Wikipedia:Geonotice

A geonotice is a notice on Special:Watchlist that is displayed only to users who are physically located in some subset of the Earth. The configuration page of geonotices is on Geonotice/list.json. View the active geonotices and the regions they cover on Geonotice/Map.

The purpose of geonotices is to announce events that would be of great interest to people in a specific region, but that would not be interesting to most of our readers. The use of targeted messages allows us to scale our communication better; rather than flooding people with multiple messages or avoiding messages entirely, we can display messages only to the people who are most likely to find them useful.

Example uses for targeted messages are: to announce upcoming Wikipedia meetups and local events, for local chapter activities and to advertise mailing lists focused on geographical areas.

Geonotices requested here are only displayed on the watchlist on the English Wikipedia. If you want to target users of all Wikimedia Foundation wikis in a particular geographical area, you can go to CentralNotice to request a geotargeted banner.

No data or personal information is gathered from users to make this notice possible, nor does this notice share any user's personal information with outsiders.

Technical details
Geonotices are a type of watchlist notice, a type of top of page message similar to a MediaWiki:Sitenotice, MediaWiki:Anonnotice or MediaWiki:Watchlist-messages notice.

The current implementation works by loading the user's latitude and longitude from geoiplookup.wikimedia.org and using a small bit of JavaScript (Geonotice-core.js and Geonotice-list.js) to determine whether or not to display a notice to the user. The location detection is IP address-based, using a lookup system described at Geolocation. Currently, MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition specifies the geonotices to be listed at MediaWiki:Gadget-geonotice-list.js (IAdmin-protected), which is turn is updated automatically by User:MusikBot II by synchronizing from Geonotice/list.json (Sysop-protected).

The "hide" button that is displayed with each message will persistently dismiss that particular message. You can also disable all Geonotices by disabling the Geonotice gadget in your preferences. Geonotices will also be hidden if you have opted to hide all watchlist notices.

Geonotices are currently a candidate to be integrated into MediaWiki proper. One significant open question is how best to allow users to specify the locations of interest for a message. Right now, the location range must be hard-coded in the the JavaScript itself.

Guidelines
Create request
 * To propose a geonotice, simply create a new third level section (using ===) under the "Requests" section, using the boilerplate text below, and follow the instructions in this section.

Related page name (e.g. meetup page)
Discussion
 * User requesting: ~

Locations
 * Try to be as specific as possible with the location. For example, a Washington, D.C. meetup would not be appropriate to advertise to everyone in the United States. Be aware that the detection is not flawless; due to varying boundaries and the inaccuracies of IP locating, the result cannot be perfect.
 * It makes things much easier if you can give us geographic coordinates. The format of the coordinates is [ [latitude, longitude], [latitude, longitude] ]. To identify appropriate bounding boxes, the Flickr API offers a handy reference database - eg/ British Columbia. If in doubt, pick a central point and go a degree or two in all directions. To get a bounding box, you can use http://boundingbox.klokantech.com/ .  Drag and drop the yellow handles to position and size your bounding box, then under "Copy & Paste" (at bottom), choose DublinCore.  You can include that string in your request.
 * For country-wide geonotices, we can target the geonotice to a specific country with something such as  instead of the   specification. The geonotice tool uses ISO 3166 Country Codes. This method is generally more reliable.

Messages
 * Messages should be one or two sentences in length, and they should not contain any flashy text or images. It is a good idea to provide at least two options, in case one is deemed inappropriate.
 * Messages exceeding four sentences are deemed too large, except in cases where the sentences are short.
 * Geonotices should always be used with the understanding that some of the intended audience will be excluded and that some unintended people will be included. As such, the message should be written in a way that would be suitable for display to all users.  For example, write "The New York City Wikipedia Meetup will be on August 12" rather than "Hello resident of Long Island...".
 * Remember to link the event signup page (where appropriate) in the notice - and please use a wikilink (to Wikipedia, Meta, etc) rather than a URL. External URLs do not always work reliably.

Date range
 * Try to post your request at least five days (preferably seven to ten days) in advance. It may take a while for requests to be handled.

Notify geonotice maintainers
 * In case there is no feedback in a few days after posting the request, ask User:Redrose64, User:L235, User:the wub, or an administrator to take a look.

Requests
''Add new requests to the top of this list. Please include coordinates where possible, as this will speed up processing. Note that this page is quite low-traffic - if you've had no response after a day or two, or if it's urgent, please poke the administrators.''

