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•  Make sure your terms can stand alone. While context within the tree enhances subject terms, there are some places within Mandala where terms won't be shown within the tree. Avoiding vague terms like "yes" or "no" make your terms easier to find and use. 
  

  Try	Avoid
  Photography Color photography Grayscale photography	Photography  Color Yes  No

• Consider both specific terms (Andean sheep farmers) and general terms (wool). Remember, your terms can really enhance the Mandala project as a whole, and other people may eventually want to use your broader terms. 

Place Trees

You should think about whether your places are administrative (ie, the official state of Virginia) or cultural (ie, the Rotunda). These will have different implementations in Places. 

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Use the places viewer (by searching or browsing) to determine whether an existing place suits your needs.

This can be tricky to decide, especially if there's a place that seems close to what you're need. There aren't any "right" or "wrong" reasons to create a place, and these decisions will depend on your project. But here are some things to consider: 

Changes in name don't need a new place.

Example:  Los Angeles renames the street Rodeo Road to Obama Boulevard.

In Mandala Places:  You can make 'Rodeo Road' an alternate name, and set 'Obama Boulevard' as the new primary name. You can also add a note describing the change. You wouldn't need two separate places. Learn more about Alternate Names. 

Changes in location don't (usually) need a new place.

Example: 

The Powerhouse Museum in Sidney, Australia decides to move to Parramatta, Australia. The organization stays the same.

In Mandala Places:

You can change the coordinates from Sidney to Parramatta under 'Locations,' then add a note about the change. You wouldn't need two separate places. Learn more about Locations. 

Changes in feature type don't (usually) need a new place.

Example:

A monastery becomes a granary for ten years during the Cultural Revolution.

In Mandala Places:

You can track this change in the 'Feature Types' section, where both "granary" and "monastery" can be used. You can also add dates for each feature type. You wouldn't need two separate places. Learn more about Feature Types.

Place separation depends on the Perspective

Perspectives are a feature specific to the Places Knowledge Maps site. They let you switch between different place trees, each with a different "perspective" or focus. Check out Using Perspectives for a full list of these. You should carefully consider the perspective to which you want to add your place. For example, are you trying to represent religious relationships between stops on a pilgrimage? The relationship between administrative units?

Formatting Trees in a Spreadsheet

Knowledge Map hierarchies in Mandala are built with tree data structures. Each knowledge map term is a node on the tree. You can place a knowledge map term using its parent — that is, the higher-level term the knowledge map falls under. Nodes that fall under a parent are its children. If a node doesn’t have a parent — that is, it’s the highest possible level of the tree – we call it the root node. A node may have many children, but it only has one the parent.  In the example above: 

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This spreadsheet will help developers import your terms quickly.

FAQs

Should I include the type in my place's name?

Example: Grand Budapest Hotel, Gotham City, River Styx

Use the name however it appears in the source for your place's name -- this can be oral or a literary source.

What if my feature has no name?

You can give it the same name as the feature type. For example, a building with an unknown name can simply be called 'Building.' You can use the Knowledge Map id and other attributes to differentiate places with the same name.

What happens once my tree goes live? Can anyone add a term to my tree? 

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