do this in a new browser window, because you can lose a post if you left-click). Then I go back to my unposted post and remove the duplicate places. And THEN I post.

It's futzy, but it works...

Anne

[Robert Lauriston]

Encountered a bug in this topic:

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/419963

[Melanie Wong]

Maybe someone else has reported this in this long thread, but I just noticed that the Places page is not showing all the threads that are linked. The three examples I found had all linked to Places in the original post, if that helps to find the problem, but the thread isn't displayed on the Places page.

[Melanie Wong]

I see that Places Mentioned now picks up links in the original post. Thanks!

[Melanie Wong]

Whoops, but Places still doesn't pick up a thread that links only in the original post. Here's an example,
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/428834

[Robert Lauriston]

Another buggy search result:

- search for Cowgirl Creamery / Point Reyes Station, CA

- select "80 4th St, Point Reyes Sta, CA" (the one with the zip I created manually)

Result: "Unknown Address" error

[Aromatherapy]

Twice now I've created a link that was correct when I selected it, but after I completed the post the link was to the wrong place--not insanely wrong, but not right and not what I had clicked--something further down the list maybe.

[JasmineG]

Places just stopped working for me -- I tried to add a place twice, and both times it seemed like it worked, and then the link was never added.

[Robert Lauriston]

I've had occasional failures. Keep trying. If you can't, it might be a browser-specific bug.

[Robert Lauriston]

If I try to add Greens Restaurant / Bldg-A Fort Mason Ctr, San Francisco, CA (address as reported by Google Maps), it finds the place, but when I select it I get an "Unknown address" error.

I added a place entry manually, but I suspect the anomaly will result in dupes.

[Chris VR]

Sometimes you just get the weirdest results when trying to find a place!

I tried: "Georgie D's, Stoneham, MA", a relatively new restaurant, and got:

Stoneham Theatre
395 Main St, Stoneham, MA

D*J Spinelli & Assoc
655 Atlantic Ave, Boston, MA

Atwoods
877 Cambridge St, Cambridge, MA

Perkins School For the Blind
175 N Beacon St, Watertown, MA

I can't imagine how those last 2 even got in there!

So then I tried "Georgie, Stoneham, MA" and got:

Stoneham Theatre
395 Main St, Stoneham, MA

Armenian Sisters Academy
6 Eliot Rd, Lexington, MA

Great Scott
1222 Commonwealth Ave, Allston, MA

Aei Speakers Bureau
214 Lincoln St # 113, Allston, MA

Again, WACKY results.

So then I Googled to get the full name and it got even wackier.

I tried "Georgie D's Place, Stoneham, MA" and got.

Stoneham Theatre
395 Main St, Stoneham, MA

Council On Aging
235 W Foster St, Melrose, MA

Prestige Motors
600 Broadway, Malden, MA

Arthur & Elizabeth Schlesinger
3 James St, Cambridge, MA

Something is out of whack. To be fair, the problem seems to be on Google's end because I don't get better results when trying directly on the site. So I found it in superpages.com and entered it manually, but the map doesn't work: http://www.chowhound.com/places/1378

[Chris VR]

I thought maybe the "USA" at the end of the address "499 Main St, Stoneham, MA 02180, USA" was the problem with the map not working right. I tried to edit it out but every time I change it and then "save" the change doesn't "stick" and the USA comes back.

[johnseberg]

I just searched for a place: Four Peaks Brewery in: Tempe AZ
I was given results for San Francisco CA!

Google finds (correctly): 1340 E 8th St # 104, Tempe, AZ 85281

[Robert Lauriston]

Wow, that's weird.

Searching for brewery / tempe, az finds the right place.

[Chris VR]

I have found this too- sometimes you have to change the name of the restaurant to get the right suggestions. I had this happen while trying to enter Pearl Street Station in Malden, MA. It didn't work when I entered the fullname of the restaurant, but it did once I changed it to only Pearl Street.

[johnseberg]

Did yours also give you results in SF? This is so bizarre!