Meetup/San Francisco
sorry for another somewhat rushed request about this one (jumping in for e_mln_e here). Thanks in advance! Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:04, 8 July 2024 (UTC)


 * ✅ the wub "?!"  09:03, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Meetup/San Francisco
Discussion
 * e_mln_e: e_mln_e (talk) - Me again! Next meetup is in June, and following the advice from May, I propose a larger zone for the geo-notice. Is it okay to ping :: ?
 * ✅ with the date in the text corrected to June 13. Note that your pings didn't work, you need to sign with ~ at the end of your message. the wub "?!"  11:01, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Meetup/San Francisco
Discussion
 * e_mln_e: e_mln_e (talk) - We organise a meetup a month, and would like to start adding geonotices. — Preceding undated comment added 18:41, 7 May 2024‎ (UTC)
 * Might one of you be able to look into this one within the next day or so, so that it can still run before the event takes place? The text and area look fine to me, it just seems that latitude and longitude may have been mixed up. Updated accordingly (CC e_mln_e):
 * Thanks in advance!
 * Regards, HaeB (talk) 16:05, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @HaeB, e_mln_e: ✅! Sorry for not spotting this earlier, and thanks HaeB for fixing the coordinates. the wub "?!"  09:49, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @HaeB, e_mln_e: ✅! Sorry for not spotting this earlier, and thanks HaeB for fixing the coordinates. the wub "?!"  09:49, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Meetup/Exeter
Discussion
 * TatjanaClimate: TatjanaClimate (talk) 08:51, 23 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @TatjanaClimate I've added this to the existing UK meetups notice, and in a few other places we normally advertise them such as Meetup. Would love to join myself, but I'll be at the Hackathon that weekend. the wub "?!"  11:43, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Hiya, we've changed the date of the Exeter meet up to 8th of June for various reasons. I've updated the source text above. Thank you! TatjanaClimate (talk) 10:45, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I removed it from the UK geonotice for now, will re-add it with the new date in a week or so. the wub "?!"  13:44, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Meetup/Leeds/6
Discussion
 * User requesting: Jonathan Deamer (talk) 17:33, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The calendar's sure getting crowded: there will be UK meetups every weekend from 14 April until 19 May. So I'll put this up in a couple of weeks time as part of a combined UK geonotice, as we normally do for London and Oxford. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 18:29, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Meetup/Seattle
Discussion
 * User requesting: Peaceray (talk) 21:38, 5 March 2024 (UTC)


 * ✅ the wub "?!"  09:36, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Meetup/Portland/Jewish Women Artists 2024
Discussion
 * User requesting: Peaceray (talk) 01:44, 29 February 2024 (UTC)


 * ✅ Pharos (talk) 06:01, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Meetup/NC/Wikipedia Day 2024
Discussion
 * User requesting: Gaurav (talk) 23:35, 25 January 2024 (UTC)


 * ✅ by Pharos. . the wub "?!"  23:26, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Meetup/Los Angeles/February 2024
Discussion
 * User requesting:--Blervis (talk) 21:59, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Blervis ✅, I just tweaked slightly to include the date of the event in the message. the wub "?!"  22:31, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks wub! Blervis (talk) 05:32, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Meetup/San Diego/May 2024
Discussion
 * User requesting:-- RightCow LeftCoast ( Moo ) 21:40, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks in advance.-- RightCow LeftCoast ( Moo ) 21:40, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ the wub "?!"  22:31, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Meetup/San Diego/April 2024
Discussion
 * User requesting:-- RightCow LeftCoast ( Moo ) 21:40, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks in advance.-- RightCow LeftCoast ( Moo ) 21:40, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ the wub "?!"  22:31, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Meetup/San Diego/March 2024
Discussion
 * User requesting:-- RightCow LeftCoast ( Moo ) 21:40, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks in advance.-- RightCow LeftCoast ( Moo ) 21:40, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ the wub "?!"  22:31, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Meetup/San Diego/February 2024
Discussion
 * User requesting:-- RightCow LeftCoast ( Moo ) 21:40, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks in advance.-- RightCow LeftCoast ( Moo ) 21:40, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * @RightCowLeftCoast ✅ queued up all of these, I just tweaked slightly to include the date of the events in the messages. the wub "?!"  22:31, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Meetup/San Diego/January 2024
Discussion
 * User requesting:-- RightCow LeftCoast ( Moo ) 23:04, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks in advance.-- RightCow LeftCoast ( Moo ) 23:04, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
 * @RightCowLeftCoast ✅ - the wub "?!"  00:02, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Previous requests

 * 2023
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 * 2008 and older