If you go up a page from Milos' detailed list there's a world map with temperatures. This looks very like the old WeatherChecker output but I think it's really overlaid temp. numbers. The whole thing looks really good, but pictorial form is what most people are used to digesting weather data in.

How hard is it to convert these detailed figures into a map system that uses image maps and can be drilled down into a more local form?

I'd expect to be able to go from World to one of our defined geographical regions (eg Oceania or Europe) and from there down to a country level (eg UK).

Part of doing this would be altering the maps in some way to roughly mark out the areas that can be drilled to. Take a look at the BBC news page's regional map for how they've done this. At regional level you'd want maps with country outlines, hover text would then be good to see where the final drill-down would go.

Is this do-able? Are these sources as free as we need? Is there scope for cross-project collaboration? For the latter, it'd seem reasonable that Wikipedia have the ability to look up temperature history and say which day in a year was the hottest/coldest. For Wikiversity the data is a historical record for any research purpose they can come up with, and we have a need for it as news - if we do build a long-term record then there's our ability to analyse it for trends and such. Wikipedia with weather data is one feature of Wolfram Alpha knocked off. Instead of fancy algorithms that aren't very good at parsing English queries you'd have lots of curious geeks writing programs to query the data.

There's quite a few potential uses for Wikinews having this data available. If you have an earthquake or tsunami then the weather conditions are going to influence relief efforts. I'm sure people could come up with other examples.

This sort of begs the question, where should the data be held? We're going to want it cross-wikinews - do we need weather.wikinews.org? (Or even weather.wikimedia.org) If so, and we have a good bot for it, could a WMF server have the spare capacity to run the bot?

Lastly, one of the things I always find useful in a weather map is isobars with front markings. Rarely seen on TV now, you can quickly tell what weather is going where and do your own half-day to day forecast. Do we have enough data to produce these at any particular level of detail?

Brian.

-----Original Message----- From: wikinews-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikinews-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Paul Williams Sent: 18 June 2009 15:36 To: Wikinews mailing list Subject: Re: [Wikinews-l] Weather bot

Hi Milos,

I have a toolserver account I am willing to run the bot on for the English Wikinews. We shall have a chat at some point over the weekend - can I try and catch you on IRC?

Regards,

Paul W

User:Skenmy

2009/6/18 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com

I finally made a weather bot according to my wishes. Its characteristics are:

* It gathers information from wund.com http://wund.com/ , but it is possible to make plugins for other sites and protocols. * It may gather data from all over the world. * It may be localized in any language.

The only problem is that one iteration takes at least 5-7 minutes just for weather in Serbia and just for Wikinews in Serbian. Probably, I would be able to run enough of instances for covering weather in Serbia for all Wikinews editions (or, questionable, to run enough of instances to cover the whole world for sr.wn). That means that I'll need your help (people who are able to run bots as cron jobs), so we may cover the whole world for all Wikinews editions.

My other ask is related to programming the bot. I prefer to make the bot as a collaborative work because it is not reasonable to expect maintenance of one relatively huge project by just one person. I may make subversion repository at SourceForge (or at one of the servers in the company where I am working). If anyone of you are willing to join me, let me know that. Also, all other ideas are welcome.

You may see its output here [1] (in Serbian).

[1] - http://sr.wikinews.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82 %D0%B8:%D0%92%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%B5/%D0%95%D0%B2%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%B0/% D0%A1%D1%80%D0%B1%D0%B8%D1%98%D0%B0

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On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 5:07 PM, Brian McNeilbrian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org wrote:

If you go up a page from Milos’ detailed list there’s a world map with temperatures. This looks very like the old WeatherChecker output but I think it’s really overlaid temp. numbers. The whole thing looks really good, but pictorial form is what most people are used to digesting weather data in.

The page above is not maintained by bot. Bot is in the completed phase related to the algorithm, but far from completed in relation to all possibilities which may be added.

How hard is it to convert these detailed figures into a map system that uses image maps and can be drilled down into a more local form?

Configuration page for each place assumes geographical coordinates. Because of using Sun-based and Moon-based icons, I had to calculate is there a night or a daylight. That means that bot already has everything needed for making a map.