I added Four Peaks Brewing Company to one thread. Then I tried adding it to another thread, and it gives me the same SF search results from which to choose. It doesn't find what I had just added.

[Chris VR]

I don't remember where but yeah, maybe it was in California somewhere. I'll be better about noting it when it happens again.

[Robert Lauriston]

I've noticed a delay between the time I add a new Place entry and when it starts showing up in the "Link to a place" search.

Though as noted in some of the bug reports above, sometimes it never does.

[Chuckles the Clone]

I'm continuing to have linking fail with Safari 3.0 and Firefox 2 on OS X.

Firebug complains that "places" is not defined in application.38.js here:
RawSearchControl.prototype.populateResults = function(places, searcher) {
302 // Chow
303 for(i = 0; i < places.length; i++){
304 div = createDiv(Restaurant.buildChowRow(places[i]));
305 this.results.appendChild(div);
306 }

Is this the expected behavior?

[Robert Lauriston]

In this topic, I had three attempts to post a link fail:

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/419517

Nothing odd about the link, search finds it and there's only the one.

[AnneInMpls]

Did Places entries just break? I was searching for an entry, found it and edited the name, and now there are 4 duplicate entries, most of which have the original, incorrect name. It seems like changing the name creates another entry?!?!?!?!

Plus, I can't get my post to link to the first one - it isn't shown during a search. Only the latest (largest-numbered) entry appears. (See my post at http://www.chowhound.com/topics/419194#2733780 ).

Original Places entry:
http://www.chowhound.com/places/320

Wacko duplicates:
http://www.chowhound.com/places/962
http://www.chowhound.com/places/963
http://www.chowhound.com/places/965
http://www.chowhound.com/places/969

Sigh. Ah, well, we were warned that Places is a beta.

Anne

[Robert Lauriston]

Duplicate problem for Add a Place:

Searching for berkeley farmers market / berkeley, ca found their business office at 2530 San Pablo Ave. and 1607 Shattuck, which isn't even near one of the markets.

So in the following topic I created three entries for the Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday markets (different locations around town):

http://www.chow.com/topics/329267

When I went to add a link to the Saturday market in the following topic, it didn't turn up, so I used Add a Place, which created a duplicate entry:

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/419263

[Robert Lauriston]

I was able to create a link to the existing Place entry by searching for Berkeley Saturday Farmers' Market / Milvia St., Berkeley, CA (i.e. by using the exact string of the place I previously created).

The Places widget stripped the second street from the address I originally provided: it should read Center St. and Milvia St. I re-entered it but who knows if it will stick.

Ideally it should read "Center St. between Milvia St. and Martin Luther King Jr Way, but trying to save that gives me this error:

alert("Unknown address: Center St. between Milvia St. and Martin Luther King Jr Way, Berkeley, CA, USA");

[Robert Lauriston]

Weird glitch. I searched for Oliveto / Oakland, CA, but nothing happened (no results, no error message, nothing). Added a couple of other place links and tried again, nothing happened. Finally tried Oliveto / 94703 and the search worked.

[Robert Lauriston]

Tried again in another topic and had no problem.

Looks like it happens consistently when Oliveto is the second link I add.

[johnseberg]

I have noticed a couple of examples where adding a place that contained a Suite number was a problem. The Suite number was parsed out as if it were the Street number.

Example 1)
Search Expression: Swaddee Thai Chandler AZ
Google result: 5055 W Ray Rd # 8, Chandler
Place parsed: 8 W Ray Rd, Chandler

Example 2)
Search Expression: Yupha's Thai Kitchen tempe az
Google Result: 1020 W Elliot Rd # 107, Tempe, AZ 85284
Place parsed: 107 W Elliot Rd, Tempe, AZ 85284

Thanks.
This feature is a huge improvement to CH!

[Chris VR]

I was entering a post on this thread: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/418667

I wanted to enter a hotdog cart but knew it wouldn't be in Google. So I added it quickly in lower case, planning to go back and edit the place with the correct info and clean up the formatting. I went and did that, even managed to find an address! But even after reloading, the Place "marker" both in my post and in the "Places mentioned" still shows the first entry I made.

