Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates/Archive 3

Limitations and extensions
(adapted)


 * The map services which are not available for the location concerned are also listed (but where each is available is indicated)
 * While for worldwide map services the largest available scale often depends on the country (MSN World Atlas being a notable exception), this is not taken into account when converting the scale parameter: the result may be a map link that does not directly produce a map, and also there is no indication what the largest scale is that is available for the location.

For providing an overview of the map services which are available for the location, with for each an overview of available zoom levels, for various sets of countries a template can be made, e.g. Template:Mapeu for Europe and Template:Maplr for countries like e.g. Morocco; alternatively there is a separate template for each scale, e.g. Template:Geolinks-US-streetscale.

For presenting these sets of links there are two possibilities:
 * they are put in the article; this is suitable in cases where the map links are important enough to have direct links to all maps on the page itself, even though this requires more space. The links could be in a separate map section. If the set of links is written in a compact form, as done in Template:Mapeuc, a list of locations (e.g. a list of cities in a country) could have a set of links for each location.
 * for each location a separate map sources page is made, and in the article a link to this page is provided; this is more suitable if in a text the set of links is provided for several locations, and all these links, even in compact form, would disturb the lay-out of the text; unfortunately, when linking to a template instead of embedding it, transfer of parameters is not possible, therefore the page can not be made on the fly; an example is Template:Leiden maps; it could also be put in the main namespace.

In both cases the general template is called (in the article or in the separate page, respectively), and possibly comments on the maps are added.

Alternatively "subst" is used, e.g. with 52.16 ; this allows comments within the template content. However, it may be wise not to apply subst to templates that call external URLs directly, in order not to have to change many links when the format of the URLs change. A version of mapeu etc. could be used where each map link is a template call.

In the case of a separate page, a link to the article is added if that is not in the template using a parameter

A page can then use, but also just a link Leiden maps giving Leiden maps; in the case that the main namespace is used, these are  and Leiden maps , respectively.

Patrick, Mar 2005


 * A remark to the above: Using subst: IMHO very much defeats many of the good things about using templates. Using subst: for anything connected to the Template:coor is a definitive no-no. (There will be crucial changes to those templates in the future). -- Egil 09:19, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I suppose you mean that you do not recommend using subst:coor, and that you mean there will be internal changes in coor without changing the name or parameters? Applying subst to a template using coor does not give more problems with changes in coor than using coor directly, as recommended.--Patrick 14:17, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * The plan is that all changes are supposed to be internal. When the map sources special page is moved to within Wikipedia, the coor template will change. But there will also soon be need for additional data, like for instance a category. If you have a general template for cities, it is very easy to add this just in that one template. But if the template is substituted, it is not, and your cities will end up as uncategorized.


 * Note that adding or deleting a category tag in a template does not add or delete the listings on the category page of pages that use the template, until some edit is made in the page that uses the template. Thus, if you plan to add a category tag, do it as soon as possible.--Patrick 15:52, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Ah. Not a WIkipedia category, but a geograpical coordinate category (city/mountain/country/etc). Which is something else. Seems like there is a good reason to use another term, so as to avoid confusion. -- Egil 22:25, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see.--Patrick 23:05, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Reformatting existing coordinates
Shall we start with the conversion of existing coordinates? After adding several manually, I gave it a try with D6 at some of the geography articles (Atlantic Ocean, Geography of Angola, of Australia, of Egypt, of Equatorial Guinea, of Eritrea etc). The format for all should probably be Template:Coor dm rather than Template:Coor d (easy to change). Ideally the conversion might also include a scale. The default might not be ideal. -- User:Docu


 * Good idea. I believe though, that the current concept may need to be developed a bit more before doing this on a massive scale (to the degree we are talking about massive scale here).


 * With the wider application of the coordinates in mind (like incorporation in Wikimaps, NASA World Wind, and future concepts for finding neighboring articles) I feel (others may of course have different opinions) that the current concept needs to be developed in two areas:
 * Making sure every point is properly classified by type (e.g. city, landmark, airport, etc).
 * Making sure there is a good mechanism for maintaining the reverse linkage database.


 * For #1, experience has shown this is crucial. I think the suggested concept is workable (the type: parameter), and I am now right now trying it out for Wikimaps and for World Wind. One extra immediate advantage, that will be implemented in a couple of days, is that one may assign different default scales to different types, so that one in most cases need not bother setting a scale specifically (I put in come suggestions in the table, comments invited.)


 * For #2 further study is required.


 * As long as we are not talking of a massive number of points, and you are happy to follow-up if further changes are required, there shouldn't be a problem. Geography of should have type:country, for instance. -- Egil 08:03, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, speaking of massive changes, I don't intend to go through the Rambot entries (they might not even need it), but I think it's worth trying to get the other coordinates in a standard form, which makes later changes (adding types, e.g.) and uses (#2) easier for everyone. The ones in the geography articles are probably some of the easier ones (for people like me learning about regexp).


