Europe will over the next years install a GPS-like positioning system called Galileo. The German list got a suggestion to include coordinates in the form of [[Geo:-13°23'+45°2'23'']] or similar for locations. A future GPS/Galileo PDA/smartphone could then reverse-lookup what wikipedia has about the current location. (This is kind of a PR gag, but still...)
IMHO that brings us back to the map system we already discussed to death ;-)
Seriously, such markup could link to a special page with multiple functions: * Show it on a map * List wikipedia locations nearby and others I can't think of right now.
Should we a) include such a syntax? b) wait for a "real" map system to emerge, or just do this now and convert later?
Magnus
Just out of curiosity, how will the GPS co-ordinates differ in the Galileo system from the existing system? I assume that the two can be easily converted back and forth, or that the numbers are the same for both?
If the numbers differ, we should accept both, so the markup should have the ability to distinguish. It'd be a shame if I took my GPS receiver (which uses the existing system) to get a location, but could not enter it. It would be equally a shame if someone took a Galileo system out in a few years and could not easily enter that as well.
--Jimbo
Magnus Manske wrote:
Europe will over the next years install a GPS-like positioning system called Galileo. The German list got a suggestion to include coordinates in the form of [[Geo:-13°23'+45°2'23'']] or similar for locations. A future GPS/Galileo PDA/smartphone could then reverse-lookup what wikipedia has about the current location. (This is kind of a PR gag, but still...)
IMHO that brings us back to the map system we already discussed to death ;-)
Seriously, such markup could link to a special page with multiple functions:
- Show it on a map
- List wikipedia locations nearby
and others I can't think of right now.
Should we a) include such a syntax? b) wait for a "real" map system to emerge, or just do this now and convert later?
Magnus _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
Just out of curiosity, how will the GPS co-ordinates differ in the Galileo system from the existing system? I assume that the two can be easily converted back and forth, or that the numbers are the same for both?
If the numbers differ, we should accept both, so the markup should have the ability to distinguish. It'd be a shame if I took my GPS receiver (which uses the existing system) to get a location, but could not enter it. It would be equally a shame if someone took a Galileo system out in a few years and could not easily enter that as well.
--Jimbo
Both Galileo and the GPS use the International Terrestrial Reference System as their reference frame, and TAI as their reference timescale. They then derive their own realizations of these idealized systems using their own infrastructure. Although the Galileo and GPS realizations of the ITRS and TAI will be independent, they should match to within a resolution of a few centimeters or nanoseconds respectively, and so should be effectively interchangeable for most low-resolution use.
See http://www.galileosworld.com/galileosworld/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=7561... and http://www.iers.org/iers/earth/itrs/itrs.html for more details.
-- Neil
--- Neil Harris usenet@tonal.clara.co.uk wrote:
Both Galileo and the GPS use the International Terrestrial Reference System as their reference frame, and TAI as their reference timescale. They then derive their own realizations of these idealized systems using their own infrastructure. Although the Galileo and GPS realizations of the ITRS and TAI will be independent, they should match to within a resolution of a few centimeters or nanoseconds respectively, and so should be effectively interchangeable for most low-resolution use.
See
http://www.galileosworld.com/galileosworld/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=7561...
and http://www.iers.org/iers/earth/itrs/itrs.html for more details.
I smell a new article for wikipedia coming on...
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On Wed, Jul 14, 2004 at 04:25:17PM +0200, Magnus Manske wrote:
Should we b) wait for a "real" map system to emerge, or just do this now and convert later?
Do it now, convert later.
There are serious obstacles to developing real map system, most important being limited free geographical data of decent quality.
--- Tomasz Wegrzanowski taw@users.sf.net wrote:
Do it now, convert later.
I agree.
There are serious obstacles to developing real map system, most important being limited free geographical data of decent quality.
I say forget mapping. Just put in coordinates into physical location pages, and let the mapping software companies do their magic.
===== Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan@yahoo.com chris.mahan@gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/
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On Wed, Jul 14, 2004 at 09:02:59AM -0700, Christopher Mahan wrote:
--- Tomasz Wegrzanowski taw@users.sf.net wrote:
Do it now, convert later.
I agree.
There are serious obstacles to developing real map system, most important being limited free geographical data of decent quality.
I say forget mapping. Just put in coordinates into physical location pages, and let the mapping software companies do their magic.
What do the world need the mapping companies for ? Most of the mapping is being done by the governments, for taxpayers' money, so the data should be available for free. Unfortunately, except for the US, it isn't.
Once we have the data, the software itself isn't that difficult.
--- Tomasz Wegrzanowski taw@users.sf.net wrote:
On Wed, Jul 14, 2004 at 09:02:59AM -0700, Christopher Mahan wrote:
--- Tomasz Wegrzanowski taw@users.sf.net wrote:
Do it now, convert later.