If I add it here, in this thread, it has the correct info.

I suppose that what this tells me is that once you've made a post, the place marker is static. I'd have expected that to be dynamic, updating as the wiki was updated.

-----
Fred's Franks
390 Quannapowitt Pkwy, Wakefield, MA 01880

[AnneInMpls]

How can users delete a duplicate Places entry?

I wanted to link to Rustica Bakery in a Mpls bakery thread. I did a search for Rustica, but nothing showed up, so I added a new entry. (Actually, I did two searches - neither of which had any results.) I did this in a "fake" post, because I heard that text often disappears when you add a new Places link.

So then I go to my real post to add the new Places link. Lo and behold, there are suddenly TWO entries: Rustica and Rustica Bakery. The first one (not mine) was already referenced in another post, so I decided that was the one to use. (And I edited it to have the establishment's full name.)

The original:
http://www.chowhound.com/places/323

My unwitting duplicate:
http://www.chowhound.com/places/648

So now I want to remove my duplicate. How do I do this?

Anne

[Robert Lauriston]

The Places pages need a Report link.

[The Chowhound Team]

The moderators can remove duplicates. Unfortunately, there's no 'report' link directly on Places pages, but you have two options. You can either 'report' a post that links to the restaurant you want removed, or you email us at [e-mail] with the information.

We've removed the duplicate entry for Rustica Bakery.

[Luthien]

Along this same line,
I tried to select a place today, which came up fine:
http://www.chow.com/places/4249
but afterward, it created and linked to a completely new place on its own!
http://www.chow.com/places/8922

[Robert Lauriston]

Feature request: a "Map These Results" link in the "Places Mentioned" box.

[The Dairy Queen]

So I successfully added a restaurant called Ngon Bistro to "places." I did this by typing in the name (Ngon Vietnamese Bistro) and location (St. Paul, MN) into "link to a place" and hit "search". The search produced the name of the FORMER business (Pho Anh Vietnamese) plus the correct address. I went ahead and created the link, then hit "post my reply." I then went into the wiki and changed the name of the restaurant to the new name, Ngon Bistro. So, that's great. I have this lovely link to a lovely wiki in that one thread.

Here's the wiki:
http://www.chowhound.com/places/334

Here's the thread:
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/41066...

Here's the problem, now I want to add a link to this lovely wiki to a new thread. But, when I type in Ngon Bistro into the "link to a place" search, I don't get Ngon Bistro, I get the same old Pho Anh Vietnamese, the former restaurant at that address, and a completely virgin wiki, not the wiki I lovingly updated with my incredible "local knowledge."

How will other people be able to access the wiki I created ongoingly? Or, do we have to create a new wiki everytime we want to link to it?

~TDQ

[Robert Lauriston]

That's pretty much the same issue I noted above, it's really problematic when the matching search result (Google Maps data) has a wrong name or address:

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/41758...

I'm thinking the best workaround for the moment is:

(1) link to the outdated / wrong place
(2) add a second link using Add a Place that has the right name / address / whatever
(3) post
(4) edit link #1 and append "CLOSED" (or whatever)
(5) return to the post and delete the obsolete Place link

[The Dairy Queen]

Yes, that's what I did, too. I edited Pho Anh (old place) to be Ngon Bistro (new place). That's fine for this one link for this one post.

But, what happens the NEXT time someone wants to add a link to "new place" again? The Places feature search only finds the old place--same as before, instead of finding the link to the wiki I just created. And they have to do the same thing to add a "Places link" to their post--add the old place, edit in the info for a new place. This is fine if all you care about is a link. But, it doesn't create a single wiki that people can access over and over again. Basically, everytime someone links to the old place and edits it, they create a new wiki. So, for 30 posts about a place, each with a link created this way, you'll end up 30 different wikis. I think it's that "single" wiki that all 'hounds can add to that builds over time is the most valuable part of the searches feature and that's the part that doesn't work with a situation like this.

Or am I missing your point (again?) :) .

