Distance wrongly calculated for local venues

The Your Local page no longer shows the following venues close to me:
Ely Library: https://www.librarything.com/venue/24893/Ely-Library
Topping and Company bookshop: https://www.librarything.com/venue/7102/Topping-Company

If I go to Local > Your Favorites, where I have the venues saved, these venues (and a couple of others in a neighbouring city) are shown as being '3,620.7 miles' away.

The venue addresses are correct, and the maps on the venue pages show the right location.

I wonder if this has something to do with the resetting of mapping data conceptDawg did last week. I'm seeing something similar on my own local page where some of the ones in my city show as 6,538.4 miles and then the LT Headquarters also shows as that, which clearly doesn't make sense...

Incidentally, these distances are very close to those from latitude and longitude 0,0 and whatever NOAA uses for the cities in question. So it looks like the value for "where you are" is not getting set correctly.

Yes. I'll will need to take a look at this. It could be that our geocoding got your address/location wrong.

>4 conceptDawg: I am experiencing a similar error, where a number of locations are shown as exactly 5,376.5 miles away. It looks like it's random: some incorrect ones are within a mile from me, others thousands of miles away. But not all locations have the error.

Quite a lot of the bookstores on my "Your Visited" list have this bug. Not only is the distance wrong, they also don't appear on the map.

They also are not listed or mapped when you search the geographic location.

However (and maybe this peculiarity will be some clue to solving it), when you open the page for the store, it *is* mapped correctly.

Example: Bank Books in Martinsburg, WV

store page: https://www.librarything.com/venue/110640/Bank-Books

Martinsburg search: https://www.librarything.com/local/place/Martinsburg%2C%20WV

A few of mine have correct distances, then a lot default to 3511.8 miles.

Some, eg https://www.librarything.com/venue/78844/Kims-Bookshop and https://www.librarything.com/venue/69130/The-Works-St-Austell, have correct maps on their pages. Both these were added by other people.

Others, eg https://www.librarything.com/venue/97697/DebRA and https://www.librarything.com/venue/92958/The-Works-Brighton-Marina, do not show on a map on their pages. Both these were added by me.

But then https://www.librarything.com/venue/100127/St-Peter-St-James-Hospice-Shop was added by me but DOES show correctly on the map.

This bug is still on our list, thanks for your patience!

Nearly started re-adding the Little Libraries I added last year, because I couldn't find them on the map - found them 9,000 km away in my Visited Libraries.

Can we resolve this please, it's too far to travel to my local venues now, I haven't been to a bookstore in ages.

Interestingly, for me most of my Favorite venues - across multiple cities including my own - are listed as being 5,524.4 miles away. (My location is close enough to Washington, DC to use that for geolocation purposes). There's one exception in Pasadena, CA which is quoted as being 2,285.7 miles away which is probably pretty close to the correct great-circle distance. So it's an error in pulling "where are the venues" rather than "where are you".

A venue that I previously added was showing up as 5,524,4 miles away from me, so I "edited" the address (added a space and then backspaced) and hit save and voila! Now it's 3 miles away from me.

I'm not doing this for all of them, though, so do please fix.

Incidentally, for those wondering about the same distance for norabelle414 and myself, we're in the same city. I can also confirm that editing a venue fixes the problem - at least temporarily. I just changed it this morning, so I can't confirm that the fix persists.

Coincidentally I stumbled upon this wikipedia link today:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_Island

I've encountered the issue before - anyone who's worked with geocoded data has - but not the term.

Just thought I'd mention that the bug is still there.
(I was just inspired by some Tweets from Tim to check the book stores I had marked as visited and was surprised to see that I had only visited one book store in Boston! About an tenth of my visited bookstores have their actual coordinates, the rest appear to be at 0,0. Figured there might be something about it in talk.)

