On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 11:26 AM, Brian McNeilbrian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org wrote:
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals/Weather_tracking
I propose we ask to get this done properly - rather than abusing MediaWiki to store weather data.
The proposal could do with some fleshing out.
I support this idea because it would solve weather issues not just for Wikinews.
However, I found that it is useful to have not just current weather data. I have low blood pressure and if there is lower weather pressure, I have to sleep much more than usually. So, it is very useful for me to compare those data.
And with assuming that I want to know what was the pressure yesterday morning, it is questionable how such data may be presented more efficiently than having a page for weather conditions for that day. Probably, other data would be, also, interesting: like ultra-violet radiation is.
I see that the most important achievement of making extension for MediaWiki would be a special variable {{WEATHER TEMPERATURE 2009-12-03}}, which would be possible to be used as {{WEATHER TEMPERATURE {{CURRENTDAY}}-{{CURRENTMONTH}}-{{CURRENTYEAR}}}}.
Also, note that it is possible to build an article around particular weather data: if weather conditions is so, what is the best for particular age/health groups. Of course, if we assume that there are ~10 very active contributors on the most active WN (en), this is not realistic. However, when the number raises to 100 it will be.