Talk:Technical geography

Related terms

My impression, based on the number of publications, was that geographers were converging to "GIScience" as a preferred term. Non-geographers -- such as surveyors and geodesists and hydrographers --, seem to have their all preferences for umbrella term: geomatics, geoinformatics, etc. I don't think there's a clear winner yet. fgnievinski (talk) 05:18, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Hello,

GIScience is certainly a term that is widely used in the literature. I have listed various other terms for are listed within the article and the debate around terminology is in the controversy section. Technical geography as a term predates most of the others being bounced around by a few centuries, and is used to divide the discipline by a few authoritative sources listed within the article. As stated in the article to address this

"The benefit of this wording is that it is consistent with the other two branches and clearly places the discipline within geography."

Semantically, the issue of terms is far from new, and there is no reason that multiple highly related terms can't coexist. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 05:34, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Geography

geography means to learn about the earth 2405:D000:A117:C066:69A4:2A4F:58E9:46CD (talk) 14:28, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Geography is a discipline that focuses on studying and describing spatial phenomena on the Earth, yes. How is this related to this page? GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 19:33, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Technical geography/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: The Blue Rider (talk · contribs) 21:18, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

General comments

@GeogSage:, sorry for taking so long to do the review but I am quite busy these weeks. Eitherway, with so many adittional text that needed to be introduced, I will unfortunately will have to read everything again to see if everything is in order. I still have some main concerns if this article is of GA quality, namely the prose and broadness criteria, I got the feeling that, even though it is a lengthy article, I didn't actually learned that much about technical geography itself, but as I said, I will read the article again and see if that holds. I still need to do the source check as well. Again, sorry for the slow-pace of the review. The Blue Rider 22:41, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I forgot, I also need to check the lead and now that I have read it I see that technical geography is using and creating tools for the other two branches, in that case it makes more sense the article. I am no expert, so I don't know, but what would you say it is the most glaring omission of this article? Or do you think as of now it gives a good picture of what is technical geography? The Blue Rider 22:59, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

@The Blue Rider, reminder ping. (I'm just checking up on the old holds list.) -- asilvering (talk) 00:39, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

I am aware of this review, I still need to re-read everything again because so much content was changed and just don't have the time right now. I don't think the GeogSage minds if I take just some more weeks/one month per the bellow comment. The Blue Rider 19:30, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Take all the time you need. I am honestly swamped in my personal life and am just coming back from a break from editing. It's not a race. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 17:50, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Don't worry about taking a long time, it is not a race. I'm currently working on my dissertation with a final defense coming up in a few weeks, so I don't have a lot of free time myself. You make a great point about needing to go into more detail about what technical geography is, as I focused mostly on the history after the lead. I'm currently throwing together a "fundamentals" section in my sandbox inspired by what I put together on the main geography page, with a sub-section for core concepts that should address this. It should be done in a day or two though. Addressing what technical geography is today and has been historically is complicated, but you are right that when it is applied, it uses datasets from human/physical geography.GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)}

@The Blue Rider:: I created a section for "Fundamentals" that might help address this problem. It includes a section on core concepts.

Stability

• Last edit today (17th March), no edit wars in place; overall stable, pass!

Images

• All images are properly licensed, though [1] has no attribution so I can't verify. Some images while having a suitable caption, they are missing a citation since the text is not in the body of the article, specifically the tusk and the globe.
  •  Fixed I changed the image for photogrammetry to one that is in Wikimedia Commons. I added citations to both the tusk and globe from the History of cartography page, where I originally lifted those images from.

Copyvio

• Earwig's Copyvio Detector points to 3,8% due to a paper's title.
  •  FixedGeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 05:20, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
    • There was no need to fix, it is reasonable to have the titles of works.

History

Early history and etymology

• Two "meaning" in a row, maybe try to change one of them.
  •  Fixed. Reworded section to eliminate the duplicate words, and added Wiktionary links to words being defined.GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 19:54, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
• from Greek → from the Greek
  •  FixedGeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 19:30, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
• Not sure why is etymology paired in the history section.

• Comment: etymology is defined on Wikipedia as "the scientific study of the origin and evolution of a word's semantic meaning across time" and the "across time" part is why I combined them. The two sections were separated initially, but I combined them because they had become redundant. Please see version here before the sections were merged. Information relevant to the original term and the early history were essentially the same thing. Perhaps the content should be either split again, or renamed?GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 19:30, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

• No need to say the paper title, just say who published it instead.
  •  Fixed.GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 05:16, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
• they state they chose → they chose
  •  FixedGeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 05:17, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
• What is practical geography? Can we add a wikilink to that?

