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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>If you go up a page from </span></font><font
size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:navy'>Milos</span></font><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>’ detailed list there’s
a world map with temperatures. This looks very like the old WeatherChecker
output but I think it’s really overlaid temp. numbers. The whole thing
looks really good, but pictorial form is what most people are used to digesting
weather data in.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>How hard is it to convert these detailed
figures into a map system that uses image maps and can be drilled down into a more
local form?</span></font></p>
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10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>I’d expect to be able to go from
World to one of our defined geographical regions (eg </span></font><font
size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:navy'>Oceania</span></font><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> or </span></font><font
size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:navy'>Europe</span></font><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>) and from there down to
a country level (eg </span></font><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>UK</span></font><font
size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:navy'>).</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Part of doing this would be altering the
maps in some way to roughly mark out the areas that can be drilled to. Take a
look at the BBC news page’s regional map for how they’ve done this.
At regional level you’d want maps with country outlines, hover text would
then be good to see where the final drill-down would go.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Is this do-able? Are these sources as free
as we need? Is there scope for cross-project collaboration? For the latter, it’d
seem reasonable that Wikipedia have the ability to look up temperature history
and say which day in a year was the hottest/coldest. For Wikiversity the data
is a historical record for any research purpose they can come up with, and we
have a need for it as news – if we do build a long-term record then there’s
our ability to analyse it for trends and such. Wikipedia with weather data is
one feature of Wolfram Alpha knocked off. Instead of fancy algorithms that aren’t
very good at parsing English queries you’d have lots of curious geeks
writing programs to query the data.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>There’s quite a few potential uses
for Wikinews having this data available. If you have an earthquake or tsunami
then the weather conditions are going to influence relief efforts. I’m
sure people could come up with other examples.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>This sort of begs the question, where
should the data be held? We’re going to want it cross-wikinews – do
we need weather.wikinews.org? (Or even weather.wikimedia.org) If so, and we
have a good bot for it, could a WMF server have the spare capacity to run the
bot?</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Lastly, one of the things I always find
useful in a weather map is isobars with front markings. Rarely seen on TV now,
you can quickly tell what weather is going where and do your own half-day to
day forecast. Do we have enough data to produce these at any particular level
of detail?</span></font></p>
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10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Brian.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span
lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>-----Original
Message-----<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>From:</span></b> wikinews-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikinews-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] <b><span style='font-weight:
bold'>On Behalf Of </span></b>Paul Williams<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> 18 June 2009 15:36<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> Wikinews mailing list<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> Re: [Wikinews-l] Weather
bot</span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Hi Milos,</span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>I have a toolserver
account I am willing to run the bot on for the English Wikinews. We shall have
a chat at some point over the weekend - can I try and catch you on IRC?</span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Regards,</span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Paul W</span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:
36.0pt'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>User:Skenmy</span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>2009/6/18 Milos Rancic
<<a href="mailto:millosh@gmail.com">millosh@gmail.com</a>></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:36.0pt'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>I finally made a weather
bot according to my wishes. Its characteristics are:<br>
<br>
* It gathers information from <a href="http://wund.com/" target="_blank">wund.com</a>,
but it is possible to make<br>
plugins for other sites and protocols.<br>
* It may gather data from all over the world.<br>
* It may be localized in any language.<br>
<br>
The only problem is that one iteration takes at least 5-7 minutes just<br>
for weather in Serbia and just for Wikinews in Serbian. Probably, I<br>
would be able to run enough of instances for covering weather in<br>
Serbia for all Wikinews editions (or, questionable, to run enough of<br>
instances to cover the whole world for sr.wn). That means that I'll<br>
need your help (people who are able to run bots as cron jobs), so we<br>
may cover the whole world for all Wikinews editions.<br>
<br>
My other ask is related to programming the bot. I prefer to make the<br>
bot as a collaborative work because it is not reasonable to expect<br>
maintenance of one relatively huge project by just one person. I may<br>
make subversion repository at SourceForge (or at one of the servers in<br>
the company where I am working). If anyone of you are willing to join<br>
me, let me know that. Also, all other ideas are welcome.<br>
<br>
You may see its output here [1] (in Serbian).<br>
<br>
[1] - <a
href="http://sr.wikinews.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8:%D0%92%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%B5/%D0%95%D0%B2%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%B0/%D0%A1%D1%80%D0%B1%D0%B8%D1%98%D0%B0"
target="_blank">http://sr.wikinews.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8:%D0%92%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%B5/%D0%95%D0%B2%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%B0/%D0%A1%D1%80%D0%B1%D0%B8%D1%98%D0%B0</a><br>
<br>
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