 * BTW I had started with the "type:country" addition at Finland, but it didn't do too much (for now). As it's already an advantage to have them in the form you suggest, I will do all of those articles. -- User:Docu


 * You'll see the real advantage when the usage is reversed. I will do this for NASA World Wind very soon (so you can disable/enable by type, for instance show only countries), but it will become even more useful in Wikimaps. I'll implement the default scale based on type real soon (please update the desired scale factors in the table to sensible values), which will hopefully also be beneficial. The default scale can of course always be overridden by an explicit scale. -- Egil 13:23, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Brazilian towns, Australian National Parks
There are about 300 stubs (e.g. in Category:São Paulo state) with coordinates in the form:
 * Its latitude is 20.18/20&deg;10'56" S and the longitude is 49.35/49&deg;21'05" W.

I'd like to change them to:
 * Its coordinates are -20.18222°N, -49.35139°W.

Samples: Orindiúva, Limeira, Barretos, Orlândia, Piracicaba

The coordinates in the Portuguese language versions of the articles (were they probably came from) are in the format DMS. Before changing all of them, I'd like to have your opinion about this. -- User:Docu


 * FWIW, my personal opinion is that dms is better for human consumption. But perhaps I'm only old fashioned? Specifying both forms defintely should be unnecessary. (SI seem to believe dms is acceptable, I think. And coordinates in radians has really not become high fashion yet.) Anyway, if you add region:BR then they will lead you to a page with the Brazil map shown first. -- Egil 18:20, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * OK, I will add region:BR and keep only the original DMS form. Which type shall I add to the National Parks of Australia? (There are about 500 with articles, some with a "fact sheet" (Barool National Park e.g.), others with an infobox (Organ Pipes National Park). "type:landmark_region:AU" ?-- User:Docu


 * The region is AU (there is not a specific AU page yet, so you will default to the main page. Which is fine. An AU page is easily made at any time, using BR or something as a starting point). The purpose of type was first and foremost meant to differentiate different symbols that would appear on a map. We could perhaps distinguish cultural landmark from natural landmark, but I'm personally totally happy with just landmark. -- Egil 07:13, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * As the Australian ones didn't seem problematic, I already converted them. I'm currently running the bot reformatting the coordinates in the Brazilian towns. My sample wasn't that representative and the changes need show all the more the advantage of a template! -- User:Docu

Rambot entries
Most of the Rambot articles already have Template:Mapit-US-cityscale or Template:Geolinks-US-cityscale etc, I excluded all those from the selections of articles to be processed. There might be several hundered articles that don't have them yet, mostly Townships and unincorporated communities, but also Lexington, Kentucky. I converted some of the US articles that don't include links like " 1 " or Template:GR (most rambot entries have them).

Should the remaining rambot entries be converted as well? How shall we convert the rambot format?

The default conversion would be, e.g. at Lexington, Kentucky:
 * Lexington-Fayette is located at 38&deg;1'47" North, 84&deg;29'41" West (38.029632, -84.494642)1.

to:
 * Lexington-Fayette is located at 38.02972°N, -84.49472°W (38.029632, -84.494642)1.

If we drop the decimal notation as for Brazil, it would be:
 * Lexington-Fayette is located at 38.02972°N, -84.49472°W 1.

Obviously, I would add "region:US".

Not all entries do include the decimal format though.

How shall we proceed? Personally I wouldn't do the conversion myself for the articles that already include one of the templates linked to Template:Coor, but would be willing to do it for the remaining ones (500?). I will leave a note to Ram-Man as well. -- User:Docu


 * Yes, better synchronize with Ram-Man. It is rumored there are about 30.000 of these articles. Since there already is a pointer in form of the mapit-etc templates, there is no hurry. Perhaps best to wait untill the mechanism as entirely within Wikipedia (which probably means switching from the coor-family templates to a Geo tag). -- Egil 16:11, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Well it's just the 500 or so entries that don't have the map-it etc. templates (moved articles?, coordinates not even added by rambot?), but I obviously favor a format consistent with the remaining 30000.


 * Even if we switch to tags later, unless it includes a very tolerant parser, it's a definite advantage to have as many of the current variations formatted into the templates. Either way, it could be sufficient to add the to Template:Coor. -- User:Docu


 * Right. Another thing is that when the coordinates for the cities is used for markup in maps (which can happen sooner than you think), then due to the sheer amount of points, we really need not only the type specified, but also the size of the city (e.g. type:city(108,541). Otherwise, an overview map of the entire USA will end up as a big blob of red ink. It is nice to have some more innocent amounts of data to experiment with (like Brazil or Norway), before committing to changes for all the 30000. -- Egil 16:35, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm a bit hesitant to duplicate the population data to the link as well. It would be easy to add it where it's already part of a template, e.g. Norway or Poland (if you get the formatting of the coordinates right). BTW Lombardy has an infobox with the population data, but the infobox is not in a template. For Brazil it might be a bit hard to get the data out of Pumpie's articles, it took me quite some time to get the coordinates right.


