There has been rapid progress on the subject of adding OpenStreetMap maps to Wikimedia projects (e.g. Wikipedia) during the MediaWiki Developer Meet-Up[1] taking place right now in Berlin.
We now have a clear plan of action for getting OpenStreetMap maps embedded in Wikimedia wiki (e.g. Wikipedia) pages:
* Wikimedia will set up a database to mirror the OSM data (Planet.osm) * Wikimedia will set up its own rendering infrastructure for rendering tiles & other maps from the OSM data * The existing MediaWiki extensions for displaying OSM data in a MediaWiki article will be improved to work acceptably in production on Wikimedia servers
To prototype all this we'll be using new infrastructure provided by Wikimedia Deutschland[2]. Once things have been tested there they'll eventually be deployed on the main Wikimedia sites.
After discussion with the Wikimedia operations people (including Brion Vibber, Mark Bergsma et al) there seem to be no objections to the above plan as long as:
* The maps will work not only for JavaScript enabled browsers but also non-JavaScript enabled ones * The tools involved are improved to be relatively stable & deployable on Wikimedia, e.g. being able to embed more than one slippy map, the internationalization of error messages etc. * The end product (the generated tiles or map files) are cachable so that they can be thrown at the frontend squids, as they're static images this should be easy.
The featureset that we're aiming for to be able to deploy this on Wikimedia sites from the view of the user (more can be added later once we've got it working) is:
* The ability to embed OSM maps in articles with something like the Simple image extension[3], perhaps automagically turning into a Slippy Map if the browser supports it * A static or slippy map that can be used by geotagged articles[4] so we can have maps without explicit inclusion of a <map> tag.
We'll also set up a map toolserver for experimenting with other uses of OpenStreetMap data on Wikimedia. People with relevant projects can get access[5] to this toolserver to try out their ideas for tools that could eventually be integrated on the main Wikimedia sites.
This project is seeking help from anyone who's interested who'd like to be a part of making this happen, if you want to be a part of adding free maps to the world's largest encyclopedia please subscribe to this mailing list:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/maps-l
And/or read/edit/comment on the relevant wiki coordination pages:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Collaboration_with_Wikipedia
1. http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Developer_meet-up_2009 2. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap#.E2.80.9CMap_Toolserver.E2.80.9... 3. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Simple_image_MediaWiki_Extension 4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Coord 5. mailto:osm@wikimedia.de
Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
There has been rapid progress on the subject of adding OpenStreetMap maps to Wikimedia projects (e.g. Wikipedia) during the MediaWiki Developer Meet-Up[1] taking place right now in Berlin.
The Wikimedia developer meet-up in Berlin had three sessions on mapping. What Ævar posted was the outcome of one of them. Notes from all three are found on http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Developer_meet-up_2009/Notes/Mapping
I hosted a session that addressed current geographic data content in Wikipedia (Wiki projects to improve geodata quality). It's a fact that we don't know how many articles have coordinates or how many should have coordinates. On the Swedish Wikipedia, I found coordinates in 3 % of all articles. But on the Dutch Wikipedia, some 32 % of all articles have coordinates. We also have no real idea if these coordinates are accurate. The Dutch Wikipedia's article about a Norwegian city had a coordinate in central Sweden. How many such errors do we have? Some languages have a "WikiProject Geographical coordinates", but these are not coordinated (pun intended).
So, my ambition is to improve coordinate quality and quantity across languages of Wikipedia. For now, this means using templates that link to the Geo Hack page. Depending on progress in the "Wikipedia & OpenStreetMap" project (that Ævar's post was about), these *links* might later change into *inline* maps.
Great. Let us know when you've got community approval.
On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 12:21 PM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason avarab@gmail.comwrote:
There has been rapid progress on the subject of adding OpenStreetMap maps to Wikimedia projects (e.g. Wikipedia) during the MediaWiki Developer Meet-Up[1] taking place right now in Berlin.
We now have a clear plan of action for getting OpenStreetMap maps embedded in Wikimedia wiki (e.g. Wikipedia) pages:
- Wikimedia will set up a database to mirror the OSM data (Planet.osm)
- Wikimedia will set up its own rendering infrastructure for rendering
tiles & other maps from the OSM data
- The existing MediaWiki extensions for displaying OSM data in a
MediaWiki article will be improved to work acceptably in production on Wikimedia servers
To prototype all this we'll be using new infrastructure provided by Wikimedia Deutschland[2]. Once things have been tested there they'll eventually be deployed on the main Wikimedia sites.
After discussion with the Wikimedia operations people (including Brion Vibber, Mark Bergsma et al) there seem to be no objections to the above plan as long as:
- The maps will work not only for JavaScript enabled browsers but also
non-JavaScript enabled ones
- The tools involved are improved to be relatively stable & deployable
on Wikimedia, e.g. being able to embed more than one slippy map, the internationalization of error messages etc.
