#0030: Missing Cities in the WoT Assurer Location list

There are quite a number of cities reportet that are missing in the WoT Assurer Location list. There should be a way to add cities or at least a procedure to get an admin to do so.

Please add missing cities to this bugreport.

A workaround is currently to add youself to the next listed city.

http://www.meridianworlddata.com/Matrix.asp?guid=871B5C40-18AD-49E2-A487-80D1F02015E0&Product_int_id=158&Region_int_id=113&Edition_int_id=100&License_str_type=Non-Profit This is a global cities database that we could use for CAcert, the price for non-profit usage is $ 389.95 Everyone who wants to donate money to CAcert to be able to buy that database, please contact CAcert.

Missing/Wrong Cities

Chris set status to Open, 2005-06-28

Missing Cities:

Just found:

Wrong City Names:

French Cities/Dept not accepted by the system (Unable to find suitable location) Note that they exists in the 2005-2 UN/Locode list:

It is simply impossible to select ANY french city ! Even Paris is refused by the system. That is a really big problem that should be worked around shortly.

Comments

An answer on cacert-support: 

The problem is that the list that makes up all the country/city locations
came from the U.N. (http://www.unece.org/locode/).
This was done to avoid political squabbles (China vs. Taiwan, Balkan
States, etc.,) where boundaries are ill-defined/disputed, etc.
But as we see there are a few folks who live in places that don't easily
get categorized.
I personally don't know what an acceptable solution might be - If you
have any thoughts on this get in contact with us.

An answer on cacert-support (2005-01-23): 

I checked and the data set we imported is the more recent...

A User on cacert-support writes: 

The real problem is not that some places are missing. Do you really want
a list with all, even the tiniest, places of the world on it? I think
everyone can live with having to choose as his/her location the most
near-by bigger place. The real problem is that places are missing which
are (much) bigger than some places in the same area which are mentioned
on the list.
Couldn't CAcert for every country appoint a "locations coordinator"
authorised to add/remove places to/from the list and also responsible
for the hierarchical structure (from the whole country, via smaller
regions like states and provinces to cities). Whether a location is
"entitled" to be included could be determined by the number of Assurers
in that location. Or the maximum nr of locations per country could be
determined by the total nr of Assurers in that country and the coordinator
is given the choice to subdivide. The coordinator should also have the
right to "move" Assurers when he reorganises (parts of) the list when
the WOT grows.
Further I suggest that it should only possible to register at the lowest
level (now there are already people registering at the top "world" level).
When you search the list and select a level all Assurers from locations
falling (hierarchically) under that level should be shown. E.g. when I
select Netherlands I should find all Assurers from the Netherlands; when
I select the province Drenthe, I should find all Assures in Drenthe; when
I select the city of Assen, I should find all Assurers in Assen and in
de surroundings villages which are too small to be mentioned separately.

Duane writes: 

