At the IRC hour on Structured Data for Commons tonight,
(log:
https://tools.wmflabs.org/meetbot/wikimedia-office/2014/wikimedia-office.20…
)
Susanna gave the link to the impressive Wikimaps metadata spreadsheet,
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Hn8VQ1rBgXj3avkUktjychEhluLQQJl5v6W…
but this made me wonder: is every single map notable, in the sense of
meriting its own Wikidata Q-number ?
For example, consider
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:England_Delineated_%281800%29_b…
a set of fairly simple sketch maps of English counties, published in a
schoolbook in 1790.
Should each map individually have a Q-number ? Or instead, should just
the book and the edition have Q-numbers ?
The question is similar to that of books of engravings, such as eg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Views_of_the_Seats_of_Noblemen_…
Should each engraving have an individual Q-number ? Or instead, just
the book and the edition, with details specific to the individual
engraving (of which we may have more than one scan) kept on the
CommonsData page for the file ?
For maps there is some clear per-map metadata, even when they are part
of a set -- for example location, bounding boxes, etc.
Is it right to assume that there will always be a WikiData item for this
to live in? Or in some cases, would it have to live on CommonsData?
And will a copy of it need to live on CommonsData anyway, to facilitate
rapid sorting / filtering of a collection of images ?
Have there been any discussions that we know of in the Wikidata
community about this?
-- James.
Hi all,
>
> Question: what else currently needs to be completed with respect to Map
> Warper, before we can launch a mass-upload of files to it, and try to
> launch a first mass campaign of geo-referencing ?
> So what other things do people think need to be altered on the map warper,
> before we
> * (a) do a mass upload from Commons to Labs of maps to geo-reference
> * (b) launch a campaign for mass-georeferencing the uploads
> * (c) use it to display geo-referencing for maps that have already been
> geo-referenced ?
>
I would like to say that our project duration is until the end of this
year, and starting campaigning while we are working on the project will
dramatically reduce our capability to focus on development. But we are
responding to requests of having a user-friendly pipeline available for
georeferencing individual maps by the time of the British Library tagathon.
This will include the following steps:
-- unrelated to georeferencing: --
1. Launch the Template:Map [1], which will include a big, blue button as a
link to the Warper.
2. Use it in a batch upload with GLAMWIKI Toolset [2]
-- related to georeferencing: --
3. Enabling OAuth login from Commons to the Warper has been done.
4. Create a stand-alone big, blue button to add in Wikimedia Commons file
page for maps. Susanna and Jeph work on this.
4. Bot-add this button (a template) to a test set of maps. You might have a
proper candidate for such a set. Eventually we could add this to all maps.
André works on this, but you can help.
5. Create a gadget to manually add the button to any map file. I guess this
goes unassigned.
Additionally, but not before the beginning of October, we will
6. Create a form to transform data from the Information / Artwork / Book
templates into the Map template, that also includes the button, and will
include a locator map for the historical map
During the rest of the year we work to create a new user interface to the
Warper.
Creating methods for easy batch georeffing of maps is not included in our
plan for this year, but we will be happy to include it in a future funding
application. So we decided it will not take precedence over our current
plans.
>
> For reference, as an estimate of the scale of what is on Commons already
> (never mind new scans that are being produced), we currently have just over
> 54,000 unique files in Category:Old_maps and Category:Maps_by_year
> together, going down six levels, of which just over 41,000 are in
> sub-directories of Category:Old Maps
>
> There are also
> * 4890 maps that we have that already have georeferencing from the NYPL
> (not in the Old Maps hierarchy)
> * 315 Ordnance Survey drawings, with georeferencing from the BL (also not
> in the Old Maps hierarchy)
> * 1126 maps from the Mechanical Curator collection, of which 107 are
> related to images that have georeferencing from the BL, and the remainder
> should be geo-referenced in the BL's next phase.
>
It would be great if someone would put these files into the Old Maps
hierarchy, as that is where the bot could find the maps where the big blue
button will be included.
>
> (The already geo-referenced maps are or will be accessible in
> subdirectories of
> Category:Maps with links to external georeferencing
> -- the BL are there already; I shall be adding the NYPL ones in a couple
> of days, once I have jumped through the required hoops for bot approval).
>
> IMO, it would be nice to get a campaign of geo-referencing underway.
>
> But how close are we to being ready?
>
I think these are the things you propose to develop:
1. Create a mechanism for batch-adding files from Commons to the Warper
2. Create a mechanism for batch-importing georeferencing data to files
already batch-added to Warper.
3. Perhaps make a campaign interface?
All of these require considerable amounts of time from the community and
the developers. We were not prepared for this for this year, but I hope you
will be interested in committing your time to project planning and
resourcing for next year!
I hope our actions before the beginning of October will be beneficial in
the context of the BL tagathon!
Best,
Susanna