Auto-link glitches
This is a slick feature, but there are some places with generic names that need to be excluded.
E.g. the link to the unmentioned "1 Restaurant" in this topic, which is appearing in response to the "1" in "about 1 quart":
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/662793
Another one is "wine bar".
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Jacquilynne or The Chowhound Team
This feature seems to be a really big problem. Some people have suggested it is more of a hassle than it is worth.
Is this a feature that is important to Chowhound management? Perhaps this should be a topic of discussion for management. It would be easy to retain the map and links, by requiring the user to manually add the restaurant links during their post, and doing away with the auto-feature.
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Fraiche
http://www.chow.com/restaurants/1447/fraicheMentioning creme fraiche gets a link to the restaurant
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/710644 -
Another problematic Autolink --
On the Manhattan Board, when someone mentions MASA (very high end, in the Time Warner Ctr), your auto link sets to Masa's in Grand Central Terminal.Here's an example thread though I've seen it at least three times now: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/7036...
Please fix. Thanks.
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re: LNG212
Here's another example and one responder actually points it out too:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/7037... -
re: LNG212
There used to be a place record for Masa. It was erased in the redesign of the restaurant pages, and that URL now redirects to Bar Masa. Restoring the original record is on the Chow team's to-do list (I hope) ... http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/6616...
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re: squid kun
Good to know, thanks. But I'm not sure that this is the problem with the auto link feature picking up Masa as Masa's and not Bar Masa, which it does not do. It consistently picks up Masa's. You are right (I've looked at the other thread) and it seems that the wholesale erasure of other hounds good work is causing other peripheral problems as in here, perhaps. Thanks for the link.
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Vancouver, BC specific auto-link glitches:
Please remove "Cambie" from the auto-linking (it is a major street here in Vancouver and whenever someone mentions it, an auto-link to Cambie Cafe gets generated.)
Also...there are two "Sushi Hachi" restaurants in this area, and the wrong one is being autolinked in some current threads.
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re: fmed
Is this the Cambie Cafe you mean? http://www.chow.com/restaurants/86264... It only has one link, so I'm not sure it's the one causing the problems.
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re: Jacquilynne
That's the place.
Here is a recent thread where it is linked spuriously:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/7014...Each time I see it mislinked, I report it to the mods - who I hope remove it. (I must have done this a dozen times in the last couple of weeks).
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re: fmed
And here is the mislink for Sushi Hachi:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/7012...
The correct location is:
Sushi Hachi
8888 Odlin Cres
Richmond, BC V6X 3Z8(There is a different Sushi Hachi on W41st that is being mislinked...unfortunately, I can't correct the link or add the entry to the correct location.)
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re: Jacquilynne
The "Remove" button seems to only work temporarily. I have removed a number of spurious auto-links only to have them come back the next day. (Also "Cambie" is still give us problems on the board.)
There seems to have been a steadily increasing number of spurious mis-links over the last 2-3 weeks. The system is a little trigger happy and often is linking to places hundreds of kilometers away - http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/701762 . Some posters are not aware of the mislinks they initiate and just leave them.
The combination of an incomplete city database plus all the auto-mis-links is making a mess of many threads.
Please disable it until it is at least operating with some accuracy and reliability.
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re: fmed
Here is another mis-link to a cafe hundreds of km away: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/6990...
Main Street is a major road here in Vancouver, so when anyone mentions it in their post, the Main Street Cafe in Revelstoke, BC will get auto-linked. (I've used the Report button to report it to the mods....)
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Another geography-related one:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/6990... . Cornelia Street is an address on this thread. No one is referring to the Cornelia Street Cafe. -
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Okay the geography think is striking again. On this post - http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/514084 - we're talking about Fairway Market opening in Westchester county and the autolink is connecting to a restaurant called "Westchester". Please fix.
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you cannot mention the city Boca Raton in Florida without a restaurant in Ft Lauderdale called Boca's auto linking every time.
of course it did not link here!
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re: smartie
Yes, addresses seem to be a particular problem. In this thread ( http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/693885 ) a poster mentions an address of 75 East Broadway but a restaurant called "East Broadway" gets autolinked. I am sure there are many similar problems where names of restaurants are the same as addresses.
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re: LNG212
When particular restaurants are causing the same problem over and over again, there's a setting on their restaurant pages that can stop them from every autolinking. I've done that to East Broadway.
smartie, if you can point me at an example of the Boca problem, I can do that there, as well.
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re: Jacquilynne
Here's a post where Menlo Cafe is autolinked to a mention of the City of Menlo Park.
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/6977... -
re: Jacquilynne
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/698132
I just removed an autolink for Irving Street Cafe in San Francisco from the above post.
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re: Robert Lauriston
Apparently, it's not a big deal to them. See their reply to my new listing of auto-link errors here: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/695739 .
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re: Robert Lauriston
Here's a summary of the bug affecting the record for Scopa and all other Healdsburg restaurants
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/669553
given that the NYT has anointed healdsburg as a dining destination, it would be nice to have full functionality in covering it here.
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Now here's a really bad one: "best sandwich"
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I don't know if you've turned it off or fixed the bugs, but the auto-link feature is much improved. Thank you.
That said, however, there are still problems. In this thread "Hell's Kitchen" referring to the neighborhood is being picked up as the restaurant. Not such a big deal since the restaurant is also being named and picked up as well. But it's a problem if someone did not mean the restaurant. http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/672297
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›1 Reply
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/640474
Here's a discussion of a Chinese restaurant called M&T in Flushing, Queens, that for some reason auto-links to a restaurant called Il Pasticcio in Savannah, Ga. It's been doing this for some time. I bring it up now only because someone just reminded me of it by updating the thread.
This one makes Chow.com look especially stoopid. If that's a concern, the site crew should fix it.
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References to the Union Square Greenmarket are still generating autolinks to Union Square Cafe. Please fix this problem. http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/666390
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yet another one ...
A reference to the Home Cooking board produces an autolink for a "Home Cooking Cafe". Ugh. http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/666121 -
This links to the wrong Shake Shack. http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/664719
When there are multiple locations with the same name, some check off box or other ought to pop up so that the correct location becomes the link (or some other method that would insure the correct location).
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another ... a mention of the Union Square greenmarket generates a map-post for Union Square Cafe. Seriously not the same thing.
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/663879 -
"delfin" generates two wrong links but not the right one
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/664782 -
This one is very odd - nothing in the two new posts (bumping a SEVEN-year-old thread) got auto-flagged, but for no reason at all a "Places" link and map got added for a cafe that is not mentioned at all in either post (and was not in business at the time of the original thread.)
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A mention of Cirque du Soleil brings up a reference to Soleil restaurant. Meanwhile, two restaurants mentioned in the post that should have brought up links (Fringale, Waterbar) didn't (a third restaurant didn't link because it was misspelled). I've seen this happen on quite a few posts: things linked that shouldn't be while others that should be aren't. There are really too many bugs to bother listing, and I don't think it's possible to list all the possible ways the program can generate the wrong links. Why not just dump the automatic linking and go with the (somewhat improved) manual places linking?
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A review & conversation about Del Posto generates hits for both "del posto" (correct!) and "posto" (NOT!). http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/664223
Oh and by the way, neither are in Brooklyn, despite what your google map says.
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Here's a new twist: "Binh Minh Quan" triggered links to both Binh Minh Quan and Minh's Restaurant.
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http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/6637...
There is, in fact, a restaurant in Allston called The Kells, but it is NOT the place referred to in this post, which is actually a soft-serve ice cream shop in Revere called Kell's Kreme. Please delete auto-link.
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http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/5817...
Post refers to the dish Pad That; auto-link links to Pad Thai Cafe.
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http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/5817...
Three restaurants mentioned in this post (one of which has two locations.) Auto-tagging offers only one of the two locations of Wisteria House and fails to tag Jo Jo Taipei at all.
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http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/6635...
Auto-link to Fish Market Sushi in Allston instead of the actual FISHMONGER being discussed in the post.
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"Fleur de Lys" here is an example of bad handling of two places with the same name:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/663505
Also, the one in San Rafael is a house-cleaning service.
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"fusion restaurant"
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/6635...Man, there are some stupid restaurant names out there.
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"San Franciscans" http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/6600...
I'm starting to think this may be unworkable.
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re: Robert Lauriston
Logically, I don't see how it can be made to work, at least not how they intend it to, which is to provide some semblance of an accurate record of when people are talking about which restaurants.
Far too many restaurants have common words or places in their names, and users often abbreviate and/or misspell names. I challenge even a hot-shot programmer to come up with an algorithm that can successfully pick out the correct restaurant names from the chaff even 50% of the time without human intervention, let alone anywhere near 100%.
I say to Chow, cut your losses on this and put the techs back to working on something important like improving the speed and reliability of page access.
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Three different bad auto-links in this post:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/5817...Engineering: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE just pull the plug on this project. It doesn't work, it is providing you with WORSE data then when users did their own tagging, and it's making us crazy.