I imagine that whatever has caused this also caused this previous issue: https://www.librarything.com/topic/297971#n8081415

Yeah, I noticed that too. LT seems to count from city center, instead of from actual location. (Across the road is apparently .4 miles away).
But, frankly, I'm more upset about LT insisting on using miles instead of kilometers. That arcane system of measurements is pretty much meaningless to the rest of the world.

Did a quick count. 62 of 251 bookstores I've marked as visited are in their correct locations. The rest are at point 0,0. It looks as if there is a slight, but noticeable bias, so that bookstores in Europe are less likely to be mispositioned than those in North America.

>17 Nicole_VanK: "But, frankly, I'm more upset about LT insisting on using miles instead of kilometers. That arcane system of measurements is pretty much meaningless to the rest of the world."

LOL! I always get a kick out of non-American based users bitching about American based companies/platforms having the audacity to use...American standards. Why on earth should LT use km when well over 50% of LT users are based in the U.S.?

>19 Taliesien: LOL! I always get a kick out of non-American based users bitching about American based companies/platforms having the audacity to use...American standards. Why on earth should LT use km when well over 50% of LT users are based in the U.S.?

Er... because using SI ("metric") is the right thing to do? (Before you ask, I'm an American.)

Stupidest thing we ever had to do in college was solve physics problems in imperial units. Took longer, the error rate was higher because all the conversion factors were different, and if we'd been doing it for real, we'd have had to translate the result into SI anyway because no one would publish an article where you didn't know whether a "pound" was a unit of force or a unit of mass, and if it was a unit of force, then you had to refer to a mass in "slugs."

If I recall correctly, a subsequent edition of the textbook finally got rid of the last problems in imperial units. Even when I was in college, in the 1980s, it was only the old professors who assigned problems in imperial units; the rest all assigned only problems using MKS (SI wasn't yet the standard, but the difference between MKS and SI is minor).

Look, it would be great if LT let you measure distance chains, or measure the volume of books in pottles, or measure the mass in mass-grains. For that matter, if I were designing a unit of distance, the basic unit would be .211 meters. But if there is only one unit possible, it has to be SI units. Most people know what they are, and even Americans know where to find converters. :-)

As an aside... ask yourself what units the original Taliesin used. :-) No, it wasn't SI -- but it sure wasn't British Imperial units. :-)

>20 waltzmn: "Er... because using SI ("metric") is the right thing to do? (Before you ask, I'm an American.)"

Define "right thing"? Don't though, since my point is, it's purely subjective and you being an American notwithstanding, you are in the clear minority.
https://today.yougov.com/topics/society/articles-reports/2022/08/15/do-americans...

I don't really care about British Imperial units as it's been long enough now I think of everything as United States customary unit. "Everyone else" in the world can do what they want but luckily they don't get to tell us what to do. Miles as a unit of measurement has meaning in the U.S. and that's all that really matters. The creator of TSG is British and it's a British based platform with some British-centric functions (like non-editable buy links for UK based shops) but I'm not going to get my panties in bunch over the fact that a British developer developed a British based platform that includes some functionality that is not useful for me, a non-British user. Good gawd. The absurdity of the entitlement epidemic I've witnessed online the last 5+ years is astonishing. I lost count of how many users over on GR whinged about holiday/seasonal promotions over the years, like "Best books of Fall" caused a meltdown down under from some users who were incensed about it because it was Spring there and how dare GR "exclude" them by celebrating something they weren't experiencing. This weird cult of "it needs to apply to everyone everywhere equally or it shouldn't exist" is nuts.

Luckily I won't be forced to conform (aka assimilate to the Hive mind) in my lifetime even though as a child in elementary school (70's) I was told it was inevitable and I had to learn the metric system anyway. I can use it if necessary but rarely have had to in over 50 years. Imagining songs like "I Can See for Miles" with lyrics of "I can see for kilometers and kilometers" ugh, horrifying. Even worse, "I'm just a about a moonlight kilometer down the road" *shudders* The aesthetics alone of replacing the smooth one syllable term with the 4 syllable one from an artistic perspective is ghastly.

