Talk:User Guide: Deleting Places

A rule for deciding which places should be deleted is equivalent to a rule for deciding which places should be included. It has been said (I think by Koriakine) that every thing visible in the sattelite photographs should be marked, but that can hardly be taken seriously. In many areas individual trees and bushes can be made out in the photographs. A better formulation might be that places should be marked if they are likely to be of interest to people other that the marker and his or her immediate family and friends.

That would rule out “My home”, “Mary's house”, “Place of my first kiss”, “I work here”, etc. These are meaningless to everyone except the marker.

I think it should also normally rule out dwellings of individuals. Wikipedia sets out to be a kind of universal public atlas, not a telephone book, or a directory of individuals. That would rule out “Mr Smith's house”, “Home of A. N. Other BSc”, and “Abul Hamid, Teacher”. Inclusion of the address and telephone number does not I think alter the case, in spite of the famous example in the old FAQ.

There are however some cases where private dwellings probably should be allowed. One is the homes of prominent people, where the address is already publicly available. So I would allow “MP's home”, “Foreign Minister's house”, “Mayor's house” or “Imam's house” as titles, with the name of the individual and his or her claim to fame in the description.

Another is homes associated with famous people, particularly dead ones. “Jane Austin's birthplace”, “Oscar Wilde died here”, etc. Chartwell, the home of Winston Churchill is marked, and probably should be even if it were not a National Trust property open to the public.

Sometimes people wish to mark their homes or other places for a short time only, for example because a part or a wedding is going to be held there, and guests would find the marking useful. That seems harmless, if the tags are deleted after the event.

For many people, marking their homes is clearly attractive, but experience shows that allowing it leads to massive inappropriate marking. Of course, if and when there is a “private home” layer, the situation will be different, but the task of moving existing homes to such a new layer would be a heavy one.

Some places should probably be marked even if nothing shows up on the photogtraph. We already have the World Geodetic Meridian marked at Greenwich, although there is nothing to see on the ground. The sites of several battles are marked, and so are historic locations like the D-Day beaches.

So much for deciding what should be marked. Places that should be deleted are simply those that should not be marked. There remains, however, the process of deletion.

People who have marked places often resent their being deleted, but I have made more than 5,000 deletions, and I can remember only two cases where the original marker enquired why.

First, except for clearly silly or improper places (“where Willy shagged his first sheep”), I always leave a comment. For a private house I paste in “Private houses should no longer be marked in Wikimapia. Do please help us by marking places of public interest, or by editing places that can be improved.” Most of my deletions are in Malaysia, where I include “Rumah biasa seharusnya tidak lagi ditandai di Wikimapia”.

If the place was marked or edited by an active Wikimapian I send a PM rather than deleting. If the user has not been on line for more than a month or so I usually rely on the comment.

This is a discussion, not a draft wiki article, but if the principles set out here are acceptable I'll be happy tp do the article. 04:23, 23 November 2008 206.251.73.138

I think by Koriakine??? Don't even assume you know what he thinks!!! 05:30, 23 November 2008 206.251.73.138

A discussion on a standard for deletions

There has been a forum topic discussing and attempting to form a general, universal standard for deleting, editing, and adding places. It's currently ongoing, and it's on this link.

I would like to suggest a revision of the affected articles once standards are formed and reconciled.

Thanks, --alectan 15:39, 10 March 2009 (UTC)