The [map](https://www.synapse.org/#!Map:3389360) seems kind of sparse. I still don't see myself (my location info is in my profile). Right now I see a total of 8 people on the map, but I see 24 people in the [Hackathon project](https://www.synapse.org/#!Team:3389360), so density seems off by a factor of 3. There are also 86 people in the Slack #neurofibromatosis channel, which could mean there are a lot of window shoppers on the SV.AI side that haven't done the Synapse registration. I think the Hackathon will move faster if these people get Synapse-registered and get their data permissioned before Day 1. ${imageLink?synapseId=syn20718254&align=None&scale=100&responsive=true&altText=Sparse map} Also I've figured out how to pan but it's not the usual way for Google maps. The mouse icon shows a hand, which usually allows you to move the map center. The hand doesn't do anything. But if you position the hand over a location and then use the scroll wheel to zoom, it will zoom on that center, which composes a pan and a zoom, so OK.

Created by Lars Ericson lars.ericson
Another approach is to generate a KML file, upload it to Google Maps, and then publish a link to that map. Python has a [package for KML](https://pypi.org/project/simplekml/). Google has a [tutorial](https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/kml) on uploading the KML and linking to the result inside a web page.
Nice. While we won't be able to change this by friday, I might be able to hack together some sort of proof of concept to convince our platform team to adopt an approach like this down the line.
You don't need a Google mentor or app to solve the problem. There is a package in Python for anything you can imagine. [geopy](https://pypi.org/project/geopy/) is one of them. This code ``` from geopy.geocoders import Nominatim geolocator = Nominatim(user_agent="synapse") location = geolocator.geocode("San Francisco") print(location.address) print((location.latitude, location.longitude)) ``` prints ``` SF, California, United States of America (37.7792808, -122.4192363) ``` When I typed in the location into the Synapse profile, it gave a drop-down of suggested locations. So it knows places. You could replace that drop-down or augment it with a pass through geopy. Alternatively, for 26 registered people, someone could stick pins in the map, which would probably be the most expedient solution.
Haha. Based on the correct results in google maps when searching "Davidson, NC, USA" I have suspicion that Google has already solved this problem for their own products but might not be sharing the best results with the public :)
This could be Track 4 with a mentor from Google. Location could be inferred by matching typing style to geolocated text fragments.
One final note, you can also try Davidson, NC to see if google can resolve that, but it's not currently in our location dictionary, so it would take a day or so to find out if that works when the next iteration of this job runs. The majority of hackathon participants haven't included any location in their profile, which is another reason this is so sparse.
Another interesting outcome: there are many variants of San Francisco that should work, including: "San Francisco " "San Francisco, United States" "San Francsico, USA" "San Francisco, CA, USA" but "San Francisco, California, USA"? No dice.
Hi Lars, We had some discussion internally about this. The map relies on a google API that resolves your latitude and longitude from the location in your profile. The results from this api are (at best) unpredictable and can be confusing. For example, here's one mapping that googles API has provided: `"The Moon":[40.51697670000001,-80.22134770000001]` At the end of the day, it's a fun alpha feature that we don't currently have the bandwidth to thoroughly harden. We do have mappings for: "Charlotte, North Carolina Area" "Charlotte, NC" Sorry that it's not super precise, but if you change your profile to one of these, you should show up.
Tagging @brucehoff - Bruce, do you know why this map might not be updating? It hasn't updated since our conversation a couple of weeks ago. Thanks, Robert

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