• Comment: practical geography is mentioned in the text from the 1700s I traced the term "technical geography" to. This is not to say this is the first use of the term technical geography, but that I struggle to find older books. The author states that they chose technical geography over the term practical "...as it is called by others, to avoid confusing the terms; for this branch of geography has its theory and practice..." You can read the quote here on page 48. To my knowledge, practical geography has fallen out of use as a term and is fairly close to what we call "applied geography." Wikipedia has no page for either of these terms.GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 19:30, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

• Add wikilink to remote sensing.
  •  Done
• I feel like this is unnecessary and not encyclopedical: "Going back to the Greeks..."
  •  Fixed
• Commas before and after "Geographia".
  •  Done
• Remove the Ya'qubi book from the wikilink.
  •  Done (I think)
• Is this quote, "Mathematical Geography, Geodesy, Topography and Cartography, Instruments, Projection, The Universal Hour, A Prime Meridian, Orthography of Geographical Names, etc." really needed? It is too big.
  •  Fixed shortened the quote to three.

20th century

Early 20th century

• Add wikilink to geodesy.
  •  Done but in earlier mention of geodesy.
• Add wikilink to regional geography and physical geography.
  •  Done
• Remove the "Here...".
  •  Done (I think)
• Why is the S in Scientific capitalized?
  •  Fixed
• Why are the fields' first letters also capitalized? Maybe it is normal, but I personally find it odd.
  • comment' older convention was to capitalize important words like scientific terms in publications. I changed to lower case to be more in line wiht modern conventions.
• Per MOS:PARA, one sentence paragraphs are too be avoided.
  •  Fixed
• This section could be more complete. Geographers trying to make technical geography close to natural sciences seems like a big deal! How exactly did they do it? Is such approximation obsolute now?
  • Comment Citations between 1900 and 1950 are particuarlly hard to find unfortunatly. Will work on a bit more to flush out.

Quantitative revolution

• Add wikilink to spatial information.
  •  Done
• Does the source describe Jekns as influential? If not, remove the MOS:WEASEL wording.
  •  Fixed Changed word "Influential" to "preeminent," added peer-reviewed publication that uses the word and that discusses his work on cartography curriculums.
• "While how best" is confusing.
  •  Fixedchanged wording
• Change "across the country" to "across United States".
  •  Done
• Both this section and the previous one are too american-centric, if this continues the broadness criteria might not pass.
  •  Comment: The quantitative revolution was a paradigm shift that started after WWII, mostly in the United States and, to a lesser degree, Great Britain. The reality is that the technology of the 20th century (remote sensing, GPS, and computers) that drove the rapid development during this time is largely American in origin. In later sections, British geographer Stan Openshire is quoted, and Geomatics and Geoinformatics are discussed to bring in French and Swedish perspectives. The publication Geographia Technica is published by the University of Lorraine, and the editor Ionel Haidu is heavily cited. Dutch cartographer Ferjan Ormeling Jr. is also cited heavily because of his work on the UNESCO Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems. I've tried to bring in literature from outside the US, but during the time frame between 1900 and the current day, the US has dominated this field. I will continue to look for more sources from outside the US.

20th century technologies

• "These technologies rapidly changed how geographers operated" how?
  •  Fixed, elaborated on some specifics. Added citation
  •  Comment: this is elaborated on a bit in the subsections, but is mostly based on content in the citations.
• "and significant effort went into considering how best to incorporate them into the discipline" how?
  •  Fixed, reworded
• "With these technologies came new disciplines and terms" such as?
  •  Fixed, gave example of analytical cartography
• "These terms often compete and overlap with each other, and often originate in separate countries" explain further.
  •  Fixed, gave example. This is elaborated on in subsequent sections.

Remote sensing

• Add wikilink to GIS.
  •  Done
  •  Comment: GIS is included in the section following Remote Sensing and linked there as well as one of the "main" pages. I included the link here following the comment, but I wanted to point out that it is linked redundantly. I'm not sure what the best approach is here, as GIS is chronologically after remote sensing as a technology.
    • If it is already linked then there's no need to link again, my bad. The Blue Rider 22:17, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
• Add wikilink to remote sensing.
  •  Comment: Remote sensing is the "main article" of the section and is linked there.

