User Guide: Addresses

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Note that Wikimapia has a "linear feature" call a road which is distinct from the concept presented on this page. The two features are not integrated. For clarity, the linear feature is call "road" and the address feature here is called "street".

Addresses

Address is the WikiMapia feature that allows you to provide addresses for place tags, so that WikiMapia can store and display them on the map in a standard way. It can be very useful. You may, for example, find all place tags' addresses along the same street. The WikiMapia address system is also very important because makes a connection between place tags and the streets marked with street tools.

The address of a place tag in WikiMapia is composed by two fields:

• Street: in this field you should provide the street name, in the same language of the place tag you adding/editing. It's recommended to use full names, including the kind of street (like street, avenue, and so on) . For example, you should write Albert Einstein Avenue, instead of Albert Einstein Ave or even Albert Einstein.

• Building number: in this field, you should provided the number of the building along the street. Note that the number is the same for every language.

Be aware that each city or other jurisdiction generally has a system of street naming and addressing that should be followed. In some cases, the cardinal direction is an integral part of the street name, so that "South Brown Street" is different from "North Brown Street". In other naming conventions, the street is just "Brown Street" and North and South are considered to be part of a building's number, such as "501 N." If you are not familiar with the local naming convention, assume that the direction belongs in the Building number field and don't include it in the Street field.

When you open an addressed place tag, you can click on the street name, opening the street info page. There, you can edit its name, add another language or just see the list of address numbers along this street. Addresses with the building number field that don't start with a number are displayed as 0 in this list. The numbers are links for their related place tags. You can also reach this info page, in street edit mode, if there is a street associated to this address.

Full address systems usually require more fields to define a place exactly. But, if you want to provide a complete address, including city, neighbourhood, zip code, you should put this information in the description field. If you do this, don't forget to put street name and number in the correct address fields, so that WikiMaipa can understand that information as an address. References to nearby places ("next to...") or other street names (in corners, for example) also should be only in description, not in the address field.

In some cases, you may know only the street name, but not the building number. If it occurs, you can leave the building number empty, so that you can fill in after finding out the correct number or anyone else can complete this information. It's not necessary to put '0', or '-' in the number field if you don't know it.

Note that not every place is an addressable object. For example, cities and neighbourhoods usually don't have a specific address. So, you should leave their address fields empty. Don't put the name of an important street name in that region if it's not really the address of the place tag.

Entering an address

C/O :- JANTA HAIR CUTTING SALOON, PRASHURAM NAGAR,RAMNAGAR, CHINCHWAD, PUNE- 411 019.MOBILE NO. 9762309023

While creating a place tag

While crating place tag, only English street names are displayed in the list. If the street name you want to use is in that list (in English), choose this entry. Even if you are adding place tags in another language, the address will be displayed in the correct language (the same of the place tag), after saving the place tag. If it doesn't happen the street doesn't have a translation in your language and you will be able to add it, after (see Languages section).

If you are creating a place tag in a language other than English, don't type the street name unless you are sure there is no other addressed place in the same street. It's not recommended to do that at all, because it's difficult to be sure of that. It avoids creating duplicated entries for the same street. The best way to provide an address in this case is saving the place tag without an address and then editing it again. This way, the correct list, in the same language of the place tag, will appear and you can check if the street name is really nonexistent. While editing, you can use the same rules described above, in the last section.

Languages

As the place tags, streets also can be described in multiple languages. This allows the street name to appear in every place tag info page, in every language it's described. And the street will appears in each page according to the language.

Once a language page has an address, you will not be able to choose names from a list in other languages. It happens because the street name in these other languages should correspond to the translated version with respect to the language page that has already an address. You can provide this translations by two ways:

• By the street info page, that you can reach by clicking on the street name, on any place tag in this street (in the language this street name is already stored). In this street info page, you can select option Add another language under menu and then select the language.

• If there is a place in this street that is already described in the language you want to add, you can choose to edit the place tag in this language. This way, you'll see a text field after Street (instead of a list), where you can type the translated version.

Duplicated names

Since November 2008, WikiMapia has a system to check for duplicated entries in the address system. It tries to avoid creation of duplicated entries, with the same name, referring to the same street. The same system also allows an automatic detection when you want to name a street where there is already an addressed place tag or another nearby homonymous street, associating these entries, making them a unique one.

The system detects duplication in address editions and while naming new streets. But it doesn't detect duplications when users type a new address direct in the address field of a place tag. That's why it's important to check the street names list before choosing Other... and typing a new name. Pay attention also when crating places in a language other than English.

The system is not case sensitive. So Sun street or SUN STREET are considered duplicated entries for Sun Street (which is the recommended form). The checking is made by language. so, if we add a Moon Street in English, there will be no duplication detection if there is already a Moon Street registered in another language (if it doesn't have Moon Street as its English version too, of course).

When the system detects you tried to provide a duplicated entry, a message appears saying "Sorry, there is already a street with the name you entered." and the info page of the existent street opens. In order to do what you attempt or, you should:

• If you were editing an address when received the message, edit the place again and select the correct street name from the list. Remember that, in this case, only this place will be corrected (while editing an address would allow you to correct many places with a unique action). So, to correct all places with the wrong address, you should repeat this process for all of them.

• If you were correcting (editing) a street name in the street edit mode: You should select all segments you want to receive this new, correct name, and then choose the option 'clear (unset) name. Save. Select the segments again and, when naming, choose choose street names from nearest street and check for the name in this list. If it's there and you know there is part of the street already named, select it and save. If there is no part of the street already named, there is probably a homonymous street in the nearby region (read the last paragraph of this section). If the street name is not there, the duplication was caused by a street name from the address system. In this case, you can write the street name in the title and save. The street and the address system will be associated automatically.

Since street names in different cities (or neighbourhoods, in some cases) can have the same name in the real life, WikiMapia checks for duplicated names in a 2 km range only . But there are cases when different streets are homonymous and they are closer than 2 km. There is no final solution to this problem yet. We suggest that you choose one of the streets to put a '.' in the end of the name.

Exceptions

In some regions or cities, the address is not described by a street name and a number. In these cases, try to find an experienced user in this region and ask him/her how you should write the address of these places, adapting the real addressing system to the Wikimapia's one. If you can't find such experienced user, you can follow some examples. If they are not satisfactory, ask the forum and propose your own standard to adapt this local address system.