>21 Taliesien:

Since most of this response is not relevant, I will simply respond to the question asked:

Define "right thing"?

That which makes it possible to find the most accurate answer to questions with the minimum amount of effort, with the least risk of error, while making the system easier to learn, and maximizing the ability to communicate with all people.

Of course the SI system is not perfect in this regard, and I would prefer a perfect system. Since I don't have that option, I will take the best system I am offered. And if by some unlikely chance a better system should somehow be offered (as, in fact, happened early in my lifetime, when CGS was replaced by MKS/SI), I hope I will still be open-minded enough to change.

>22 waltzmn: "Since most of this response is not relevant, I will simply respond to the question asked:"

Except I didn't ask. It was a rhetorical exercise to point out the subjectivity of such terminology. Perhaps you stopped reading after my first three words. :D

>23 Taliesien: Except I didn't ask. It was a rhetorical exercise to point out the subjectivity of such terminology.

Others might have been interested. Or might simply be curious and wish to learn.

Certainly I try to keep an open mind about others' reasons. This of course does not require me to agree, particularly in the absence of evidence.

Whatever is causing this bug, it seems to be gradually expanding, like the Nothing in The Neverending Story. Almost all the venues on my Your Visited and Your Favorites lists have migrated to Null Island.

I've had to update the location references for venues.
This takes some time to process, but the locations for venues should be getting updated over the next 24 hours. Most of the popular venues have already been updated so you may see some improvement already.

>26 conceptDawg: Many thanks! I'm not sure who else besides ndrose and I have been inconvenienced by this problem, which has been persistent for the last couple of years. Your fix has brought my total number of venues visited on Null Island from 189 down to 9. Still wish I could get those last nine placed properly somehow. But this is great news.

I’ve still got one Null Island site in my favourites, but it’s a defunct bookshop so that doesn’t really matter. The location seems to be correct on its own page, only the location relative to me comes out wrong. https://www.librarything.com/venue/13610/The-Barbican-Bookshop-York

The weird one is the Central Library in The Hague, which appears in the correct place on its own page (https://www.librarything.com/venue/2671/Openbare-Bibliotheek-Den-Haag-Centrale-Bibliotheek ), but is shown on my “favourites” page as being 112.6 miles away from me, somewhere in the woods near Kirchhellen in Germany.

BTW: didn’t there use to be a way of switching to SI units? I can’t cope with your American miles…

>28 thorold: BTW: didn’t there use to be a way of switching to SI units? I can’t cope with your American miles…

Please don't blame all Americans for the use of Imperial units. I'm American, and I already got into a fight here once when I argued that SI should be the default because, well, they're SI. :-)

Hmmmm. Looked again, and see that I now have thirteen venues on Null island. I'm not sure if I was just sloppy counting the last time or if Null Island is starting to grow again. I'm going to try to monitor.

I don't see any common thread to the places that are now on Null Island. Several of the stores are now defunct. But a couple are very active with lots of visitors. Eight of the thirteen are from large cities.(Two are on Cecil Court. London's used book street) At least one of them, Port Richmond Books, was on Null Island back in 2019 when I first noticed the issue. I don't remember if the others were or not.

Just thought I'd list my Null Island 13, in case anyone can figure out what they have in common that would send them to Null Island.