Computer cartography and GIS

• "Computers were no exception" doesn't sound encyclopedical, I think this sentence can be removed eitherway.
  •  Fixed
• "the first true(?) geographic..." why true? What others GIS were not true?
  •  Fixed
• Add wikilink to positivist.
  •  Done
• In the last paragraph it is worthy to clarify that the own science is reffering to computer cartography.
  •  Done
• Throughout these sections you should specifically mention on how computer cartography, remote sensing, etc relate to techinical geography, in cases where you are indirectly relating one to the other, you should use the word, techinical geography to be more clear.
  •  Fixed added sentence "Three major technologies, remote sensing (RS), Geographic information systems (GIS), and the global positioning system (GPS) are highlighted as examples of technologies characterizing technical geography." with citation.

Global Positioning System

• Comma after, "In 1978".
  •  Done
• Remove "prohibitively".
  •  Done
• Use the acronym GPS so people know what is Global Positioning System.
  •  Done

New subdisciplines

• I find the first sentence confusing, what are you trying to say?
• What are these said terms?!
  •  Fixed, added list of terms
  •  Comment:, each of the terms has a subsection within this section.
• What rush? Who rushed? Not encyclopedical in my opinion, maybe try "The proliferation of new terms..."
  •  Fixed, re-worded
  •  Comment:, original wording reflected source wording.
• What researchers were these? And who is saying that they were careless or hasty?
  •  Comment:, Primary source for this section is a paper titled "Proposal of Redefinition of the Terms Geomatics and Geoinformatics on the Basis of Terminological Postulates." In it, the author, Artur Krawczyk, says: "It should be emphasised that the hasty, often careless defining of a new term results from the willingness of a scientist to distinguish, only to, as fast as possible, announce the origination of a new science. Ultimately, such a hurry is more harmful to this term, than actually affecting its popularisation."

Quantitative geography

• These? These what? Clarify.
  •  Done

Geomatics

• Do you think Bernard Dubuisson warrants a red link?
  •  Done
• A couple of words explaining what is ISO/TC 211 would be a good addition.
  •  Done
• Surely the content of the big quote, "discipline concerned..." can be said without quoting.
  •  Comment: The definitions of geoinformatics, geomatics, and geoinformatics are all very close to each other. Using exact wording for each definition from sources is an attempt to allow for a reader to either see this or the minor distinctions.
  •  Fixed shortened definition to avoid quoating.
• "In English in Canada" Canadian English you mean? Or "in the English-world, specifically Canada"?
  •  Fixed
  •  Comment: "géomatique" is a French word that moved into English. It was popularized in Canada as an English word, but didn't take off in the rest of the world.
• Add wikilink to UNESCO.
  •  Done
• What's EOLSS?
  •  Fixed Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems

Geoinformatics

• What's the first name of Samuelson?
  •  Fixed, added link to his Wikipedia page.
  •  Comment:, source for statement cites him as "Samuelson" only. I hunted down the cited source, and the author is given as "K. Samuelson." Had to dig to find out that the professors name is "Kjell Samuelson"
• Rephrase the quote expalining what is geoinformatics.
  •  Fixed
• The same goes for the Michael DeMers quote.
  •  Fixed authors explicit meaning. Changed based on feedback though.

Geographic Information Science

• Don't quote when you can write it with your own words.
  •  Comment:, when it comes to definitions of terms, my training has always emphasized quotes to avoid modifying the original. Removing quotes when possible based on this feedback though.
• The sense I am getting from these sections is that they are explaining what is the field instead of its relations with techinical geography.
  •  Comment:, this is an interesting problem that is reflected in the literature and the reason I started writing this page actually. Essentially, in my personal opinion, every one of these terms is essentially a synonym that was created by researchers to stand out and get citations. Many of these researchers were unaware of all of the other terms, even if they were aware of some of them. Later research/literature has explicitly brought them into or under the technical geography branch, which I cite. Unfortunately, most of these "new terms" are basically just a rehash of technical geography, in my professional opinion. The quote I gave above is what I base this opinion on: "With the appearance of the next new technologies, immediately, new proposals of new sciences, new subdisciplines, appear. Many authors with great ease announce the origination of a new science, frequently not caring for the proper justification of its name definition. The old definitions, developed in the context of previous technological conditions, remain in the shadow of new technologies, and are not modernised. The lack of specific terminological conditions, determined boundaries, or scopes of such definition use, encourages one to define the next terms, and the next science and research disciplines." However, researchers are insistent that each term is unique and distinct from all others, therefore I endeavored to give the history of the terms origin, its definition, and literature linking it directly to technical geography, such as one article that states, "Geoinformatics has been grouped broadly under technical geography, along with fields like geographic information science."