 * Once a new download version is available, I could easily add a series of types to coordinates, e.g. "type:landmark" to many masts. Maybe the categories on the articles could help determine the type as well. -- User:Docu


 * I just stopped by on request and I have not read into this discussion that much, but can someone give me some examples of some articles that have the coordinates but are not using the "Mapit" stuff? It is possible that I missed it, but it is also possible that I was not the one that added those coordinates.  In any case, is this new format intended to replace the mapit template?  -- RM 16:53, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)


 * It's mainly to provide formatted coordinates on the articles, similar to the Lexington sample above. The mapit stuff does that also, so no use to change the formatting of the coordinates yet, especially since the coor template isn't necessarily the definite solution.


 * Other cases without a mapit/geolinks template: [Removed, see page history].


 * From those, all seem to have coordinates added by others, with the exception of maybe Montezuma, Colorado. Anyways, this suggest that D6 should convert the coordinates in cases where there is no mapit template (and it hasn't been done yet). We'd just need to agree on a format, e.g.
 * Lexington-Fayette is located at 38.02972°N, -84.49472°W 1.
 * You could later use those coordinates to add the missing mapit templates ;-)
 * -- User:Docu


 * Since most of them appear to have been added by someone else, I think that I don't have any objection to someone else trying to perform the update. So go for it, once the format is decided on. -- RM 14:22, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)


 * Can we agree on the version above w/o the decimal notation? (I would only convert those that don't have a mapit template) for now. -- User:Docu


 * As these few entries didn't include the geolinks-us-cit/mapit template don't appear to matter (approx. 200 compared to 30k), I converted them and removed the selection from my previous post (see page history). --- User:Docu

Formatting variations not yet converted
After converting dms and dm, I plan on converting coordinates for template:coor d. Once in a while I come across formats the regex didn't convert in it's present form, e.g. at Varna Airport. Only one of the five "official formats" appears to need conversion.

If there are formats of coordinates in articles I haven't converted yet, please post them here. A few exceptions are listed at #Articles with coordinates, but not linked to Template:Coor.

I don't want to define the conversion too broad, to avoid too many conversion of things that are not coordinates. I do review the conversion log generated by D6 to reverse such changes. -- User:Docu

Suggestion: Add Coordinate Display Format into User Preferences
(Topics: delegate data format, display format, and default display format)

Recently I got a first hand experience of the benefits of using the "Local coordinate system" for New Zealand while hiking in the mountains there. Basically I preciously stubbornly used Latitude/Longitude. NZ maps include Lat/Long, but the maps are gird marked for NZDG49. This is the same problem as expressed by swiss friend with CH1903.

The etrex handheld GPS unit I carried display both Lat/Long and NZDG (and about 20 others). NZDG was by far the easiest to find on the local map.keep the coor dms/md/d system currently in place. But allow a used to specify what their preferred "output format" coordinate system is in their preferences. This could well be dms, dm or just d.ddddddd.

But then ALSO allow the whole system to be extended by delegation. NevilleDNZ 04:13, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

I see there are two issues that need here to be delegated to each country/user, as follows:

The Geo Data input format
NevilleDNZ 04:13, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
 * how the data is Input, eg which is the local/natural coordinate system
 * These two coordinates are actually the same location:
 * NZ 1949 std
 * Global std
 * note: NZ is different because of a 200m difference in the original estimate of the earths center of mass. Currently NZ now uses the NZGD2000 standard that matches WGA84.

The Geo Data display format
How these coordinates are displayed.
 * Do the user prefer Latitude/Longitude in WGA, or in the "local" tandard.
 * Are there are even choices of local formating standards...
 * eg. 25S10130.00 60E26941.00 for 40.96S 173.00E
 * I believe this makes for a 1km x 1km grid in NZ (I need to check this)
 * It could be in GDS84 d,dm,dms
 * It could be in as per the users preferences.
 * If could default to the standard of the country of the input method.


 * possibility: NZ 1949 std

Here is a URL from the NZGS discussing that pros/cons of the WGA84 system. (Source) BTW: There are many!!! Here are just some stems: AGD66 AGD84 ATF ATS77 CH1903 CH1903+ CSG67 DHDN ED50 ELD79 ETRS89 FD58 GDA94 GGRS87 HD72 ID74 IGM95 IGN53 IGN56 IGN72 IGN72 IGN72 IRENET95 ISN93 JAD69 JGD2000 KKJ KOC KUDAMS LKS92 MGI MOP78 NAD27 NAD83 NAD NEA74 NGN NGO NTF NZGD2000 NZGD49 etc etc So it important that the adding of these grid references systems are delegated.

Another important reason to make the other reference systems available is simply put, if they are available then people can use them, if they are not, that data will be entered in an unknown system which will default to WGA84.

It seems complicated, but the simple "coord dms" would still always work as the default.

NevilleDNZ 04:13, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

I found the web page for GDAL, this software is from FSF and seems to contain all the conversions necessary for the different coordinate systems.

NevilleDNZ 04:39, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

One small suggestion for conversions
Can we add to the TownX Map Sources Wiki page the different "nowiki" versions of the "coor" e.g.

That way we can cut and paste the "dms" version into our pages, without using a calculator to convert from Degrees to DMS.
 * DMS -38.93471°N, 175.38473°W
 * DM °N, °W
 * D
 * NZGD49 possible?
 * CH1903 ?

NevilleDNZ 05:54, 14 May 2005 (UTC)