About openstreetmap, which mentioned Bawolff: yes, it is fully possible to connect it.

I’d expect to be able to go from World to one of our defined geographical regions (eg Oceania or Europe) and from there down to a country level (eg UK).

Part of doing this would be altering the maps in some way to roughly mark out the areas that can be drilled to. Take a look at the BBC news page’s regional map for how they’ve done this. At regional level you’d want maps with country outlines, hover text would then be good to see where the final drill-down would go.

The most useful method for dealing with weather would be to have one page per information; let's say: Template:Weather/London/pressure. I started with that approach, but it took ~45-60 minutes just for Serbia just for Wikinews in Serbian. So, I had to cut number of pages.

Note that the main problem is not processor power or Internet connection, but: the process of changing one page, as well as Pywikipediabot's waiting before changing the page. (Some time ago, I tried to see how it would work if I remove that waiting, and it doesn't work well: without waiting process of adding data into wiki may fail.)

I have to check the next issues: * Which amount of memory bot consumes. * Which amount of CPU bot consumes. * Which amount of Internet bot consumes.

After that we'll have the picture what do we need to cover all of the planet. If it is not possible, then we may make some priority: Capitals of countries, cities with more than 1M of inhabitants and so on. Wikinews in languages localized in [relatively] small (like Serbian or Italian are) may cover those areas, too. Also, if someone is willing to cover her or his own country, he or she may run bot(s) for that country for all Wikinews editions.

Is this do-able? Are these sources as free as we need? Is there scope for cross-project collaboration? For the latter, it’d seem reasonable that Wikipedia have the ability to look up temperature history and say which day in a year was the hottest/coldest. For Wikiversity the data is a historical record for any research purpose they can come up with, and we have a need for it as news – if we do build a long-term record then there’s our ability to analyse it for trends and such. Wikipedia with weather data is one feature of Wolfram Alpha knocked off. Instead of fancy algorithms that aren’t very good at parsing English queries you’d have lots of curious geeks writing programs to query the data.

Sources are not free in the sense of sites, but they are free in the sense of data. Actually, I think that there is some protocol for sharing meteorological data, so we may use that protocol instead of harvesting sites. At the other side, I think that all sites will be happy because of linking them.

This sort of begs the question, where should the data be held? We’re going to want it cross-wikinews – do we need weather.wikinews.org? (Or even weather.wikimedia.org) If so, and we have a good bot for it, could a WMF server have the spare capacity to run the bot?

There are more efficient method for adding meteorological data than putting it on the wiki. Even writing it into the file system is more efficient than remotely adding data to the wiki. If we have WMF support and one PHP developer, we may cover all of the world with just one system.

Generally, I am for making templates.wikimedia.org which would be used as Commons is used. So, [[Template:Weather/London]] would point firstly to the local template and then to the "templates.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Weather/London". It would allow a number of benefits: from putting weather data at Wikipedia articles to making generic country/pop star/chemical element/... templates for all Wikipedias.

Lastly, one of the things I always find useful in a weather map is isobars with front markings. Rarely seen on TV now, you can quickly tell what weather is going where and do your own half-day to day forecast. Do we have enough data to produce these at any particular level of detail?

Actually, yes. Some work should be done and I'll need help for drawing maps, but it is possible: * I may draw lines according to temperature, pressure, wind and conditions data. * I may calculate hourly changes, too.

But, I think that it would be good to have one meteorologist or student of meteorology to explain to us some basic methods.

Some other possible features and needs: * I may add astronomical data for current day: what is Moon's phase, but where are Ganymede and Betelgeuse, too. * I would like to see more systematized icons. So, someone who knows to draw SVGs may help, too. * I need the list of possible weather conditions. * ...

Milos, all,

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.

Brian.

-----Original Message----- From: wikinews-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikinews-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Milos Rancic Sent: 17 July 2009 22:15 To: Wikinews mailing list Subject: Re: [Wikinews-l] Weather bot

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 5:07 PM, Brian McNeilbrian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org wrote:

If you go up a page from Milos' detailed list there's a world map with temperatures. This looks very like the old WeatherChecker output but I

think

it's really overlaid temp. numbers. The whole thing looks really good, but pictorial form is what most people are used to digesting weather data in.

