Pedro M.V. wrote:

It´s important the user include the coordinates ( degrees North, South, East, West ) of the Cities in wikipedia articles. So, in the future will be more easy see maps of the city using these coordinates. (links to image search machines).

It is also important that users include the *correct* coordinates, and one way is to provide a link to MapQuest. This can be made analogous to the ISBN links. User inputs ISBN/coordinates, Wikipedia converts this to a link to Amazon/MapQuest, user can click the link and see that it leads to the correct item.

For example, San Diego has the center coordinates 32.72° N, 117.12° W (decimal degrees) and the MapQuest URL is http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?latlongtype=decimal&latitude=32.72&...

where zoom=5 is OK for large cities, and zoom=6 for smaller ones. Note that west of Greenwich is negative.

Analogous to the ISBN: wiki syntax, this could be written as map:32.72:-117.12

If MapQuest shuts down this service, or scrambles its URLs like MapBlast did, the coordinates are still in the Wikipedia pages and the script can be changed to make links to some other service that might exist at that time. Just like ISBN links, multiple links can also be created, to different map vendors. Therefore, the map wiki syntax should not be vendor specific.

|From: "Pedro M.V." macv@interlap.com.ar |Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 05:04:35 +0100 || |We need in wikipedia free http://www.acronymfinder.com/ | |Regards. |

Seems to be marketing for Amazon books. I searched on ILO, it gave me a bunch of expansions, such as "International Labor Organizaton" and "In Lieu Of", each with a button that led to the results of an Amazon search using the expanded term as keywords. Clever, but too commercial for us, don't you think?

Tom Parmenter Ortolan88

|From: "Pedro M.V." macv@interlap.com.ar |X-Priority: 3 |X-MSMail-Priority: Normal |X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 |X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by www.wikipedia.org id h1A1imE25488 |Sender: wikipedia-l-admin@wikipedia.org |Reply-To: wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org |Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2003 03:15:09 +0100 | |----- Original Message ----- |From: "Tom Parmenter" tompar@world.std.com |To: wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org |Cc: wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org |Sent: Thursday, February 06, 2003 6:18 AM |Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Acronyms | | |> |From: "Pedro M.V." macv@interlap.com.ar |> |Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 05:04:35 +0100 |> || |> |We need in wikipedia free http://www.acronymfinder.com/ |> | |> |Regards. |> | |> |> Seems to be marketing for Amazon books. I searched on ILO, it gave me |> a bunch of expansions, such as "International Labor Organizaton" and |> "In Lieu Of", each with a button that led to the results of an Amazon |> search using the expanded term as keywords. Clever, but too |> commercial for us, don't you think? |> |For sure. We could use [[acron:ILO]] and in the wikipedia [[ILO]] include : | |- International Labor Organizaton and so on. | |No commercial ( external ) links need in our wikipedia. | |Could be included more acronyms like IMHO and so on. | |Regards.

Pedro,

It is an excellent research resource. People can use it to figure out what an acronym means, but I would not be in favor of any kind of link to Amazon.com advertising (and there are many people on this list who are rabid Amazon haters who would put it much more strongly than I would).

Tom Parmenter Ortolan88

PS - My first Spanish teacher era mi vecino, Pedro (Mata) de Madrid..

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