...with apologies for cross-posting.
--
deb tankersley
Program Manager, Engineering
Wikimedia Foundation
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Joe Matazzoni <jmatazzoni(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 7:41 PM
Subject: Turn mapframe for English Wikipedia? We’re ready if you are
To: wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Cc: Deborah Tankersley <dtankersley(a)wikimedia.org>
In October 2017, English Wikipedia community members approved an RfC
requesting implementation of mapframe
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_15…>
[1]—a feature that enables contributors to easily display dynamic maps on
article pages. At the time, there was some question about whether
technical support for the maps service would be available long term, and
the Foundation asked that the community stand by. I’m writing now to say
that those questions have been answered, and a small team will be assigned
for routine maps maintenance.
So, unless we hear from the English Wikipedia community that the consensus
on adding mapframe has changed since last year’s RfC, we plan to move
forward in April 2018. You can read more about this plan and leave comments
on Village Pump [2]. If you foresee any issues, let us hear from you.
Otherwise,
happy mapping!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(
technical)/Archive_159#Should_we_ask_for_mapframe_to_be_turned_on?
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(
technical)#Turn_on_mapframe?_We%E2%80%99re_ready_if_you_are
*Joe Matazzoni*
Product Manager, Collaboration
Wikimedia Foundation
Just a quick heads up that I have added a few more fields to the
WikiCommons Maps template, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Map
They are all completely optional, so should make no difference to the
display of existing map pages; but I hope may usefully help capture
additional information, particularly for maps scanned from books.
The fields added are for: book title, volume, page, publication place,
book author (if different from the creator of the map), scan resolution,
and OSM zoom level.
I've also added options to give a wikidata item for the map set, book,
and book author; and an option to specify that the map has
georeferencing available that is external (ie not at Wikimaps Warper),
along with a URL for it.
Examples with some of these fields set can be found at
https://commons.wikimedia.org/…/Category:MC_map_migration_t… .
I hope with luck all the modifications are acceptable and fairly
unobtrusive, but I'm very open to discussion, as to whether anything
about any of them could be done better, or indeed not at all -- eg
better field names, better descriptions, better ways of recording the
information, etc, etc.
I have done my best also to supply translations for the new fields into
languages the template is translated into, but these should probably be
particularly checked, to make sure they read all right.
Hope that's all okay with everybody, best wishes -- James.
---
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*We’re back! ------------------------------This is the first Wikimaps user
group newsletter in a while, so hopefully, we’ll get this back up and
running on a more regular basis. All inputs for future content are welcome.
Please check the Wikimaps page
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimaps_User_Group#Next_newsletter> for a
link to the draft content for the next newsletter.Getting together
------------------------------Next User Group Hangout
<https://plus.google.com/hangouts/_/...>: 22 March 2018, 1600 UTCPlease
join in the discussion, this is an informal group to discuss what people
are working on, problems they're encountering with our mapping tools,
accomplishments we've had along the way, and upcoming events.Pattypan 18.02
includes the {{Map}} template ------------------------------Pattypan, a
tool for mass uploading media files to Wikimedia Commons now includes the
Map template predefined and ready to use without writing any
Wikitext.https://github.com/yarl/pattypan/releases/tag/v18.02
<https://github.com/yarl/pattypan/releases/tag/v18.02>Map Improvements 2018
------------------------------Be sure to check out the Wikimedia Foundation
Collaboration Team’s update on 2018 plans
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Map_improvements_2018> to improve the
Kartographer extension
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Kartographer>. Their work will be
done by the end of June and you can see the many exciting updates
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/board/2828/query/rSWQ9zrVUVS0/>
here. QGIS 3.0 Release ------------------------------For those of you who
are interested in using GIS tools as part of your map creation workflow,
please be sure to take a look at QGIS, QGIS 3.0
<https://www.qgis.org/en/site/>, which has launched a new version with many
new upgrades. If you’ve been working with .svg’s, this is a great tool to
use to start to create vector shapefiles of historical boundaries,
etc.Historical map vector data campaign ------------------------------For
anyone who’s interested, I’m trying to work on a bit of a scavenger hunt,
to find & collect as many historical shapefiles as possible. I’m still
working on how to best host / share them with the world, with a baseline
assumption that the Commons is the best place to start. If anyone is
interested, please let me know!Last, all suggestions for future newsletters
are welcome, for format, content, etc. We're just getting this started, so
I'm trying to use a fairly agile approach. Something > nothing!Regards,Jeff*
--
Jeff Meyer
206-676-2347
m: jeff(a)gwhat.org
t: @OpenHistMap