Don’t backdate publication dates!#305

I’ve had places published showing a date months before the actual publication date, most recently this one:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/i-b-perrine-bridge
which is dated April 15th, 2023 but actually showed up on August 15th. The problem is these newly published places now show up way back in the archives along with the places actually published at the posted time. This is not a big deal long-term, of course, as people look thru the Atlas and find places of interest to them irrespective of publication date (or at least they can find them if the places are showing up on the map correctly). However, it means you can’t count on staying up to date just by following the most recent publications! Which is a bit of a nuisance–

Hi @slgwv, thank you for flagging this! It looks like this was an error, which I have corrected on this particular post.

We don’t backdate entries on purpose, but because of the way we set publication dates, it’s possible to accidentally backdate a Place entry. I’ll mention this to the other editors so we can keep a close eye on it, and make sure that all the publication dates are set correctly.

@Michelle Cassidy this might be one of the most drastic cases, it went up either yesterday or today, backdated to 2022: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/trains-to-life-trains-to-death

Thanks @linkogecko, I’ve corrected the date on that one as well.

@Michelle Cassidy, this one might have the right date as it’s today, just the wrong year in 2022: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/empress-sissi-statue-budapest

Looks fixed now–

@Michelle Cassidy this article says that it was published in 2022, which isn’t right, it was only published today although it was submitted in 2021.
Please can it be fixed?

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/namdaemun-south-korea?utm_campaign=website&utm_source=sendgrid.com&utm_medium=email

@katielou106 sorry about that, it’s been fixed!

Hi again @Michelle Cassidy. I think these two are affected as well:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/great-well-of-ome-shinmachi
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/lillian-nordica-homestead-museum-maine

@Michelle Cassidy another one I think: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tyrolean-tubtwist-yarmouth

@Michelle Cassidy seems like this was another case of right date, wrong year: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/genoa-castella-narrow-guage-railway

And not sure if the 2 Places from two posts above were looked into.

Hi @Michelle Cassidy, I’m pretty sure this one was backdated: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/hanegi-park-tokyo

And I suspect about this one: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-big-apple-of-new-england-massachusetts

Hello again @Michelle Cassidy, just like the two above, I suspect this was backdated: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/jasper-knob

Hi @Michelle Cassidy, adding to this list. This one seems to have had the wrong year, right date: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/samoubica

@Michelle Cassidy, potentially this one too: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/bell-church-philippines

Also, I think Baguio could be a better location for it.

Hi @Michelle Cassidy, the one above I think is still affected and we might have a new one: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/beach-hut-whale-bones