- The end product (the generated tiles or map files) are cachable so
that they can be thrown at the frontend squids, as they're static images this should be easy.
The featureset that we're aiming for to be able to deploy this on Wikimedia sites from the view of the user (more can be added later once we've got it working) is:
- The ability to embed OSM maps in articles with something like the
Simple image extension[3], perhaps automagically turning into a Slippy Map if the browser supports it
- A static or slippy map that can be used by geotagged articles[4] so
we can have maps without explicit inclusion of a <map> tag.
We'll also set up a map toolserver for experimenting with other uses of OpenStreetMap data on Wikimedia. People with relevant projects can get access[5] to this toolserver to try out their ideas for tools that could eventually be integrated on the main Wikimedia sites.
This project is seeking help from anyone who's interested who'd like to be a part of making this happen, if you want to be a part of adding free maps to the world's largest encyclopedia please subscribe to this mailing list:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/maps-l
And/or read/edit/comment on the relevant wiki coordination pages:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Collaboration_with_Wikipedia
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap#.E2.80.9CMap_Toolserver.E2.80.9... 3. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Simple_image_MediaWiki_Extension 4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Coord 5. mailto:osm@wikimedia.de
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 10:12 PM, Brian Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu wrote:
Great. Let us know when you've got community approval.
Better than a simple super-majority too per the president set in the recent discussions related to revision flagging.
s/president/precedent ^_^
On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 9:49 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 10:12 PM, Brian Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu wrote:
Great. Let us know when you've got community approval.
Better than a simple super-majority too per the president set in the recent discussions related to revision flagging.
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Gregory Maxwell schrieb:
On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 10:12 PM, Brian Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu wrote:
Great. Let us know when you've got community approval.
Better than a simple super-majority too per the president set in the recent discussions related to revision flagging.
Well, falgged revisions are pretty controverisial, I dopt map integration will be. There's hardly a downside I can see.
Anyway... let's wait until we at least have a *demo* that people can look at, so they know what they are talking about. Will be some time until we have that.
-- daniel
Daniel Kinzler wrote:
Gregory Maxwell schrieb:
On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 10:12 PM, Brian Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu wrote:
Great. Let us know when you've got community approval.
Better than a simple super-majority too per the president set in the recent discussions related to revision flagging.
Well, falgged revisions are pretty controverisial, I dopt map integration will be. There's hardly a downside I can see.
Anyway... let's wait until we at least have a *demo* that people can look at, so they know what they are talking about. Will be some time until we have that.
The MW extension for the inline OSM maps is: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:SlippyMap
Feel free to pop over to some of the sites already using it for examples of its current state. As a minimum for WMF deployment we want to make sure it handles multiple maps per page ;) and handles non-JavaScript visitors for a static map.
Medium to longer term we'll want to be able to highlight places/countries/geographic features/whatever (very useful!) and potentially other sorts of data sets (eg a map of some historical whatsit), topographic map tiles, etc etc.
Folks have been tossing around the idea of doing this for years and just never quite got round to pushing it... now it's being pushed forward and we'll be able to use a local OpenStreetMap mirror to ensure we're not breaking the external sites it relies on for source data. ;)
Unlike say Google Maps, OSM is also a free content project very similar in spirit to Wikipedia, which makes us feel warm and fuzzy as well -- it's not something that can be snatched away from the community's use in the future.
-- brion
On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 11:32 AM, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
Medium to longer term we'll want to be able to highlight places/countries/geographic features/whatever (very useful!) and potentially other sorts of data sets (eg a map of some historical whatsit), topographic map tiles, etc etc.
I'm involved on this project as a developer, with interest in making the setup flexible as possible to support other kinds of maps at a later time.
NASA World Wind imagery is something that we definitely would like to include, as a second thing after we get OpenStreetMap deployed. We also want to provide an added available layer with icons showing locations of Wikipedia articles.
It will be some time before we get to these and other ideas. In the short-term, we are focusing specifically on OpenStreetMap and getting the technical infrastructure setup.
-Aude
-- brion
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Daniel Kinzler wrote:
Gregory Maxwell schrieb:
On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 10:12 PM, Brian Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu wrote:
Great. Let us know when you've got community approval.
Better than a simple super-majority too per the president set in the recent discussions related to revision flagging.
Well, falgged revisions are pretty controverisial, I dopt map integration will be. There's hardly a downside I can see.
The reason FlaggedRevs gets much more scrutiny is that it's a major change in workflow with potentially far-reaching implications. Automating map generation? Not so much. :)
-- brion
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org