~TDQ

[Chris VR]

What I'd expect is that when a poster searches for a Place it would first list matches from the Places database, then Google. I don't think it's doing that now.

[Robert Lauriston]

It worked for me. I edited this one, created from the search results, to append (CLOSED) to the name:

http://www.chow.com/places/194

Then I created this one for the new restaurant at the same address:

http://www.chow.com/places/603

The latter now comes up at the top of the Link-to-a-place search results.

[Chris VR]

Yes, just tried and it worked for me too, was able to link to two places that just exist on the Places DB (not on Google). Not sure it did this last time I tried it but as long as it works now, I'm happy!

[MplsM ary]

I find Places to be ok for what they are but not really very useful for what I want which is a link to the establishment's website within a post. I don't like having to click on a Place then click the website, neither of which spawn a new tab/page. If the website could also appear when including a link that would make Places more useful to me.

Gosh, if only I could repeat myself while I duplicate my redundancies.

[Robert Lauriston]

As database entries acumulate, Places will be a lot faster for posters than looking up, copying, and pasting a URL for a Web site.

Plus it works equally well for the many restaurants that don't have Web sites. Or even addresses.

And if a URL, phone number, or address changes, or a place goes out of business, one change to the Places entry updates all references that link to it.

That said, the "Link to a place" UI should be changed to make it easier to add the Web site URL.

[MplsM ary]

I think you misunderstood me. I meant that when a Place is used in a post, the URI link (if available within the Place listing) should be inserted along with the Place address. Such as:
Spoonriver
750 S 2nd St, Minneapolis, MN 55401, USA
http://www.spoonriverrestaurant.com/

[E Eto]

I just want people to know that when trying to link a place to an original post, it's wise to post first, and then use the edit feature (does the link to a place work when re-editing?). I wrote a fairly long post, and tried to link to a place, but it directed me to a separate page, and when it came back to the post, all the text was gone... poof. I should know better than to make a long post without saving it somewhere, but it just kind of grew on its own. Oh well.

Edited to add: It seems like you CAN'T post a link to a place with the edit function. You'll have to add a reply to the original post, or else, create the link to place BEFORE you enter text. Live and learn.

[Robert Lauriston]

The foolproof sequence is (1) add the place, (2) post, (3) click the place link to make any required edits.

If you (1) add the place and (2) click the new place link, you get redirected, and lose any draft text in your unposted reply.

[MMRuth]

I think the issue is not adding the link - that in itself doesn't take me to a separate page, but rather editing the link does so. What I do is write my post, add the link(s), post, and then edit the "Places" to which I've linked. Or is that what you are saying? But as you say, you can't add the link if you are using the edit post function.

[MMRuth]

I just tested this - another option is (at least in WIN XP/IE) to right click on the link and the choose "Open in New Window". That works as well and you can then edit the information in the link in the new window.

[Chris VR]

Yes, that's what I do, although I'm opening it in a new tab.

[The Dairy Queen]

What a bummer!

I have the same problem, but only (I think) when the "Place" isn't found in the database. I tried to describe the problem here: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/417583#2717515 and the workaround here http://www.chowhound.com/topics/41758.... But, yes, I agree with Robert that the safest thing is to check FIRST whether the place is in the database before you write a long, detailed post.

~TDQ

[Robert Lauriston]

I think you misunderstood my post, since I don't check first.

If the place doesn't turn up in the search results, I use Add a Place, finish writing my post, post it, and then click the link to revise the Place entry as necessary.

[Robert Lauriston]

Can we please get "Link to a place" not just when adding but when editing posts?

About one time out of five when I add a link it doesn't show up in the post (surely user error some of the time, maybe all the time).

[Robert Lauriston]

Wow, when Google Maps has bad entries, it can be really tough to straighten them out. I had a lot of trouble adding a correct entry for the Naan 'n' Curry at 336 O'Farrell, since the Google Maps entry for the place has both the restaurant name and the street misspelled. When I corrected the street name it said "unknown place" so I had to leave out the apostrophe.

[Chris VR]

There was a great review of L'Espalier on the Boston board today. I wanted to be sure anyone viewing the L'Espalier place page saw it. SO I created a place in that thread. It appears in my post, and on the top right of that thread. But the thread itself doesn't appear linked at the bottom of the Place page.

I know I could add it as a hard link in the info section, but I thought that was one of the points of the Place page- to bring those linked threads together in one place.

The one possibly quirky thing I did was start to create the place in the thread, and then before I made the post, I opened the place and populated it with info. Then I saved the Place. Then I went back and made the post. Perhaps this order somehow "delinked" it?

thread: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/418182

place: http://www.chowhound.com/places/438

[Robert Lauriston]

I think sometimes it just takes a few minutes for the system to update. Works both ways.

[Chris VR]

Hmm, OK. I didn't see it happen 15 minutes after I made the post, so I worried it might have been user error. But it's there now. So, all good.

[Eat_Nopal]

Site Improvement Suggestions

I have my list... anybody else want to consolidate on this thread?

1) Spell check would be nice.

2) Allow links to a place when editing a post.

3) Allow tagging

4) Does anybody really like the place feature? Can it be removed from the Home Cooking portion.

5) Allow free form text entry for Restaurant hours.

6) Allow editing of links to Chowhound posts on the Places board.

7) Need ability to link from Places to Chowhound report on the first post

[Engineering]

Just a note, some browsers have built-in options for spellcheck:

- Firefox 2 gives you automatic spellcheck in every text field.
- Safari and Camino users using a Mac can spellcheck by right-clicking within a field and selecting the appropriate option from the Spelling menu.
- Opera users have a similar spellcheck menu available from a right-click on all operating systems.

[Tatum]

Thanks Nopal. The Places feature could actually be relevant for home cooking. For example, "I got these green chiles at Pedro Rolles Market". Linking that could be useful. Also, there will be a better user recipe submit form shortly as well.

[Chris VR]

Suggestion: when I load "your unread posts" for a particular board (for example, Boston), on board index page there's currently a "popular boards" tag cloud. That holds little value for me. I'm using "unread Posts" so I'm obviously a power user and power users aren't using that tag cloud. Replace it with the most recent "Places" entered on that board.

[Chuckles the Clone]

It also completely fails for me in Firefox. Click the "link to a place" link. Enter and name and city. Hangs with status bar saying "transferring data from google.com".

So, complete failure with Firefox and Safari 3 on OS X. Is this expected, or is
it working for anyone with either of these on OS X?

[kpzoo]

It works for me fine on Firefox 2.0.0.4 on Mac OS 10.3.9

[hannaone]

Also does not work for me with Firefox, Safari, and Opera.
Win XP.

EDIT: Add IE 7 to the list.

[Aromatherapy]

Same problem for me in Firefox

[Chris VR]

I'm hoping that there are plans afoot to make it possible to enter a town, or zipcode and see one map with all the placemarkers for the "Places" in the database.

[Tatum]

You bet.

[Chris VR]

I added an ugly long URL that's not truncating correctly and also isn't an active (clickable) link

http://www.chowhound.com/places/307

[The Dairy Queen]

I just went into the wiki and fixed it for you (I think!). If you want it to be an active url you have to follow a certain syntax very carefully. First, put the "descriptive text" in quotes. In this case, "Nearby busstops:" Then you have to have a colon. Then you put your long, ugly URL. No spaces.

"descriptive text":ugly url.

If you follow the syntax, it will be a clickable link.

~TDQ

[Chris VR]

Ugh, thanks. Too bad it couldn't work the same way it works in the body of a post.

[Robert Lauriston]

One big bug or unfortunatle limitation I noticed.

Tuesday I used Add a Place to manually create an entry not in the search results.

Today I wanted to link to that same place again; my manually created entry did not appear in the search results.

When I used Add a Place, it did link to my previously-created entry, but it seems likely that if I hadn't gotten the address exactly right I might have created a dupe.

Also, what happens when Google Maps eventually adds the place to its database, and it shows up in the search results?

[The Dairy Queen]

This has happened to me a couple of times. I tried to link in a place--in this case, Natura Farms in Marine on St. Croix, MN. It seems to have found it and returns with the right address, but when I click on it to add a link to my post, it says, "Unknown address: 19060 Manning Trl N, Marine St Croix, MN."

~TDQ

[Chris VR]

I had one where the address was right but the phone number was not even in this area code. I just picked it, found the right phone number and edited it to be the correct info.

[The Dairy Queen]

But, it won't let me "pick it"--so, I couldn't find a way to edit it. When I tried to "pick it" it gave me that error message. Is there a way to edit it anyway?

EDIT: it won't take the address when I try to "add" it as a new place, either. So weird. This place is a farm, so, maybe it doesn't understand it as a valid address?

~TDQ

[Chris VR]

Oh, I see what you mean, yeah, I had that problem too. You can add it manually with the (I think?) "Add a place" button at the bottom of the search results.

[The Dairy Queen]

Hmmmm... I tried that and it gives me the same error message, and no link appears with the post. Bizarre!

~TDQ

[Chris VR]

I tried to add the address for an elusive hot dog cart, located across from a Grainger's.

When trying to add the info, I got this error:

"alert("Unknown address: across from Graingers, 54 Newmarket Square, Boston, MA 02118, USA");"

so I gave the actual address of the store he's across from, but that's not really correct

http://www.chowhound.com/places/307

Pretty much any street food cart is going to have this same problem with addresses.

[MMRuth]

I tried to add Citarella - a grocery store in Manhattan. I put New York, NY in the location field, and it brought up the various locations, and I selected the one on Third Avenue. But when it showed up under "Links", the address shown is "E 75th, Cicero, IN 46034, USA".

Also - the message above "Add another ..." then shows up as "A link to Citarellawill be added to your post." - need a space after the name of the place.

Edit - also, I added a link to Via Quadronno to one post, and when I went to add it to another post, I now had three choices:

Via Quadronno
25 E 73rd St, New York, NY 10021, USA
Via Quadronno 34 LLC
25 E 73rd St, New York, NY
Via Quadronno
25 E 73rd st, New York, NY

How do I know which one to pick? I chose the most complete one - w/ the zip, but this could get confusing if there is more than one choice for the same place, and posters choose different ones, so that information is spread over three different links to the same place.

[Robert Lauriston]

In my experience, generally the one with the Zip code is correct, and the others are duplicates with less info. The dupes sometimes result from separate phone numbers for the business office etc. This happens fairly often with Google Maps (where the search info comes from).

[Chris VR]

What order do restaurants appear in the right hand column? I just added a few and can't figure it out although I suspect that Mexico Lindo appears at the top because it's linked to from more than one post.

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/412301

The order of the rest makes no sense though. Perhaps the order in which I added them? That doesn't make much sense when you're scanning the list and want to find the info quickly, so I'd suggest the list show up in alphabetical order.

Maybe put a number on the "pushpin" icon to show how many posts link to that restaurant?

[Robert Lauriston]

In some topics, the places seem to have been sorted alphabetically, e.g.:

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/417811

This one it looks like it's just the order in which they were added:

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/361368

[Robert Lauriston]

Would be nice if the in-place widget had a "more" button so you could add Web site, cuisine, neighborhood, or change the type of place.

The default of "restaurant" for type of place means that most places that are not restaurants are being misidentified as such.

[Robert Lauriston]

In the "Main dish costs around" field, I entered "$8 to $12," and the system changed it to $812.

Also, when you're editing, it says "main dish costs around," but when you save that changes to "Main dish costs:".

[Tatum]

Good catch on the "Main dish costs", but the dish should be $10 - not $8-12.

[Robert Lauriston]

Yeah, the thing about the place in question is, all the main dishes are either $8 or $12.

I'm fine with the limitation, given its advantages for searching, but it would be nice if the form rejected an invalid value with an appropriate error message.

