Magnus Manske wrote:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
Pretty fun, yeah, but we need mapping support in Wikipedia for that to happen:
- People need some feedback or they won't work on geographical data.
Numbers are boring.
- Feedback is needed to see if the data is correct. It's very easy to
make a typo when typing numbers and if the result isn't presented on some kind of map, it's highly unlikely that somebody would correct it.
IF the GEO coordinate links to a special page, then this page could link to/show a mapquest map around that point, among other things. Or should we use such a map image which links to the special apge (like thumbnails)? That should be at least *some* feedback.
And for missing geography data: How about wikipedition (wikipedia expedition) to collect that data? Imagine: Thousands of wikipedians all over the world emerging from their basements, roaming streets, shorelines, walking along rivers and climbing mountains, their GPS receivers in one hand, the data-logging laptop in the other, to discover new life and new civilizations, to boldly wander where no geek has wandered before ;-) And they could take pictures for wikimedia commons while they're at it!
Once a basic map format is adopted, this project will develop incrementally to a level consistent with the scale of map being edited. We should not expect that everything should be submitted at once. Features can be added later in a Wiki way if it's easy enough for people to it. We can start with a set of basic one degree blank rectangles that fill a significant portion of the users screen. Some essential features can be added at this scale. Perhaps the very first question might be so simple as. "Is this land or water?" A mid-ocean rectangle is not likely to get much attention, but there would be nothing preventing anybody from adding undersea features. A one degree rectangle can be divided to a finer scale for more detailed features.
One interesting site for pictures is at the Degree Confluence Project http://www.confluence.org/ Their idea is to create a series of pictures at each degree intersection.
Ec