Book Asylum, Blackwood NJ https://www.librarything.com/venue/107620/The-Book-Asylum
Port Richmond Books, Philadelphia https://www.librarything.com/venue/73924/Port-Richmond-Books
Side Show Books, Los Angeles https://www.librarything.com/venue/55823/SideShow-Books
Old Scrolls Book Shop, Stanley NY https://www.librarything.com/venue/49319/Old-Scrolls-Book-Shop
Westsider Used and Rare Books, New York City https://www.librarything.com/venue/44416/Westsider-Used-and-Rare-Books
Universitatsbuchhandlung Elwert, Marburg, Germany https://www.librarything.com/venue/34743/Universitätsbuchhandlung-Elwert
Tim Bryars, Ltd, London https://www.librarything.com/venue/33148/Tim-Bryars-Ltd
Storey's, Ltd, London https://www.librarything.com/venue/33144/Storeys-Ltd
The Bookshop, Wigtown, Scotland https://www.librarything.com/venue/25827/The-Bookshop
The Book Lady Book Store, Savannah https://www.librarything.com/venue/15133/The-Book-Lady-Bookstore
Shelter Bookshop, Edinburgh, Scotland https://www.librarything.com/venue/10967/Shelter-Bookshop
Alias Books, Los Angeles https://www.librarything.com/venue/4760/Alias-Books
Acadia Art and Rare Books, Toronto https://www.librarything.com/venue/5746/Acadia-Art-and-Rare-Books

These also do not turn up if I search on a location for venues. So, for example, when I search Wigtown (the Hay on Wye of Scotland), there is no The Bookshop: https://www.librarything.com/local/place/Wigtown

Somewhat obsessive of me, I know.

I checked the venues mentioned earlier in this thread by other folks.

In their proper place now: Ely Library, Topping and Company, Bank Books, The Works Brighton, The Works St. Austell.
Still on Null Island: Kim's Bookshop, DebRA, Barbican Bookshop.

I am also seeing a slow drift back to Null Island (eleven venues so far). All of them map correctly when you go to the page for the venue, but on my "your visited" they do not.

Also, Librairie Nelligan in Quebec City (which also maps correctly on its own page) on "your visited" maps to Ottawa. Not sure if there are any other anomalies.

I have two venues that are still on Null Island, plus this venue:

"Marigold Library System - Carbon Public Library
Bruce Avenue & Glengary Street, Carbon, AB T0M 0L0 Canada"

says that it's 1.6 miles away but it should actually be several thousand miles away.

Ugh. Ok. eventually this is going to take a bigger rework in how that code references the locations. It's on my (long) list.

I have been able to fix some of them (including Librairie Nelligan) by making small changes to their addresses, such as adding a zip code, or even, in a couple of cases where I couldn't see anything that could be improved, by an "edit" that consisted of retyping the exact same thing. Seems like any edit induces the system to rethink the location. I'll try doing the rest of them on my list when I have time.

Whether the venues will stay put, or drift back, I don't yet know.

Could I piggyback on this topic to note that among my local venues (in Brisbane, Australia) is Norli Stavanger, a bookshop in Norway. The error may have something to do with the postcode for it being given as "4006", a Norwegian postal code that looks like an Australian postcode. Still, its country is clearly shown as Norway. I tried re-typing the postal code (as suggested by >36 ndrose: ), but no good.

ETA I didn't scroll down far enough! I also have, further down the list, a bookshop in Chapel Hill NC; a library in Ibadan, Nigeria; and the National Library of Uzbekistan.

>37 haydninvienna: I think I got Norli Stavanger out of the Brisbane local venues. I removed "Norway" from the State/Territory field. Also got the North Carolina, Nigeria, and Uzbekistan venues to move out of the Brisbane local venues.

>38 lesmel: Thank you! looks fine now.

Another bit of weirdness: just fooling around, I put "Wauchope" (country town in New South Wales where my step-daughter lives) into the "local" search field and got 1 result:

Nature et Découvertes (4.2 miles)
Centre Commercial Les Quatre Temps, Paris-La Défense, 92092 France.

Although I'd like to be able to drive seven miles from Wauchope and be in France, I'd need a wardrobe big enough to fit a Toyota Camry into. Putting "Port Macquarie" (larger town on the coast) into the search box gets the same result.

See also https://www.librarything.com/topic/366767.

>41 MarthaJeanne: Interesting to see this pop up again. I set up a thread to monitor the growth of "Null Island" a while ago: https://www.librarything.com/topic/353302#n8598484 As it happens, there has been very little growth since a spurt at the end of 2023. Only three venues from my visited list were added in 2024, the last one in August.