[Tatum]

point taken

[kpzoo]

There is also a bug with accented words, which get cut off incorrectly. Example here:

http://www.chowhound.com/places/173
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/417692

Caf
148 Rue Jean-Talon Ouest, Montr

Caf -> should be Café Union
Montr -> should presumably be Montréal, Québec, Canada depending on the city/province/country convention you're following

[The Dairy Queen]

What do we when we search on a place (e.g., Cafe BonXai in St. Paul, MN) and the address that comes up is correct, but it's the name of the business that used to be in that location (Best Steakhouse)? Do we just add a new place with the same address?

~TDQ

[Tatum]

TDQ,

Add the Place, then on its page, you can change the address to the correct address. This happens quite a lot, and that's why we made it an edit field.

[AnneInMpls]

Help!

TDQ has added a place for Cafe BonXai, but I can't find it in a search. The old business keeps coming up. How do I add a link to the existing Cafe BonXai? It *does* exist, as shown in this thread.
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/403069

And this is the places entry:
http://www.chowhound.com/places/116

But I can't access it. When I do a search, all I get is this entry:
http://www.chowhound.com/places/843

How can I get the Places search to return place # 116?

Thanks,
Anne

[Chris VR]

I got it by typing "Bonxai" in the Name of Place Box and "St Paul, MN" in the location box. But you're right, no luck when I tried "Cafe Bonxai"

-----
Cafe BonXai
1613 University Ave W, Saint Paul, MN 55104

[AnneInMpls]

I tried "bonxai", "bon", "xai", "cafe bonxai", and "cafe". None of them worked for me.

The Search function for Places seems to be very, very flaky.

Anne

[AnneInMpls]

Aha! The problem was not with the word "bonxai", it was the city name. Silly me, I entered "Saint Paul" instead of "st paul". There are very different results for these two variants of the city name.

Sigh.

Anne

[Danny]

"st. paul" "st paul" and "saint paul" don't give the same results.

There are currently 3 Places for Izzy's as a result (and no way to combine them, or report them as duplicates):

-----
Izzy's Ice Cream Cafe
2034 Marshall Ave, Saint Paul, MN 55104

Izzy's Ice Cream Production - DUPLICATE
2034 Marshall Ave, St Paul, MN 55104

[Chris VR]

Interesting! It seems to me a tricky problem to solve, the "St" = "Saint" thing. I hope the engineers find a way to do it. One thing you can do is put in the zip code in stead of a city name.

What worries me more is that the place wasn't foind when using the correct name of the restaurant, and I only found it when I looked for "Bonxai". Nobody is going to do that unless they know for SURE it's in the Place database.

[ElsieDee]

I can envision the the whole "St" = "Saint" and "St" = "Street" thing being a headache for many involved though I'll be darned if I can think of a workaround.

[rworange]

This could be a bug.

When I start a topic and add a place, there is no link to the Chowhound post.

However, when I reply to an existing post and add place, the Chowhound links appear.

Here's an example
http://www.chowhound.com/places/62

This post should be in the list with the other two posts
Berkeley: Lagosia – Stylish, modern, upscale British and Nigerian cuisine … go, please, go
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/417708

[Chuckles the Clone]

It doesn't seem to be working at all in Safari 3.0.2. I'll
try again here, but if I enter anything in the name and
location, clicking the "search" button causes nothing
at all to happen. Well, not exactly nothing. The status
bar says "completed 74 of 75 items." If I click search
again, it says "completed 76 of 77 items." Further clicks
increment this by 2 each time. Nothing else happens.
OS X.

[beetlebug]

When you click on the "place" could it open in a separate window? For me, when I click on a link, it always opens in a separate window, except for "places."

[loincloth]

Any contemporary browser will provide you the option to open a link in a new window or tab. I like it when this decision is left in my hands.

[AnneInMpls]

Two suggestions:

1) When searching for a place, it would be nice to browse by general area, rather than having to enter an exact location. I live in the Twin Cities, where there are dozens, if not hundreds, of municipalities. I rarely remember which exact suburb a place is in. Plus, there are at least three common ways of writing "Saint Paul."

