GeoNames Forum

I'm trying to use the map interface to Geonames.org to add more neighborhoods to the database. The UI is forbidding this, calling it a duplicate record.

Details:
The record I'm trying to add is the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA. The website for the neighborhood is at http://www.silverlakenc.org/
A Wikipedia article is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Lake,_Los_Angeles,_California

The data I want to enter are:

Latitude: 34.08925
Longitude: -118.268586

name: Silver Lake
country: » » »
class : city, village, ...
code : section of populated place
elevation : 114 meter
population : 44351

When I submit this, the error message is

error while saving:
duplicate record. A similar record to Silver Lake already exists with 'Silver Lake Heights' and id =5395891 in 1.5846971627476307 km distance

"Silver Lake Heights" is not a true neighborhood in Los Angeles. It is a tract name from when the area was originally subdivided in the 1920s.

What is the way to override the rejection of my new submission?

Thanks,
—jay

Hi Jay

The duplication check on insertion should help us avoid duplicates in the database. Sometimes people enter new records without first making sure that the record does not already exist.
The wiki implementation is not perfect, it would be nice to give a warning and let the user add the toponym despite the warning.
The check currently only exists on insertion and not on update. As a workaround you can enter the record with a different name to avoid the duplication check exception and immediately afterwards you change the name to the correct name.

Best

Marc