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glenwood http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/658069
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/608659
tandoor points to an ATL restaurant, not the chapel hill one
chapel hill restaurant isn't a restaurant!and my favorite - i don't know http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/663223
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"all day"
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/663444"SFO" - link is useful but it's putting it in lowercase
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/6634... -
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http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/4084...
The restaurant under discussion is Ramen Halu in San Jose. The autolink in this post is a restaurant in San Francisco called Halu.
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Oh how much fun this is doing the Chow Team's job.
Apparently, maybe having to "stop on the way" home is now the On The Way Cafe. http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/662979
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re: LNG212
>Oh how much fun this is doing the Chow Team's job.
They're paid to do it; we users are not. So let's give 'em room and let 'em work.
If you spot a clueless auto-link, I'd say report the post if you have time. Let Chow staff take care of it. But if it's a real howler, consider sharing it here for entertainment value :)
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re: squid kun
I saw a post you put on Site Talk about this, and I thought Jacquilynne answered you, and everyone else, about this already. The moderators are volunteers. Maybe the response should be read again, and if you missed it on Site Talk, here it is:
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re: danhole
No problem. I take your point: the mods are volunteers and shouldn't have to take on any more stuff to do.
What I think the site bosses lose sight of at times is that we users are volunteers too - and the recent site glitches are putting more of the burden on us to clean up problems that weren't of our making.
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re: squid kun
Squid,
As volunteers, you just do what you can, but you don't have to do anything at all if you don't want to. I am not too pleased with all the glitches myself. On the Texas board someone said that they tried "to go to a place" and it put a link up at the top for a To Go Cafe! And it was nowhere near the location the poster was talking about. It's been fixed now, but I was scratching my head at first. I would hate to be in the bosses seat in this situation. It is chaos, but hopefully it will be cleared up soon.
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http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/661913 -- Hundred Acres is in the Village not in Brooklyn.
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In this case "Lex" refers to Lexington Avenue, not to a restaurant named Lex. http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/663339
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To reiterate what I've said on a related thread: This is an inherently awkward feature. Limit auto-linking to references that spell out the entire name of a place exactly as it appears in the database (and spell it correctly!) and you miss all the ones that use shorthand (Hamersley's instead of Hamersley's Bistro, for example). Go looser and you end up linking every common word and place name to restaurants that have nothing to do with the thread.
Maybe, over time, with lots of hands-on massaging (do link this, don't link that) it could be useful. But do the Chow techs have the time to do all that tweaking? Given the bigger issues they're constantly dealing with on the site I rather doubt it.
Seems to me like it's just something that is enabled by the site software they're using so they decided to implement it. But not all things that can be done should be done (I have this same problem with the Web site admins for my company). This particular "feature" is producing much more noise than useful information.
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10011 and 10002 are both in Manhattan, not Brooklyn. http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/663298
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Union Square Cafe is now located in Brooklyn as well. Unbelievable. http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/663178
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Okay, I'm voting for this one for REALLY RIDICULOUS -- someone has "no idea" what's in the neighborhood and poof -- "no idea" is a restaurant link. Good job, folks. http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/663178
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re: LNG212
I knew I'd have to eat my words. This one is sooooo much better.
wines by the glass is now "Glass" the restaurant. Gotcha! http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/663257
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This is really getting tiresome.
See http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/659082 . "Chinese food" refers to the cuisine, not to a restaurant name.
<<this feature is way more problematic than is helpful>> YOU SAID IT!
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re: Robert Lauriston
"chinese food"
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/659082
seriously, this 'feature' is way way more problematic than it is helpful.
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"shiso" > Shiso Restaurant.
Same topic, "San Francisco Restaurant" is coming from somewhere. Maybe "San Francisco" in the title?
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"one-star restaurant" > Star Restaurant
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/6613... -
see http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/663219
This post linked to EJ's Luncheonette but only the one on the east side and did not include the one on the west side. Also, some restaurants got links and a bunch of others did not. -
Just came here because I was also confused about this new feature. Read replies quickly, but don't think my question came up: Some replies are getting autolinks attached and some aren't, and the ones that aren't should be in the database. Here's the thread where I noticed this: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/6623...
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re: mselectra
ChowHQ -- are you also interested in places that are NOT appearing, I think because their names are such regular words? One of most recommended places on DC/Balt is Central -- which I just figured out will only link if written as "Central Michel Richard," which no one ever writes. Another example of a DC restaurant is Corduroy, which I could link to manually, but didn't auto-link.
I don't usually check the tech stuff, not on often enough to really notice, so I might just be behind in understanding this. Thanks!
And, is there a way, that I'm too spacey to see, to correct inaccurate info in a link. (Blue Duck Tavern, also in DC, has incorrect location info.)
