[Wikipedia-l] Galileo and others

Thu Jul 15 07:22:28 UTC 2004

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