Suggesting an entry and reporting corrections

Directories stay useful only when many careful eyes help them grow. Dharma Atlas combines curated public information with community suggestions, so a practitioner who notices a missing temple, an outdated phone number, or a teacher page that should exist can improve the map for everyone else.

You do not need to claim a listing to help. Suggestion and correction flows are for visitors, neighbors, traveling students, and local friends who know something the public page does not yet reflect. This guide explains when to use /submit, how that path differs from adding a place you intend to manage, what makes a suggestion easy to approve, and how the trust loop works from tip to published update.

Choose the right path: suggest, add, or claim

Before you fill out a form, match your intent to the correct doorway.

Suggest an entry or correction when you are contributing information you do not personally steward. The /submit flow is the primary public path for proposing a location or teacher and for sending details that help reviewers improve the catalog. You may be pointing to something missing, or flagging that an existing page needs attention.

Add a place when you represent a center and want to create a listing you will manage after login. The /add path is oriented toward stewards who expect ongoing ownership—draft states, publish requests, and edit tools—rather than a one-time tip.

Claim an existing listing when the place is already in the directory and you are authorized to manage it. Claiming is stewardship access, not a general correction mailbox.

These paths overlap in spirit—everyone wants accurate information—but they differ in responsibility. A clean suggestion includes sources and specifics. A claim includes authorization. An add includes readiness to maintain the page. Using the wrong door usually just adds delay while a reviewer redirects the request.

If you are unsure which path fits, read a short overview on /about, then start with /submit for tips and corrections. It is better to send a clear suggestion than to claim a place you do not represent.

Using the submit flow well

The submit experience asks you to choose what you are proposing—commonly a location or a teacher—and then gather the fields a reviewer needs to verify and place the entry. Treat the form like a briefing note for a careful editor, not like a social post.

Helpful submissions usually include:

• A precise name. Use the name the community uses publicly, including diacritics when you know them, and note alternate spellings if searchers might use another form.
• A stable location. Street address when there is one; for roaming sits, explain the meeting pattern and the most reliable public pin or landmark. Vague “somewhere in Brooklyn” tips are hard to publish.
• Tradition and practice context. Broad labels help placement in catalogs, but a sentence about style—silent vipassana, liturgical Pure Land services, koan Zen, mixed insight and yoga, interfaith mindfulness—prevents miscategorization.
• Public contact paths. Website, email, phone, or a regularly updated social page. Reviewers prefer verifiable public sources over private hearsay.
• What is wrong or missing. If you are correcting an existing page, say what the directory currently shows and what it should show. “Hours are wrong” is weaker than “Sunday sits moved from 10:00 to 9:30; see the center calendar for June.”
• Your relationship to the information. “I attend weekly,” “I visited last month,” or “I manage communications but am not claiming yet” helps a reviewer weigh confidence without requiring you to become a steward.

You do not need perfect ontology tags. Honest, checkable facts matter more than guessing every lineage checkbox. If you only know part of the picture, submit the solid part and leave uncertain fields blank rather than inventing them.

What makes a good suggestion

Reviewers see many submissions. The ones that move quickly share a few qualities.

They are specific. Names, addresses, URLs, and dated schedule changes beat adjectives. “Thriving community” does not help a map; “sits Tue/Thu 7pm, visitor orientation first Sunday” does.

They are attributable. Point to a public page, a printed schedule, a municipal address record, or another durable source. If the only source is a private chat, say so and provide whatever public confirmation exists.

They avoid duplicates. Search the directory first. If a page already exists under a former name or a parent organization, say that in your note. “This is the same community as X, now meeting at Y” is gold for cleanup.

They separate facts from recommendations. It is fine to love a teacher. It is more useful to state when and where teaching happens, what language is used, and whether newcomers need registration. Editorial praise is optional; logistics are essential.

They respect privacy and consent. Do not submit private residential addresses for teachers who teach only by invitation. Do not publish personal phone numbers that were shared in confidence. Prefer the contact channels the community already makes public.

They are sized to one clear ask. One missing center, or one coherent correction bundle for a single place, is easier than a long list of unrelated fixes. If you have many tips, send them as separate focused submissions or clearly sectioned notes.

A good suggestion is not the same as a finished encyclopedia article. Short and verifiable often beats long and speculative.

The trust loop: from tip to public page

Community directories earn trust through a loop: someone notices a gap, someone submits evidence, someone reviews, the public page improves, and later readers benefit—and sometimes submit the next correction.

On Dharma Atlas, suggestions are not anonymous graffiti on a live page. They enter a review queue so that spam, accidental duplicates, and unverifiable claims do not instantly rewrite the map. That means you may not see your change appear the same afternoon. It also means approved changes are more reliable for travelers who depend on the listing.

While you wait, you can still explore and use the directory. If you later become a steward for a place you once suggested, you can claim or add through the steward paths and maintain details directly. Suggestions associated with your account may appear in your logged-in history so you can track status without guessing whether a message was received.

Trust also flows the other way. When you submit carefully, reviewers spend less time chasing basics and more time placing the entry correctly among traditions, people, and places. Over time, that is how an open directory remains both open and dependable.

Corrections versus new entries

People often mix “something is missing” with “something is wrong.” Both matter, but the write-up differs.

For a new entry, emphasize existence and findability: official name, where to go, how to confirm the community is active, and enough tradition context to file it sensibly.

For a correction, emphasize the delta: which page, which field, old value, new value, and since when. If a center closed, say whether the closure is temporary or final. If a teacher moved affiliation, say what changed and what remained true. If a map pin is across the street from the real entrance, describe the landmark that will help a reviewer nudge coordinates.

If you find harmful or sensitive issues—impersonation, safety concerns, or private data exposed—say that clearly in the submission notes so the review can be prioritized appropriately. Ordinary schedule updates and missing sanghas are the everyday case; exceptional issues deserve explicit flags.

Common pitfalls to avoid

A few patterns slow reviews or produce weak pages:

• Submitting a center that is already listed under a slightly different transliteration without mentioning the match.
• Using a personal Google pin for a temple that has a clear street address on its own site.
• Copying marketing language without checking whether retreat dates are current.
• Claiming in the suggestion form that you “manage” a place without using the claim flow—stewardship still needs the claim path.
• Dumping unverified lineage claims that the community itself does not publish.

When in doubt, under-claim and over-source. Reviewers can enrich taxonomy; they cannot invent a reliable address you did not provide.

Closing: contribute through submit, add, or learn more

If you know a meditation center, monastery, or teacher who should be easier to find—or you spotted a detail that drifted out of date—start at /submit with specific, checkable information. If you represent a place and want to create a listing you will maintain, use /add. If you want the broader picture of how Dharma Atlas is curated and why community tips matter, read /about.

Small, careful contributions compound. One accurate address, one corrected sitting time, or one well-sourced new entry can spare the next visitor a locked door or a long trip to the wrong block. That is the quiet standard of a directory built in the open: not perfect overnight, but steadily better because people took a few minutes to send the truth with enough context to verify it.