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re: LNG212
yes, I read through this thread -- I don't think that's happening in DC/Balt, but maybe I haven't noticed (it was only one thread that I was on that got me obsessing about it) -- and like many places we do indeed have a restaurant called Cava.... Definitely a lot worse than what I was talking about.
ETA: OK, I found one: the phrase "United States" autolinked, and I don't think it's even to a restaurant, but to a federal building in DC, funny: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/663261
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Listing for Tulcingo has a Manhattan address. Your map shows it to be located in Brooklyn.
http://www.chow.com/restaurants/14059/tulcingo-del-valleListing for Mole has a Manhattan address. Your map shows it to be located in Brooklyn.
http://www.chow.com/restaurants/1869/... -
On the main restaurant page for New York City is headline "Highest Rated". Included in this is a restaurant in Hartford, CT. Is this like one of those old SAT type questions ... you know, which one of these is not like the other???
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see http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/662788
The person is referring to TJ's as in Trader Joe's. NOT a bar called TJ's. -
So this is getting fun (not really) since every thread I look at has problems.
See http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/662960 . Zip codes 10022 and 10019 are both in Manhattan, not Red Hook Brooklyn.
Oh and by the way, what is "Frnt 1" that's written after most addresses? Who writes an address that way? Boy all this stuff is making me skeptical of ever using Google Maps. They can't seem to get anything right. Or maybe it is your restaurant-listing contractor? Terrible, just terrible.
Edit : Same thread. Why are some places linked to and not all the others mentioned in the same thread?
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re: Ruth Lafler
Another poster said something about the links showing at the bottom of the page on a particular post, and I said I didn't see them. So I decided to try a different brower and voila! there they are -- sort of. On Firefox 3.5, I can't see any of the autolinking features at all today: no names showing in blue in the posts, no list of links or map on the, right column, no links in the posts themselves. Nada. Which is odd, because I could see the blue highlights and the link/map on the right column yesterday when I wrote this post:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/663662#5144607
and then this post:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/6636....
The second post says I hate the linking feature, because I'd added a bunch of manual links, and then when I posted it, they appeared to be completely gone. In other words, yesterday on this computer with this browser I could see the blue highlights and the links/map on the right column, but not the red bubble links at the bottom. Today I can't see any elements of the autolinking feature.In IE (I'm not sure which version), the links in the posts are half loading -- I can see half the red bubble, but not the link itself, and there's nothing when I mouse over it; no map in right column, either. In other words, when I pull up the same post on IE (I'm looking at the Firefox and IE versions at the same time), I can see that the links that do not show (there isn't even blank space in the post window) on Firefox are there, but can't read or access them (and yes, I tried reloading the page).
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re: Ruth Lafler
Wow, that's pretty weird. Firefox 3.5.4, I see no links at all anywhere in the following topic, though I saw them yesterday, and added some myself, and see them in other topics. In MSIE 7.0.5730.13, I see icons where the links should be, but no text. This is on Windows XP SP3.
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/663662
Looks to me like some sort of data corruption.
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"delicious food" links to a restaurant
"bleu" as in cheese links to something else
both in this thread http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/660651 -
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hey check it out ... the Four Seasons is now in Brownsville. I bet they'll love knowing that.
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/657895 -
see http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/616045
One responder mentions cava -- as in the drink. Not some restaurant in CT according to the moronic auto link.
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see http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/663215
Half the map postings from this thread are wrong. Zip code 10003 is now in the Rockaways - I think not.
Also, the person was referring to Arte Cafe, not Arte Restaurant. I think some of your restaurant listings are wrong.
And why would they list the same address twice for for 10009 showing one in Manhattan and one 10009 in Brooklyn. Your map-making contractor needs some help.
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This person talks about being a little full. The stupid "auto link" feature links to a place called Little Cafe in an entirely different state. http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/662979
C'mon, Chow Team, fix this already. Or at least stop it from working until you've gotten the glitches out. Really now.
ETA: and later in that same thread someone mentions a "dairy barn ambiance" and the stupid function links to a restaurant name. Unbelievable.
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http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/663201
The words Sonoma and san Francisco both pull up links for like-named restaurants.
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On the Boston board, any reference to the North End neighborhood becomes a link for a particular restaurant, the North End Cafe:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/663152 -
"Frascati" - I capitalized it, but when I saved and the system created the link, it changed to lowercase. If I click Edit, it returns to uppercase.
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re: Robert Lauriston
This had been turned off, but now El Camino Real restaurant is autolinked to any mention of the street that runs most of the length of California.
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/6983...
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