I've seen that map now... This is "Template:Weather/world map" [1]. I didn't do that; it was done by one of the previous leads of sr.wn. According to the map type, it seems to me very easy to make it to work for all regions (i.e. I suppose that there are regional and country maps which may be used with geographical coordinates, too).

BTW, I've stopped for a while to work on the Weather bot because of my personal duties, but I'll continue with it next week.

The last information about the Weather bot, which I gathered, is that I may make it more efficient with forking bot processes (processor, memory and bandwidth consumption are not relevant; just Wikimedia servers behavior is relevant). That means that I would be probably able to make "the basic useful generic bot" which would generate data for the biggest cities in the world, and regional/continental biggest cities/capitols -- and run it from my server for all Wikinews editions. And if someone is willing to make more specific bot for their own Wikinews, they should do that from their own server.

I have to abstract localization better, too. (Basically, it works, but it is not so easy to localize the bot; note that English has to be localized, too, even keys are in English.)

[1] http://sr.wikinews.org/wiki/%D0%A8%D0%B0%D0%B1%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%BD:%D0%92%D1%8 0%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%B5/%D0%BC%D0%B0%D0%BF%D0%B0_%D1%81%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%B0

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On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 4:35 PM, Paul Williamspaul@skenmy.com wrote:

I have a toolserver account I am willing to run the bot on for the English Wikinews. We shall have a chat at some point over the weekend - can I try and catch you on IRC?

I've got one more offer for help privately. I'll send to both of you my code during this or the next day and we'll organize what to do.

Not seeing much I like here

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Weather_icons

These look more like what I'd use

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weather-icons.svg

Also need wind speed/direction indicators.

Brian McNeil

-----Original Message----- From: wikinews-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikinews-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Brian McNeil Sent: 19 June 2009 14:04 To: 'Wikinews mailing list' Subject: Re: [Wikinews-l] Weather bot

I think this is starting to look like something where we might be justified bidding for a WMF grant to fund development. I'm going to point Brion at this discussion and also raise it on a few Wikipedia weather-related talk pages. It just seems a logical extension of doing things like geo-location to add location-meteorology.

Brian.

-----Original Message----- From: wikinews-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikinews-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Milos Rancic Sent: 19 June 2009 12:29 To: Wikinews mailing list Subject: Re: [Wikinews-l] Weather bot

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 4:35 PM, Paul Williamspaul@skenmy.com wrote:

I have a toolserver account I am willing to run the bot on for the English Wikinews. We shall have a chat at some point over the weekend - can I try and catch you on IRC?

I've got one more offer for help privately. I'll send to both of you my code during this or the next day and we'll organize what to do.

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On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 3:04 PM, Brian McNeilbrian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org wrote:

I think this is starting to look like something where we might be justified bidding for a WMF grant to fund development. I'm going to point Brion at this discussion and also raise it on a few Wikipedia weather-related talk pages. It just seems a logical extension of doing things like geo-location to add location-meteorology.

Yes, grant to fund development is a good idea. I always have the problem related to the implementation of something into PHP. I am not a masochist to program in PHP and it is necessary to compensate someone's else willingness for S&M.

I am thinking now to make a contact with Hydro-meteorological Institute of Serbia... Maybe they would willing to help us from the meteorological side.

Milos Rancic wrote:

• Organization: I think that we should organize our bots in the next way:

** One bot owner should cover one country. In the cases of the bigger countries, one bot owner should cover one or a couple of states/regions. Such bot should update all Wikinews editions (of course, all Wikinews editions which are willing to be updated in such way and which localized messages) for that country/region. In other words, for example, the first bot owner from France should cover weather in France for English, French, Serbian etc. Wikinews. Note that you'll need as many bot instances as Wikinews editions you are covering. (In other words, if all Wikinews editions are willing to have weather, you'll need to have ~20 bot instances.) Usually, bot should be initiated as a cron job, which means that you should periodically check does bot work.)

Why is people wanting to bot create thousands of pages of such not particulary useful events? It's ok if you want to have weather data in wikinews, but that should go as a MediaWiki extension instead (eg. Special:Weather).

I prepared the code for distribution even it is still in the early development phase. It may be found at https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=267366&package_id...