> The real problem is not that some places are missing. Do you really want
> a list with all, even the tiniest, places of the world on it? I think
> everyone can live with having to choose as his/her location the most
> near-by bigger place. The real problem is that places are missing which
> are (much) bigger than some places in the same area which /are/
> mentioned on the list.
Actually every location in Australia is added based on information
obtained from the Australia Post website (along with long/lat
information), after that I added a search box to make finding locations
easier and with good reason, one side of Sydney to the other at peak
hour can take 1.5 to 3 hours depending where you are and where you're
going to so finding someone in a suburb close by is also useful.
Alternatively very few regional locations were added and apart from
cities and built up areas Australia is a very big place with very few
people so if the nearest town was 300km away it's might not very useful.
Now I can say for certain that the places added for Australia are 100%
correct as I live here. Most of us can't say the same thing about all
other countries and there in lies the problem. I have worked on the
NodeDB site now since May 2002, and in that time I get emails all the
time from people in different parts of the world making one claim or
another about their regions, only to have other people making other claims.
At the end of the day there is already too many political issues
surrounding CAcert and I was hoping by using the UN list this would
prevent these same geo-political issues from creeping into CAcert as
it's a pain in the butt to deal with.
> Couldn't CAcert for every country appoint a "locations coordinator"
> authorised to add/remove places to/from the list and also responsible
> for the hierarchical structure (from the whole country, via smaller
> regions like states and provinces to cities). Whether a location is
> "entitled" to be included could be determined by the number of Assurers
> in that location. Or the maximum nr of locations per country could be
> determined by the total nr of Assurers in that country and the
> coordinator is given the choice to subdivide. The coordinator should
> also have the right to "move" Assurers when he reorganises (parts of)
> the list when the WOT grows.
The previous site was a free for all, and we ended up with a lot of
inconsistencies and this in itself is a bad thing as well, as the same
town could potentially be added multiple times, such as with one or more
that occurred in Scotland. One person had listed Scotland as a separate
country while another had listed it as part of the UK.
The UN list consisted of 2 csv files and these fail to correctly cross
reference each other and well 14 or so countries have towns/suburbs etc
listed under a region of "Unknown" and I've never worked out the best
solution on how to let people fix this.
> Further I suggest that it should only possible to register at the lowest
> level (now there are already people registering at the top "world"
> level). When you search the list and select a level all Assurers from
> locations falling (hierarchically) under that level should be shown.
> E.g. when I select Netherlands I should find all Assurers from the
> Netherlands; when I select the province Drenthe, I should find all
> Assures in Drenthe; when I select the city of Assen, I should find all
> Assurers in Assen /and/ in de surroundings villages which are too small
> to be mentioned separately.
I'm thinking of making anyone that hasn't listed themselves in a
sub-area be hidden, some of the people showing haven't updated their
info since before the site change over either... As for Philipp's
comment about all of Europe, this could be misleading as I assume they
don't mean all of Europe but a few cities in Europe...

An user-comment: 

I heard now that the list comes from the UN trading department, so the list
contains mostly places with international traiding sites ...

Comment from Rumen Avramov: 

Why not use the current list and assign some "well known" members as location coordinators.
This way you'll get the job done by people that are somewhat trusted or at least known and
it will be clear who does what.

Comment from John Pinner: 

I work in Birmingham, the second largest city in the United Kingdom, which is in the West
Midlands region. West Midlands is not listed, and Birmingham has just two of its many
suburbs listed, so I can't register 'correctly'. Rather than list all the suburbs, the
simplest solution would be to allow the user to set their location (in my case) as
'Birmingham', ie at a higher level, rather than registering at an incorrect lower-level
location. This would allow people to register meaningfully, without having to add lots of
low-level locations. As it is I have registered near where I live, which isn't in Birmingham.

Comment from Brian (user): 

All the biggest cities in Fraance are missing - just like John said, adding the main ones (just a few) could really help. Adding the top 10 (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandes_villes_de_France) could really make a difference. I could look up these cities in the UN listing and give you the right names.

Comment from Laurent (user): 

And why do not add all major city from each department for the France (ex: Toulouse for Haute-Garonne, Nantes for Loire-Atlantique, Lyon for Rhône, etc...). It will be an good start to add with the account localisation
----
Add 2007-11-22:
I find a cvs text file, with ALL cities in France in the IGN web site, at http://www.ign.fr/rubrique.asp?rbr_id=2749&lng_id=FR
This is the RGC cathegory, with the “Télécharger le RGC® sur la France métropolitaine” and the “Télécharger le RGC® sur les DOM” links.

Comment from Nicolas (user): 

I stress the point hat there currently is NO locations available for France.  Could we have AT LEAST one ?

Comment from SaschaVogt (user): 

Just want to add, that there are many tiny cities listed for Germany. E.g there are three smaller cities around my location, which are listed. So I cannot get the logic behind this ;)
I vote for a possibility to get cities added!

ContentReviewTeam/case0030 (last edited 2009-12-09 03:02:28 by UlrichSchroeter)