On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 6:32 PM, Anirudh Bhati &lt;anirudhsbh(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: user-generated content on their website. They cannot license the maps So this would be placemark text descriptions and not the geographical coordinate data. that would make sense. In any case, its a very misleading announcement of no real value to wikipedia. And the text itself has been added from various sources and cannot be considered clean. In many instances you will find text and images from wikipedia articles in there. So they were actually holding cc-by-sa content i their database under a cc-by-nc all this while. The map data will continue to be copyright as far as I see it. -- j.mp/ArunGanesh <http://j.mp/ArunGanesh>

Last time I checked, wikimapia was a 2-D vector drawing drawn collaboratively on top of a map layer. And in wikimapia you can choose to use a map layer other than Google. OpenStreetMap is there in the options. Even on selecting that, the "Google" icon stays in the bottom left next to the scale, but that doesn'y mean anything - clicking on it simply takes one to the same location on google maps. I don't understand the interpretation that longitude-latitude co-ordinates of the placemarks cannot be stored / used with the places. These do not belong to Google. They do not belong to any private entity. Longitudes and latitudes have been used as a universal commons for centuries now, and even Google uses them, without paying any royalty to anybody, to position the right tile at the right place. They are used by all GPS enabled devices as well. The aeronautical industries, shipping industries, as well as all militaries used them as essentials without paying any royalty. On wikimapia, i guess they form the x,y co-ordinates using which 2-D drawings are drawn. So Duh, of course the lat-long co-ordinates of the vectors drawn will stay with the vector drawings. It's common sense. So the CC-BY-SA license then has merit. And if there's any hurdle that blocks this from happening, then, duh again, the hurdle needs to be fought and removed. Latitude and longitude are universal commons - they are as much anyone's private property as planet Earth is. Cheers, Nikhil Sheth +91-966-583-1250 Pune, India http://www.nikhilsheth.tk http://www.facebook.com/nikjs On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 2:59 AM, Anirudh Bhati &lt;anirudhsbh(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

With even OSM map layer being available, who's to tell from where were the vectors derived? What if one knew, through use of handheld GPS device, the exact latitude-longitude co-ordinates of the 4 corners of one's school campus and used that to map one's school on wikimapia? How can Google convincingly prove then that each and every single spot is derived only and only from google map imagery and nothing else? What if the google map layer was only THERE by default but the user didn't give it a crap while mapping the location? There's quite a lot of google maps's own vectors that are placed wrong you know... I've corrected a few myself. Anyways, I don't think this is something worthy of debating. Such short-sighted rules even if legit by some convoluted logic are quite worthy of being flushed down the toilet. What's next, will Google say I'm not allowed to ask travel directions to a place to a roadside paanwaala because it can claim that each and every direction to any place in the world is derived from google maps only and so I should consult google maps only to get to where I want to go? Will it ban me from sharing the location details of my son's birthday party venue over a event on FB unless I share them exclusively in the form of a google map link? (Btw, google does not pay royalty to any of the landmarks it mentions in its directions app... ohh, major lawsuit!!) Developed world and our pseudo intellectuals can continue getting cowed down by fear, but I don't think the developing world is going to give a damn. If a rule goes against common sense, would you ditch the rule or ditch your common sense? Cheers, Nikhil Sheth +91-966-583-1250 Pune, India http://www.nikhilsheth.tk http://www.facebook.com/nikjs On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 5:01 PM, Arun Ganesh &lt;arun.planemad(a)gmail.com&gt;wrote;wrote:

Arun, is it necessary that I have to use Google map for finding the coordinates? The last few times, I added coordinates to Wikipedia, I got the coordinates which were present on OSM and Twitter for BlackBerry, nether of which rely on Google -- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan.

What are the odds that the Google coordinates on Wiki are complety out of place? I know that quite often it is incorrect, but I trust Wikipedians to have a sense me judgement that tells them what is actually correct. -- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan.

As far as Indian places are concerned, can't coordinates be sourced from Census data? -- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan.