Adding to the TeaMap - owners only?

by **Wosret** » Aug 18th, '08, 14:57

Adding to the TeaMap - owners only?

by Wosret » Aug 18th, '08, 14:57

I noticed that there are very few tea rooms listed in Canada on the TeaMap, and would love to remedy that. My question is: is it intended only for shop owners to add themselves to the map? The button to add a shop says: "Shop Owners: Not yet listed?" so I wanted to find out if I'm actually allowed to add tea rooms to the map myself, though I own none.

Facebook · by **ilya** » Aug 18th, '08, 17:22

by ilya » Aug 18th, '08, 17:22

Wosret,

We would appreciate any tearooms you may add to the list. The wording does seem to imply this feature is for owners only, but we intended for TeaMap to be an open directory where everyone contributes both new tearooms, as well as reviews.

Ilya

by **Wosret** » Aug 18th, '08, 20:59

by Wosret » Aug 18th, '08, 20:59

Sweet, thanks! I'll be going to town, then.

by **chamekke** » Aug 18th, '08, 22:05

by chamekke » Aug 18th, '08, 22:05

Hi Ilya!

I tried adding a tearoom for British Columbia, but it hasn't appeared yet. Does the system require some time before it appears, or does it need to be approved by a human before it goes up? I'm wondering if I need to resubmit it.

Also, if I may make a usability suggestion... rather than having a single Location combo box (drop-down menu), it would be even better to provide a Country combo box, and then a second combo box called something like State/Province/Region, whose selections would be based on what is chosen from the Country combo box.

That way, the Canadian user wouldn't have to scroll down down down every time they want to look at a selection from Canada. And the poor British are at the very bottom of the list, which means even more scrolling for those from the veritable Land of the Victorian Teapot :wink:

And lastly, Alberta appears twice on the Location menu (under the Canada section), so you might want to take the second one off.

Last edited by chamekke on Aug 18th, '08, 22:16, edited 1 time in total.

by **chamekke** » Aug 18th, '08, 22:14

by chamekke » Aug 18th, '08, 22:14

I tried again with the same tearoom, and attempted to add another for good measure, but neither of them showed up on the British Columbia page.

Seems to me that a long time ago, I did try to use the feature, but it never worked so I assumed that it wasn't meant to be.

Wosret, have you been successful in adding any listings yet?

by **Wosret** » Aug 18th, '08, 22:47

by Wosret » Aug 18th, '08, 22:47

I just tried, chamekke, but there's no Ontario listed under Province, currently. All the other provinces are there, and it's only provinces (and not states or UK locations), so maybe your earlier suggestion has already been put into place?

by **chamekke** » Aug 18th, '08, 23:09

by chamekke » Aug 18th, '08, 23:09

Wosret wrote:I just tried, chamekke, but there's no Ontario listed under Province, currently. All the other provinces are there, and it's only provinces (and not states or UK locations), so maybe your earlier suggestion has already been put into place?

I wonder if you and I are navigating differently? Are you using the Search field perhaps? If you try entering "Ontario" into the Search field, one of the results is the Site Map webpage, which only lists the American states. It doesn't show any Canadian provinces, nor does it include regions in the United Kingdom. I think it's safe to say that the site map needs to be expanded just a wee bit.

When I first went to the homepage, http://www.teamap.com, I could see no way to get to Canadian listings except by clicking the Location drop-down menu at upper right. There is no other drop-down menu that can be used. The default selection on this menu is "Choose..." and when you click on it, the menu selections are split into three sections:

United States
Alabama
Alaska...

then, 50 states and the District of Columbia later:

Canada
Alberta
British Columbia
Alberta...

(the list includes Alberta twice, and Ontario's there too, as are all the other provinces and territories)

then:

United Kingdom
London
North West
North East...

And so forth. My guess is that this is how most of us non-Yankees will probably try to navigate the site.

(Incidentally, the U.K. list lacks any mention of Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man, but perhaps they're included under North West :wink:

The Republic of Ireland and the rest of Europe aren't there... yet!)

Anyway, I do see Ontario on the Location list, and when I select it, it takes me to the Ontario Reviews page. The only problem then is, there are no reviews on it yet. The B.C. page doesn't have anything either, although I did try to enter a couple of tearooms as a kindness to their owners.

The only thing I can think of is that TeaMap may have a policy of contacting the tearoom owners via the provided e-mails prior to uploading the listings, in which case Daniela of Silk Road and Tamae of Kissako are both going to be very surprised to learn that they've been added to TeaMap!

P.S. The zip code field only works for 5-digit zip codes. It doesn't allow the 9-digit zips, nor the six-alphanumeric Canadian postal codes or the up to 7-alphanumeric British post codes. That could be why it's called a zip code field, of course! Anyway, just thought I'd mention it in case anyone hoped to use it to look up the nearest tearooms in Canada or the UK.

by **chamekke** » Aug 18th, '08, 23:56

by chamekke » Aug 18th, '08, 23:56

Here are the last of the ~70 selections on the Location drop-down menu:

by **Wosret** » Aug 19th, '08, 14:36

by Wosret » Aug 19th, '08, 14:36

I used the drop-down menu to select Ontario as my location, then clicked on the "add your tearoom" button on the right. The popup window that asks for the name of the shop and location doesn't have Ontario in the Province drop-down menu, that I can see! It's even alphabetical, and only has one Alberta, so something's wonky between the two drop-down menus.

by **chamekke** » Aug 19th, '08, 15:33

by chamekke » Aug 19th, '08, 15:33

Wosret wrote:I used the drop-down menu to select Ontario as my location, then clicked on the "add your tearoom" button on the right. The popup window that asks for the name of the shop and location doesn't have Ontario in the Province drop-down menu, that I can see! It's even alphabetical, and only has one Alberta, so something's wonky between the two drop-down menus.

Oh, I see. Yes - that would be a major handicap to adding tearooms for Ontario - Canada's most populated province!

by **Chip** » Aug 19th, '08, 15:46

by Chip » Aug 19th, '08, 15:46

I will forward this to the site admin. Sorry for the difficulty you have been having.

by **Wosret** » Aug 19th, '08, 16:50

by Wosret » Aug 19th, '08, 16:50

Thanks, Chip!

Facebook · by **ilya** » Aug 19th, '08, 17:39

by ilya » Aug 19th, '08, 17:39

Worset,

Sorry about this issue. We are working to update TeaMap slightly and I will make sure this is fixed for the release (hopefully later this week).

Ilya

by **chamekke** » Aug 19th, '08, 19:34

by chamekke » Aug 19th, '08, 19:34

ilya wrote:Worset,

Sorry about this issue. We are working to update TeaMap slightly and I will make sure this is fixed for the release (hopefully later this week).

Ilya

Ilya, did you also note my comments about being unable to add a tearoom even when the province does appear in the drop-down menu?

There were a couple of other issues, but that was by far the most serious.

Even if Ontario is added to the drop-down menu on the "Add a Tearoom" pop-up window, the system won't be able to save Wosret's contribution - judging from my own attempts to save records for British Columbia.

by **chamekke** » Aug 22nd, '08, 11:23

by chamekke » Aug 22nd, '08, 11:23

My three efforts to add tearooms to the British Columbia page did not work.

I think that maybe TeaMap does not work for Canada :cry: