There are many out there who think I am some sort of paid shill for Microsoft, but I am not.

I will admit that posts like How to avoid stepping in it help these people prove their point, since I felt free to poke a bit of fun at Google for making a bit of a geopolitical boo-boo in Google Earth.

But on the other hand, I also have been known to point out now and again when Microsoft products make mistakes, so when regular reader Mike pointed out in the Suggestion Box:

I just installed Family Tree Maker 2008, which has a new Places feature linking births/deaths/marriages etc to Microsoft Virtual Earth map data. I was somewhat bemused to see that suggestions for placenames (presumably derived from the MS geodata) included "Wales, England" and "Ireland, United Kingdom". I think it would come as a shock to both Wales and Ireland to find that they are parts of these entities. Wales and NORTHERN Ireland are part of the United Kingdom, and Wales and all of Ireland are part of the British Isles, but it's a bit of a concern to see the data generating such politically-sensitive nonsense.

I am not afraid to say that if it repros then it is a bug that should be fixed (no matter whose bug it is), though to be honest I don't know if it is true since I cannot make either show up for me in http://maps.live.com/ .

Now I can type Wales, England into the search box with the Map option and see Wales, but the search string is no longer there so it could just be them trying to be helpful for someone ignorant of the political situation. They certainly find a msp either way so for the site at least it looks like they are just being polite and not calling someone who visits ignorant? :-)

I do note that a similar search of Ireland, United Kingdom can't find anything while Northern Ireland, United Kingdom gives me a map so they do seem to have either fixed this problem and not added any "helpful yet maybe offensive to a few people" hints!

(I did get a single tack without a map that said Ireland, Shetland Islands, Scotland, United Kingdom in it -- clearly it recognized the ill-formed nature of my query?)

So without knowing how to query the data the way Family Tree Maker 2008 does, I do not honestly think I can determine with certainty whose bug this in fact is (if it still repros?).

Though to be honest, as long as the map that wsa displayed was of Northern Ireland rather than all of it, I would have a hard time calling the Ireland, United Kingdom offensive -- since it kind of silently corrected you. It is definitely worse to show the incorrect text than to respond to a query, though if Family Tree Maker 2008 is doing this then it should be fixed no matter whose bug it is (and if it is Microsoft's I still think fixing it would be a good idea!).

The Virtual Earth side of things from the site seems to be working well now, in any case.  But if something isn't then I am certainly not above the occaional nudge in the right direction now and again, whether in a Microsoft product/service, or the products/services of anyone else. :-)

 

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