I agree.
There are serious obstacles to developing real map system, most important being limited free geographical data of decent quality.
I say forget mapping. Just put in coordinates into physical
location
pages, and let the mapping software companies do their magic.
What do the world need the mapping companies for ? Most of the mapping is being done by the governments, for taxpayers' money, so the data should be available for free. Unfortunately, except for the US, it isn't.
Once we have the data, the software itself isn't that difficult.
The mapping companies have the maps with the elevation with not much interesting on them. We add the stuff on the map that makes the map come alive. It's an overlay.
Imagine walking around in israel and you bump your head in the wall. Oh, sorry. Imagine you have a wireless gps device and you're walking on a road and the devices announces: "According to Wikipedia, you are on the same road Roman General Vespasian marched on in 69AD with 9000 roman soldiers on the way to the fortress of Masada." A few minutes later: "This village hosts a regional olive competition that will last till Friday. Also, famed guitarist SomeMadeUp Name grew up here until he was 19."
Would that not be fun?
===== Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan@yahoo.com chris.mahan@gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/
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On Wed, Jul 14, 2004 at 10:24:43AM -0700, Christopher Mahan wrote:
--- Tomasz Wegrzanowski taw@users.sf.net wrote:
On Wed, Jul 14, 2004 at 09:02:59AM -0700, Christopher Mahan wrote:
--- Tomasz Wegrzanowski taw@users.sf.net wrote:
Do it now, convert later.
I agree.
There are serious obstacles to developing real map system, most important being limited free geographical data of decent quality.
I say forget mapping. Just put in coordinates into physical
location
pages, and let the mapping software companies do their magic.
What do the world need the mapping companies for ? Most of the mapping is being done by the governments, for taxpayers' money, so the data should be available for free. Unfortunately, except for the US, it isn't.
Once we have the data, the software itself isn't that difficult.
The mapping companies have the maps with the elevation with not much interesting on them. We add the stuff on the map that makes the map come alive. It's an overlay.
Imagine walking around in israel and you bump your head in the wall. Oh, sorry. Imagine you have a wireless gps device and you're walking on a road and the devices announces: "According to Wikipedia, you are on the same road Roman General Vespasian marched on in 69AD with 9000 roman soldiers on the way to the fortress of Masada." A few minutes later: "This village hosts a regional olive competition that will last till Friday. Also, famed guitarist SomeMadeUp Name grew up here until he was 19."
Would that not be fun?
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.
I don't remember the URL, but Lars's paper about wiki contains some more thoughts on maps.
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!
Magnus
--- Magnus Manske magnus.manske@web.de wrote:
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,
Wasn't there a zombie movie that started out like that ? Just kidding.
Independent of maps, you could also find other "nearby" articles from geopoint to geopoint distances and direction. Try doing that in EB.
===== Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan@yahoo.com chris.mahan@gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/
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On Wed, Jul 14, 2004 at 09:33:38PM +0200, Magnus Manske wrote:
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!
Some of the data is easy to enter - locations of cities etc. Other is pretty difficult - like exact shapes of borders and rivers. Unfortunatelly it's the latter kind where the gaps are largest.
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
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
Once we have the data, the software itself isn't that difficult.
Actually, you can do a lot of fun with geo coordinates even if you don't have access to mapping data. For example, you can compute the distance between two coordinates or you can list coordinates that are within close range of each other. In an article on Napoleon, you can follow every [[link]] and see if the pointed-to page has a coordinate, then you can put all these coordinates as numbered circles on a map overlay, to trace Napoleon's world tour. Then add this overlay to a map if you have one.
Just like ISBN: numbers can be useful with any different online bookshop or even without any online bookshop, GEO: coordinates can be useful with different online map sources. This could be selected with individual user preferences. If I am a subscriber to a commercial online map source, my personalized view of Wikipedia could render GEO: coordinates as a link to that source. Since the contents with the GEO: coordinates is distributed under GFDL, another website can do something else with the GEO: coordinates.
On http://susning.nu/Wroclaw the wiki text map:51.11:17.03:100000 (i.e. geo 51.11 N, 17.03 E) is rendered as a link to http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?latlongtype=decimal&latitude=51.11&...
The difficult thing is to agree on the exact shape of the world (ellipsoid, geoid). Converting between Greenwich and Paris meridian, between decimal and non-decimal degrees, or between different projections is trivial. But is 51.11 and 17.03 the official center of Wroclaw? Or is it a few dozen meters off? Mapquest seems to draw this coordinate at the Ratusz (town hall), which seems like a good choice, but another map source might have a different opinion. What does your GPS tell you? And which coordinate should be in the Wikipedia page? This is where some knowledge about cartography could be very useful. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_projection#Choosing_a_model_for_the_shape_o...
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