Several factors may have contributed to the failure of Linus’s Law in this instance. First, Wikimapia may attract people with a greater interest in contributing than in editing; its system of awards and recognition places most of its emphasis on contributions. Second, although this area of California is fairly densely populated, the number of “eyes” with sufficient local knowledge may be very small. Third, the status of the contributor as an Advanced User (see next section) may have given an exaggerated level of implied trust to the contribution. Finally, the architecture of the site may make it too difficult to correct or delete errors.
More generally, however, it is clear that Linus’s Law is not as effective for geographic facts as it is for the more prominent information that forms the core of sites such as Wikipedia. Editing in OpenStreetMap is clearly effective according to Haklay’s analysis, perhaps because the social network supporting the project is large and active, providing many “eyes”. But obscure features may not attract sufficient numbers of “eyes” to assure quality. Lack of “eyes” may also lead to malicious use: why not find a feature in an obscure part of the world and put one’s own name on it?