A browse feature could also help find misspelled restaurant names.
[Edit to add] And those virtually duplicate entries. (Is it "Tomayne Restaurant?" "Tomayne Bistro"? Or "Tomayne Cafe"?)

2) I would love to be able to see all the Places entries. The first time I saw one, I tried to click on the "Places" header, the way I would for a board name, to see the list of most recent entries. Could the Places entries act more like a board in this respect?

Thanks,
Anne

[5 and Dime Eater]

You can search by zip code but that might be *too* specific for your needs. Give it a try nonetheless.

[AnneInMpls]

Oh, there's no way I'd know the zip code! The Twin Cities has over 40 zip codes, and I'm lucky if I remember my own. But this might be a good feature for a tiny town.

Anne

[jane]

AnneInMpls, these are great ideas. Right now (as 5 and Dime Eater suggests) search is the only way -- besides the boards -- into places. But that will change. If it looks like Places is useful to people, then we'll roll them up into areas, like you describe. And "most recent entries" is high on the list of next features.

[Morton the Mousse]

Though it doesn't present a browsable list, you can look at all the place entries by typing in the url http://www.chow.com/places/1 and then changing the 1 to 2, 3, 4...61

[Robert Lauriston]

The Places search is based on Google, so there are lots of options, including Zip code, latitude-longitude coordinates, or <county>, <state>.

http://maps.google.com/support/bin/to...

[The Dairy Queen]

Hmmmm...I wrote a post, then tried to "link" to a place. The place wasn't in the database, so I added it. But, I seem to have lost my post. Did I do something wrong or should you check first to see if the place is in the database, and, if not, add it, before you write your post?

~TDQ

[The Dairy Queen]

Yeah, this time, before I posted, I first checked to see if this "place" was in the database, it wasn't, so I added it. Then, I wrote my post and linked to the place I just added. It works, but it's a bit awkward. Also, there does seem to be a lag time between my having added the "place" to the places database and the "place" being available in the database for linking.

Make sense? Still, very very cool feature.

~TDQ

[Robert Lauriston]

I just used the "Add a Place" button and had no problem. Didn't get navigated away from the topic I was posting to, it was all done in place, under the post widget, just like choosing from a list.

If something else is happening to you, it's probably browser-specific.

[jane]

What browser are you using?

[The Dairy Queen]

Safari, Version 2.0.4 (419.3)

[Jim Leff]

To add a new place (as I bet at least 50% of links will require...Chowhounds often post about places that are not yet in yellow pages or other online directories) while creating a place link in a thread reply, you seem to need to use a specific address format, or the system rejects it ungracefully (erases the address info you've entered with a curt message and leaves you at the beginning of the process). So there ought to be some feedback about the address format that's required. It didn't much like "64th street off Broadway, Woodside, NY", fwiw.

[Tatum]

One of the first rules of Chowhound you taught me: " most deliciousness does not have a sign or address"- or something to that effect. See the Place linked below. We account for this as well....

[squid kun]

However, the map points to a spot nearly a mile south of the place Jim was talking about.

[squid kun]

Similar problem: I searched for a Place entry on a Midtown Manhattan street cart called the Jamaican Dutchy. No such place, not surprisingly, so I created one.

It's at 7th Avenue and 51st Street, and at first the system seemed to accept that, providing an accurate map. So I saved it.

Then I started a post to make sure it was there, searched for Jamaican Dutchy, and found the new Place, with the correct address (http://www.chowhound.com/places/3133). But when I clicked on it, the entry showed 7th Ave but omitted 51st Street, and displayed a map that placed it some 80 blocks north of the actual location.

[Melanie Wong]

At least that was in the same city. I've tried to create a Place and the system saved it with an address in another STATE.

[The Dairy Queen]

Fantastic! I love that the places mentioned are listed along the side, under "Who's Talking."

Thank you Engineering!

~TDQ

[Robert Lauriston]

Very cool addition to the site.

It would be nice if "Link to a place" were available when you edit a post.