If anyone is curious on how such a platform could look like, the Swedish National Heritage Board is running one. Even if it is in Swedish I guess you can get a feel for it here: http://www.platsr.se/
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2014-12-11 1:11 GMT+01:00 Joe Aeberhard joe_aeb@yahoo.co.uk:
Thanks for your feedback Wil and glad that you like the idea. This is the link to a page giving some more detail on this proposal - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/PlaceBook_Wiki Initially I was thinking that a new platform would be the way to go with this, as I had thought that the type of content being posted could be likely to contain more multimedia resources than the standard wiki postings and so was thinking about the volume of data that might need to be stored and how this could be linked in as flexible a way as possible - perhaps using a Graph database. I was also thinking that a new platform could allow us to tailor an API specifically for this using the GPS co-ordinates as the primary means of indexing information and that this could open up the data to being used in unexpected ways by other developers.
However, that was before I had found out about the WikiData project, which as you suggested, could at first glance looks like it could be a good fit for adaptation for use with this proposal. I've not had a chance to study its data schemas in any depth to research its suitability in detail though, but am hoping to find time to do so soon, so any pointers about the best place to start would be gratefully received.
The co-ordinates link you mentioned seems to give you geographical information about the location via a Geohack page, which is not without interest. However, it does not seem to be providing a gateway onto a richer set of resources about that specific location - so we don't seem to be able to access more narrative content with images and footage of significant events that may have occurred there or stories of those who have lived in this place. I like your thoughts about dataset mappings to jumpstart this and was thinking that the way to do this would be to team up with local historical societies to begin with to get them to take ownership of their local areas and begin to upload images and data with their commentaries and narratives. With an organisation like the Wiki Foundations backing this, it would lend a lot of credibility to the project and I'm sure this would be met with enthusiasm by professionals and amateurs alike, particularly if it was seen as a way of promoting local heritage.
For instance, English Heritage already has a system of assigning blue plaques to houses of special interest in the UK and so I imagine it would be relatively easy to persuade them to link these into this kind platform, along with images of the people in question and more detail of what they did at the specific residence that was of such importance. Ideally I would hope that ordinary people accessing this information would start to realise that they could upload personal narrative and recollections to the same system, so in effect affording them an opportunity to create their own "blue plaque" and in so doing create a folk history of the locations in which they live.
I think there is a real human need to try to leave a mark and record something of themselves within the landscape - you just need to look back at cave paintings to see that this is an ancient urge within us. This is one of the reasons I'm confident that a system similar to the one I've proposed is fairly inevitable, as it's ultimately motivated by human need but facilitated by current technology, rather than vice versa. My initial thoughts were that this natural desire could allow us to charge a small fee based on the number of megabytes posted, which could be used to guarantee the data storage for a certain number of years (or decades), as well as funding the project more widely and helping to finance the cataloguing of other items that could be of more general historical importance. Further thoughts anyone may have on this gratefully received.
On Wednesday, 10 December 2014, 22:45, Wil Sinclair <wllm@wllm.com>wrote:
I'd like to know more about the proposal; is there a page on Meta that describes it in more detail?
Specifically, I'd like to know:
- You mention "platform". Are you proposing a new top-level wiki
project that would require critical mass to succeed?
- Wouldn't this be a good fit for additions to the existing data
schemas in Wikidata? Even if you have specific geo-oriented functionality in mind, it seems the current way to do this would be to build out tool on WMF Labs.
- Is there a free dataset mapping events/people/places to coordinates
that could be used to jumpstart the initiative?
- I seem to remember seeing coords as structured data on some
Wikipedia articles. Are there existing efforts to join/build on?
I ask these questions in this forum, because I think that physically mapping data on Wikipedia and other projects is a great idea and could have a large and broad impact across all WMF-hosted projects. I look forward to the day that I can query our entire set of articles by what's happened, when it happened, who made it happen, and *where* it all went down.
Best. ,Wil
On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 3:39 AM, Joe Aeberhard joe_aeb@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
Hello, I just wanted to promote a project proposal that I'd really welcome any
feedback on - PlaceBook Wiki - Meta
| | | | | | | | | PlaceBook Wiki - MetaCreation of a platform that would allow people to
create wiki-type entries to record both historical, public narrative and personal memory and, by fixing these with GPS co-ordinates, content could be shared through the physical landscape in which it occurred. |
| | | View on meta.wikimedia.org | Preview by Yahoo | | | | |
The essential idea behind my proposal is that we could open up novel and
productive ways of accessing knowledge about our physical environment by allowing the wiki posts to be indexed by GPS co-ordinates, so that we build up a catalogue of information about specific places. This information could be about matters of general historical importance, but also it could be much more broad than that and provide a way for individuals to record their own personally significant events that occurred at a specific location, which would provide more of a folk history of a place too.
Through seeing what has occurred and who has lived in that location we
potentially create a new way for people to engage with their environment and hopefully provide new narratives for their sense of personal and community identity.
Anyhow, it seems very likely to me that systems similar to the one I've
proposed will be created in the near future, so I am hoping that an organisation like the Wiki Foundation could be involved in the beginning, so that there is a chance that a community based, not-for-profit ethos could get a strong foothold and prevent what could be a very valuable resource being controlled solely by commercial imperatives.
Any feedback on this would be great, as I would like to hear your views,
both critical and supportive.
Joe
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