What the "Whoa!" phrase does not tell us newbies is that our attached placemark will end up amongst the I's. Perhaps others entering the BBS for the first time easily make that connection, but I did not. In fact, until I read this thread, I was puzzled as to why it might be a problem if multiple people posted similar placemarks - after all, from my perspective, I was just downloading them one at a time from the postings, picking the individual placemarks I fancied.

Rob

As a newbie I have made most of the common mistakes; duplicates etc. But I have gone back and deleted or edited my posts when my errors were pointed out to me. Starting to use GE causes one to be sparked with enthusiasm, and eager to join the fun before learning all the things one should know. Yes, I eventually read the tutorials, collected wisdom etc. and gradually learned ( still am ).

Now for my $0.02 worth. Why not, before allowing a member to upload placemarks, make them pass a quiz covering the things covered in the documentation? It should include editing and deleting posts, using search etc.

Hope this helps to keep the conversation going on ways to improve GE.

I don't think you will ever solve the problem with the current way of maintaining the BBS layer. As long as everyone can freely add to it, it is bound to end up as a useless mass of redundant placemarks. New people don't know about the rules, and moderators can inform about it thousands of time, it's not going to help. That is the price you have to pay when making things open for everyone to maintain, it seems like a good idea at the start, but it usually ends up as something that runs out of control. Just wait until people begin spamming the BBS layer with all forms of advertising as they do in emails.

Another thing: It is not always that simple to just say "turn on the BBS layer" or "do a search" before posting a placemark to see if it is already there, because some of the additions include many placemarks that is somehow connected, and it would be wrong to leave one out just because someone else has already posted it. Let's say that you want to post a folder containing placemarks of rollercosters in various amusement parks (it does actually exist). Should you then leave out the ones that are already mentioned, so you don't get double placemarks? I think that would be wrong. The collection should contain all rollercoasters regardless of other peoples existing placemarks.

Well there should be a "report duplicate " link in the description of each placemark.

Another solution would be to scan the world, looking for close placemarks containing the same words and regrouping them under a single one (and listing all the BBS links in the description)

Get rid of the BBS data file and let us start over.

Some one need to set up a poll and we could vote.
1. Trash the old BBS data file.
2. Leave it alone.
3. Report duplicates and have someone remove them.
4. Right a program. to get rid of the bad data.
5. Just do something else to fix it.

Why use the BBS layer at all? I never have it turned on, so I don't care if places are marked multiple times. I use the forum to find interresting information, and follow the links from there, so why care if the same place has been marked by someone else?

Get rid of the BBS data file and let us start over.

Some one need to set up a poll and we could vote.
1. Trash the old BBS data file.
2. Leave it alone.
3. Report duplicates and have someone remove them.
4. Right a program. to get rid of the bad data.
5. Just do something else to fix it.

Ok add
6: Leave BBS layer off.

as i said earlier, its easy to automatically merge duplicated placemarks...
it would occupy the server for a couple of minuts but would clean up most of the duplicates (while leaving the links to each post )

I can write the code in an hour or two, and im sure the GE team can also.

Here that GE hire the man.