Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates/Archive 10

Decimal lat/long and implied precision
One thing which is lost when you convert from lat-long to decimal is the implicit precision of the coordinates. There is a clear difference in implied precision between degrees, degrees-and-minutes, and degrees-minutes-and-seconds references. The same also applies to OSGN coordinates (see below.) Unfortunately, since dm/dms measurements result in recurring decimals, truncating the decimal lat-long in similar ways will lead to unnecessary loss of precision.

It would be nice if an extra parameter could be added to the template to help this: perhaps a "precision" field indicating the effective number of significant figures after the decimal would be the simplest approach at capturing this information lest it be lost? For example, a precision of 0 would mean "to the nearest degree", a precision of 2 would mean "to the nearest 100th of a degress", and so on. -- The Anome 14:37, 13 December 2006 (UTC)


 * But what's wrong with simply leaving the number of significant figures unaltered, e.g.,
 * DD:MM:SS.s -> DD.ddddd
 * DD:MM:SS -> DD.dddd
 * DD:MM.m -> DD.ddd
 * DD:MM -> DD.dd
 * --Opie 01:13, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

National Grid problems
A major problem with geocoding interoperability is the use of British OSGB36 National Grid coordinates in UK articles. Since most UK high-resolution geodata is held in OSGB36 coordinates, and they are ideally suited to high-precision use for locations in the UK, their use in UK-based articles is a Good Thing.

However, converting between them and lat-long coordinates is non-trivial. (see this document for an authoritative reference). Unfortunately, this means that most programs that scrape Wikipedia's database dumps will not be able to understand these coordinates, and that UK articles, which are actually some of the most consistently georeferenced in Wikipedia, will appear to be almost devoid of georeferences from the point of view of such software. Since other countries also have similar national grid systems, this problem probably also occurs in other Wikipedia editions.

The best long-term solution, in my opinion, would be to natively support OSGB36, and other specialized coordinate systems, from within the MediaWiki geodata extension. High-resolution lat-long coordinates could then be kept updated in an auxiliary database table, which would track geodata references of all sorts as they were added to Wikipedia articles, and this table could be made available through dumps.

One possible interim solution would be to have a tag which would combine OSGB and lat-long coordinates in a single tag, where the OSGB coordinates would be the master reference, with the lat-long coordinates updated to match the OSGB coordinates, perhaps by a bot, or perhaps as part of the article save logic. -- The Anome 14:23, 13 December 2006 (UTC)


 * There are a *LOT* of different datums in use around the world. For example, when I used to do geospatial work in Florida I mostly dealt with data in NAD27 and NAD83 Florida east state plane. WGS84 lat/long is the international standard. EGM96 is slightly more accurate (wow, we don't even have an article on it) but it isn't widely used yet. It isn't bad to offer data in multiple coordinate systems, but when we expect others to read our data we should expect to put it in an internationally acceptable format.  I'll be glad to write a bot that reprojects OSGB36 to WGS84 for tagging purposes. --Gmaxwell 20:33, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

New Data from Wikipedia for Google Earth
New KML in more languages now available. Have Fun! It is a part of Wikipedia-World -- sk 23:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Minnesota?
I created a dot map of the world based on the geographic coordinates found in Wikipedia. Why is Minnesota so sparse? --Bkkbrad


 * Since when did the world = United States? Cool image though. enochlau (talk) 13:06, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
 * He didn't say this was the entire map... Eugène van der Pijll 21:57, 26 December 2006 (UTC)




 * It is odd. Also, some of what we do have in MN is incorrect... Before I fixed them, our locations for Richfield and Bloomington were 40 miles off. -- Jake 22:21, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


 * As most US coordinates are based on articles by Rambot, it just that the ones made about Minnesota (e.g. Brandon, Minnesota) didn't include coordinates.


 * Sometimes manually added coordinates are the ones for the airport which may get you 40 miles off.


