Strange Choice of Wikipedia Entries Showing on Maps

OJD

I couldn't find a section which seemed appropriate for feedback that wasn't a bug report or a new feature so hopefully this is a good enough location.

I've just started using Kagi maps more and do enjoy it, but I've noticed a strange tendency with the Wikipedia locations of interest pins that pop up. I was looking over North-West England doing some research on a local area, and for some reason the only wiki pins that were showing for the wider region were just disasters. Rail disasters and derailments, air crashes, even an asbestos related disaster. It seems really odd that even when zoomed out far the information you are given is place names, a few locations of interest (often battle sites) and then a strange number of transport related disasters.

Wondering if this is an intended feature which has ended up skewing itself towards disasters? Its not really an issue that much, I'm just really curious as to why its ended up focussing on this. Its the same when I use this on both phone and desktop.

Not a proposed feature - as said I couldn't find an area which seemed appropriate for general feedback not related to bugs or new features. Apologies if I've been an idiot and missed this somehow.

Luis

Thank you for your report. We're currently rebuilding Kagi Maps and this feedback is very helpful.

RoxyRoxyRoxy

Kagi's just trying to keep you safe, now you know what transport and areas to avoid :P. Jokes aside this could be a cool feature if formalized and with accidents toned down, a sort of optional "this happened here" discovery service would be neat especially for tourists.

mrzv

Looking at the map of SF/Oakland, more than half of Wikipedia suggested places are various fires, shipwrecks, oil spills, protests, and other less than uplifting stuff. I don't know what's causing this bias, but it would be nice to make these suggestions less demoralizing.

Here's an example of a specific page (but this is a common theme all over the country): https://kagi.com/maps#11.46/37.8247/-122.3344

More interesting Wikipedia suggestions, maybe varied over time.

jazzthief

Agreed, in my town I saw a tragic accident that resulted in many deaths and a hate-crime / killing. Terrible things to be reminded of when I was trying to find a nice bakery... This is a pretty significant stain on my usually good experience with new Kagi features.

dylansc22

Okay, sincere apologies on this, and doubly that that wasn't addressed faster =(

Just a few minutes ago - I've updated our global wikipedia data layer in production to be more assertive about what we are filtering. It still might not be perfect, but it's much more robust now.... You might need to clear you browser's cached data for the POIs to disappear immediately (see instructions below). Otherwise just give it a day or so and I believe the map-tiles will refresh on their own.

We definitely aren't trying to skew towards strangely controversial historic information -- it just seems that there is a natural bias that historic events (which in turn becomes wikipedia articles with geospatial data) tend to be bias towards negative or controversial topics (not an excuse, just an explanation). Soon we will add a Maps Settings window and users can opt-in to controverisal wikipedia POIs if they care to do so. But yes as of 5 minutes ago they are filtered out.

If you're still finding controversial items you'd like removed, please reply here and I'll resolve it this week.

Dylan
Kagi Maps Lead

You can clear your cache by opening Dev Tools > Application > Clear site data
(screenshot for chrome. I imagine it's similar for other browsers)

cc @OJD @RoxyRoxyRoxy @mrzv @jazzthief @Luis

jazzthief

dylansc22 No worries and thanks for the quick response! I assumed it was just some odd quirk, albeit a particularly unpleasant one. This makes total sense now, I was pretty confused why accidents and shipwrecks would be the main POI's, but for both geo-spatial data is uniquely relevant info to add to the wiki.

bert

Are the wikipedia bubbles meant to be clickable? So that I can read a preview of and/or be taken to the wikipedia article in question? I was surprised to find that they are purely labels with no additional functionality.

RoxyRoxyRoxy

bert It's a known issue: #7275