The BBS layer is fast becoming ridiculous and almost unusable in some locations, e.g Washington DC where 10 eagre members have all decided they needed to placemark the Washington Monument.
As Google Earth becomes more popular this problem will soon escalate to a point where the clutter makes it impossible to see the forest for all the trees, so to speak.
something needs to be done soon to save it.

Be assured, we are working on it...

oh mi.. I was just there too, and was quite amused by those postings. But yes, we should NOT produce clutter here, there is quite enough clutter there! (traffic and people and what-not) But someone posted "More Lots Found" there, I then clicked on that and found this! Otherwise I would not have found this. So I like them!

Quote:

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As Google Earth becomes more popular this problem will soon escalate to a point where the clutter makes it impossible to see the forest for all the trees, so to speak.
something needs to be done soon to save it.

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There has been a concerted effort by many to educate and warn people about this very problem. I imagine this last update added as many new placemarks to the Community layer than has been accumulated over the last three years or so. Perhaps now, people will wise up and see the importance of the advice to "look first". They were so intent on becoming an "i" that they simply ignored that advice.

I get a bit of a chuckle thinking about how excited they must have felt when the update was announced.. loading up GE and hunting for their "special" placemark.. and finding it buried under all the others. LOL!

IMHO, one can put flashing lights around a proven fact, highlight it in bold red text (WHOA! Read this first!) on the very page they have to use to post the hundredth placemark for the Statue of Liberty.. and it's like talking to someone in gibberish. They'll just stare at you for a second, say "Isn't that cute", and blast number 101 onto the board.

Here's an idea.. how about a two-step registration process. Completing the first step allows the ability to post questions, read and respond to messages and such. The second step must be completed in order to attach placemarks. Here's the kicker.. The instructions on how to complete that second registration would be "hidden" somewhere that only a "SEARCH" would reveal. I know.. it could be "hidden" in the Answers to Frequently Asked Questions or Collected Keyhole Wisdom areas.. last place anyone would look..



OK.. feeling a bit punchy tonight.. been a long week.

Hey there everyone,

This is a good topic to have out in discussion -- I'm a new member and have made some replies to discussions, but haven't posted any placemarks. Part of this is a concern that places are already covered in pins, flags etc to the point that you can't see the trees for their forest.

Now something that has started to become clear to me, and please correct me if I am wrong, is that these placemarks live only on our individual computers, and not on the Google Earth files as a whole. Lately I have started to weed out some, where they are duplicated. Some of them are even duplications as a result of my clicking a placemark to realize only after I get there that I have already visited.

So as I have started to do my own thinning of placemarks in my files, and sometimes directly after viewing, I have been wondering why it would be a matter that could be so irritating to some, that someone would place a mark in a post that might be a duplication, or even a well-visited spot.

As I mentioned, I am still quite new at all this, so I will be really happy to have any misunderstandings that I might have cleared up, and such clarification may benefit others as well.

All in all, I am really enjoying this program and all the discussions in so many areas of interest about places all over this wonderful planet of ours.

Thanks to you all,

warmest greetings,

Tim

Hi timfitz, welcome to GE!

Depending on WHICH placemarks you're looking at, they can either reside on your own PC or are actually part of the Keyhole Community BBS layer, streamed to you from the Google Earth servers.

Basically, if a placemark is posted on the BBS, then it will probably end up in the BBS layer at the next database update.

Keeping your placemarks neat and organized (and archived out of GE on occasion) is an outstanding habit to get into.

I've been using GE more as a teaching tool (for both myself and my children) than as a "golly! wow! look at the Statue of Liberty!" sort of thing. Creating tours that explicitly map out the history or significance of an item or place is very rewarding, both to myself and to my "pupils". As several here on the board can tell you, I'm fond of adages. A favorite is "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it". It's something I'm trying desperately to instill into my children - GE is shaping up to be the tool that I need to accomplish that task!

Again, welcome to Google Earth, and the Keyhole BBS.

Even though I am fairly new here, this is fast becoming a pet hate (project?) of mine. The horrible clutter on the BBS layer is fast making the BBS layer unusable - I happily decided to visit New York in GE just after the last update was made, only to be shocked to see a swamp of blue i's.

What I don't understand, is why we, as GE's user base, don't do two things in addition to posting to new members when duplicate placemarks are added.

Firstly, can't we get Google Earth to remove some duplicate placemarks from the database. I realise this would require some work, but it's frankly ridiculous that the Statue of Liberty, the Millenium Dome and the Cutty Sark have as many marks as they do. (The Millenium Dome itself is ridiculous, but that's another story). To help with this, we could get people to volunteer to clean up bits of the map - I would gladly volunteer to clean-up some of the London placemarks.

Secondly, can we not ask duplicate posters to edit and remove their placemark from their post, otherwise it will get incorporated into the next Database update. If the user doesn't do this, can we not get the moderators to do it.

Finally, what should we do if there is an error posted. The new thread about the Falklands war, clearly has a wrong placemark. There is NO way it should be incorporated into any future GE database update.

This placemark should be removed.

It is a simple example, but I think could serve to solve future problems as well as making the whole thing easier and friendly to use.

Sorry to bang on about this, but it's fast becoming an obsession for me. Mind you, it beats work.

Maybe we need a voting system. Users can mark dupes, errors, and a course of action recommended. delete or include in the bbs layer. A script could then delete the duplicate attachments.

One thing we should do though that would cut down the problem to 1/10th of the size is limit new users from posting attachments till they have at least 25 posts under their belt.

How about this too. He he, You post a dupe you are fined 25 more posts till you get it before you can post another attachment.