 * BTW could we get a map of Switzerland? -- User:Docu

donations banner
There is a note at Talk:Main Page that coordinates listed using the coor title temmplates are clashing with the donations banner. I know that in previous funding drives, the positioning of the coordinates was temporarily changed. Is there a solution if some users see the banner and some don't? - BanyanTree 03:19, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards
Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 19:49, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Decimal degrees vs. degrees/minutes/seconds
While an editor can choose either decimal degrees or degrees/minutes/seconds to enter coordinates, does either system have its advantages or disadvantages? Is there one that most people here generally prefer? Thanks, 12.45.169.249 21:55, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I prefer degrees/minutes/seconds, becaus it is better to read and more common. Kolossos 19:20, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Particularly since some of the people who add decimal degrees do so to twelve decimal places, as if we needed micron-level resolution. -- The Anome 23:36, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree. Degrees/minutes/seconds is more common and easier to read. Valentinian T / C 16:31, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I prefer decimal degrees because they are more accessible to the casual user. They also require less keystrokes (a very minor point), and are easier to manipulate mathematically. Decimal degrees are harder to screw up. My 2 cents. -Quartermaster 18:48, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I prefer decimal degrees, for the following reasons:
 * Superior resolution per digit (decimal degrees to 4 places is precise to ~10m, versus ~30m for minutes and seconds)
 * Easy translation of arc to distance: .01° latitude is roughly 1 km, .001 is ~100m, .0001 ~10m, etc.
 * For neophytes, 2 numbers are simpler than 4 or 6
 * Notation looks "cleaner" without the tick marks
 * Mathematical convenience (e.g., it's easier to mentally convert .dddd° to an approximate fraction than to do the same for MM′SS″)
 * Better rounding options:
 * Decimal places can be increased or decreased by single digits as needed for a wide range of resolutions. DMS digits must be added in pairs, unless you mix decimal with sexagesimal notation.
 * Latitude can have different precision than longitude, as is sometimes convenient when specifying locations of, say, bridges or airstrips. But the dms/dm templates allow only dm or dms, not both at once.
 * Resolution of DD°MM′SS″ is sometimes too coarse to specify the locations of buildings (marker ends up on the edge of or outside the structure), while the DD°MM′SS.s″ notation is a little too ugly. DD.dddd° seems just right.
 * --Guido Char 13:17, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The 'Geo' microformat only recognises decimal values - see Category_talk:Coordinates_templates for discussion of the implications. Andy Mabbett 15:39, 14 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Please see Template:Coord, which resolves these issues (allowing entry and use of precise decimal values, while displaying more user-friendly DMS values), and applies the Geo microforamt. Andy Mabbett 10:30, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Support for "operator" Firefox extension
The operator Firefox extension is a useful tool that can automatically make good use of web pages that include geographical information in them. There should be an easy way to modify the Wikipedia geographical coordinates so that they are detected by "operator". --Mihai 21:25, 1 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think your geohack has the advantage, that he is browser-independant. The operator-toolbar is also space-expensive. de:Benutzer:Kolossos


 * Yes! Microformats yes please! Of course, I'd want them to be automatically produced by the geodata extension when it gets installed, not coded up by editors. And microformats are not just for browsers: they can be read by all sorts of other interesting software...


 * Firefox 3.0 is also expected to be microformat-aware, which will speed up the adoption of microformats. Also, we should bear in mind the chicken-and-egg effect regarding microformats: the presence of microformat markup in Wikipedia could substantially speed the uptake of microformats in general.


 * Do we have a WikiProject Microformats yet? If not, we really should: Wikipedia is as good a place as any to start if you want to make microformats really powerful and useful, rather than just a toy. -- The Anome 23:39, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd strongly support the use of microformats. Wikitravel is using microformats, not least in WikiTravel listings. As well as Geo, hCard could be used for people (there are moves to extend it to include date-of-death, which will be useful for biography pages) and hCalendar for events. You can vote to add hAtom to page-edit histories (about hAtom). I'm currently proposing to extend Geo for other planets and moons and for a microformat for species which would particularly suit "taxoboxes". The proposed currency microforamt may be useful, especially if my suggestion to include a date field for historical amounts is included. I'd be happy to contribute to "WikiProject Microformats". I've copied this list there. Incidentally, Operator (though very good!) is only one microformat tool and can be shown as a single toolbar icon or status-bar icon. Andy Mabbett 11:47, 28 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Again, please see Template:Coord, which applies the Geo microforamt. Andy Mabbett 10:31, 22 March 2007 (UTC)


 * You might also like to be aware of, or even join, WikiProject Microformats; particularly in relation to the "geo" microformat. Andy Mabbett 11:05, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

New parameter for Geotags
In german wikipedia we discuse the problem, that we can only use one geotag per article for maps and so on (Wikipedia-World). An example is RAF_Museum which is located in London and in Cosford.

So we want to use a new parameter with the name "section" or so. There should be two ways to use this parameter:


 * 1) With specialword  we would use for the map the adequate subheading. For instance: RAF_Museum or RAF_Museum. So the link from the map follow to the right point in the article.
 * 2) With  you can declare an own name if the first methode not works, for instance in a table. So in the map you will see Article, the link will go to the right article, but not to the right point in the article. The geotag could looks so:
 * 3) From Geotags without a "section", only the first one would be in the map.

Is it understandable? Is it OK so? Would other names better(shorter)? My english is not the best. Thanks. de:Benutzer:Kolossos 11:56, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

FAQ: Google Earth Geographic Web Layer
Just published... http://earth.google.com/userguide/v4/geoweb_faq.html (Caniago 17:21, 8 January 2007 (UTC))
 * I repeat me: the Community Layer from Wikipedia-World is better. I generate a list of template-usage you can see, which templates google lost.  On the other side, less templates would be better. Kolossos 21:21, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for providing your service Kolossos. I agree it is better in most respects, except your popup windows which don't provide the article summary information which the Google Earth service does. However, since the Google service is built into Google Earth more people are likely using it, so we should work to ensure compatibility between our data and their service. BTW, its been a while since your database was last updated, when is the next update due? (Caniago 08:17, 9 January 2007 (UTC))
 * We are waiting for the next dump(en+de), thats should be in the next days. de:Benuter:Kolossos 13:24, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Hello, today I had make scan for coordinates in en! I create a new KMZ-File for Google Earth. I think Kolossos will be update the database in the next days. -- sk 20:06, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia-World is now updated. de:Benutzer:Kolossos11:49, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Can't the templates provide a way around tools.wikimedia.de?
I seem to recall that these templates used to take you to a list of useful choices, such as randmcnally, topozone, mapquest, etc. Now they take you to tools.wikimedia.de, which is extremely slow. Response times in minutes or tens of minutes, at least for me (running Mozilla on Debian stable; I seem to remember occasionally getting faster responses on Windows, which is a red flag in itself).

Isn't there a way around tools.wikimedia.de, or can the latter at least be sped up? --Trovatore 08:29, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Basque Wikipedia
Hello all! We've installed the coordenates templates in our Wikipedia and linked it to the German page. Our template category is eu:Kategoria:Koordenatu txantiloiak and we're now working with a little information, but trying to put all basque towns and villages with it's coordinate. We would like to know how to make a dump in order to see WikiMiniAtlas links and Google Earth links in basque. Is it possible? If we have to make it, I'm ready to work on it. Please, if someone knows how, contact me on eu:Lankide eztabaida:Theklan. - eu:Lankide:Theklan


 * The dumps are performed by de:User:Stefan Kühn‎. And the data is available at de:Wikipedia:WikiProjekt_Georeferenzierung/Wikipedia-World/en. I'll have to update WikiMiniAtlas to allow for a Basque edition. This is a non-trivial task, as ithe Coordinate data has to be added to my serverside programm.--Dschwen(A) 07:18, 30 January 2007 (UTC)


 * So when the program makes it it will be possible to see the links? That's great! If I can help, please contact me. -Theklan.eu 12:28, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Empty coordinate templates
There are quite a lot of articles (and also panoramio photos, google community links etc.) at °N, °W, due to empty coordinate templates in articles. It seems like most of the misplaced articles are italian towns like e.g. Nissoria. Is there a generic way to find all these to fix or at least delete them, so in a future update GE that point will not look like the center of the universe anymore? It shouldn't be much difficult to change the program which creates the Community Layer accordingly. andy 17:00, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll take a look at this. I've added a lot of Italian towns by bot recently; it should be easy to add the coordinates for the other communities automatically. Eugène van der Pijll 10:38, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Help for category:Cities in the UTC timezone
I need some help with this cat. It appears many people are opposed to this idea but I fail to see the discussion in the Cfd (Category for discussion). All I see is a big poll of votes. --CyclePat 21:07, 3 March 2007 (UTC)