Emergence of critical geography

• "In the same 1749 publication in which Cave discussed technical geography" Which is?
  •  Fixed added, "Geography reformed: a new system of general geography, according to an accurate analysis of the science in four parts. The whole illustrated with notes" in parenthesis.
• Since radical geography doesn't have an article, do explain in a word or two what it is.
  •  Done
• "...theoretical criticisms of the methods and ideas of technical geographers" What critics are these?
  •  Fixed clarified
• Other geographers? WP:AWW wording; who in concrete?
  •  Fixed specified geographers

21st century

• Specify that the quantitative, technical, etc methods are within technical geography and not just geography

Geographic information science and technology body of knowledge

• Comma after, "In response to this" and also after "in 2006".
  •  Done
• Which of the sources says this "While the book does not...academic institutions"?
  •  Fixed Removed sentence. Can't find where I read this, so I'll remove it until I do. May have heard it in lecture.
• What is GIS&T?
  •  Fixed an acronym for Geographic Information Systems & Technology coined by the book the section title is on.
• Not really seeing the revelancy of the following sentence: "Today, while..."Department of Physical and Techinical Geography""
  •  Fixed removed sentences.

UNESCO Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems

• What does Ionel Haidu's paper says??
  •  Fixed elaborated.

Sub-branches

• Citations for the sub-branches?
  •  Fixed added citations.
  •  Comment: still tracking down citations for "Statistical Geography" and "Geovisualization" as specific terms.
• Why are there sub-branches, like time-geography, that were completely ignored in the article?
  •  Fixed Added mention of time geography briefly under section "quantitative geography," along with citation, based on source. Added geodesign under section "Computer cartography and GIS" along with a citation.

Controversy and criticism

• "Subdividing geography is challenging..." doesn't sound encyclopedical, maybe try "Attempts at subdiving geography have been a challenge for geographers and often met with criticism " or something along the line.
  •  Fixed Replaced with "Attempts at subdividing geography have often been met with criticism."
• "may vary" isn't encyclopedical, just "vary" is fine.
  •  Fixed
• A big portion of this section isn't really controverse nor criticism.
  •  Fixed This is an ontological debate among geographers. People's favorite term can lead to heated debates in the literature.
• How did techinical geography introduced gender bias??
  •  Fixed elaborated on the reasons given by one author.

Publications

• If these publications aren't just for technical geography it seems futile to have them listed.
  •  Fixed deleted.

Status query

The Blue Rider, GeogSage, this review will have been open for six months as of a week from now, where do things stand? I don't see anything posted to this page since mid-July, and only a few minor edits to the article since the end of June. It would be great to get this moving again. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:54, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Hello,

Thank you for the status query! I've done some major revisions to the page, in response to comments, and I suspect The Blue Rider has been busy with RL a bit and unable to re-evaluate them. I just had some major life events myself since six months ago, so I have not been in a huge rush to pressure them. That said, I'm starting to get settled, and I'd love to get this review moving and finished! GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 16:31, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Re-review

Since major alterations were made, I will be reviewing everything again. All suggestions will come under here:

Fundamentals

• Add a revelant wikilink to "spatial-temporal data" or just to "spatial-temporal" (optional);
  •  Comment: I don't see a relevant wikilink.
• human and/or physical geography → both human and physical geography;
  •  Done

Core concepts

• Add a relevant wikilink to "time lag" (optional);
  •  Comment: I don't see a relevant wikilink.
• Add a wikilink to "Tobler's first law of geography" (optional);
  •  Done
• Spatial and temporal frequency are core concepts in technical geography because they are fundamental to understanding and analyzing geographic phenomena why is that? Develop further!
• Add a wikilink to "Geographic information systems" (optional);
• The feeling I got from reading this new section, "Fundamentals", is that while a good adittion the three core concepts seems to have been chosen randomnly, a lot of text went to explaining what they were instead of focusing more on why they are important to techinical geography. As a consequence, it fails to explain why are these three specific concepts the most core to this branch and not other three.
  •  Comment: Attempted to resolve this. The "core concepts" are taken from the literature cited. I tried to emphasize the reasons for the selection given in the literature with the latest round of updates.

History

Early history and etymology

• A publication in 1889 what is said publication? Why is it important? The same can be said about the An 1890 publication.
  •  Comment:clarified and reorganized section to try and emphasize why this is important.
• What is the relevancy of the use of the concept of technical geography in the US?
  •  Comment: attemtped to reorganize section to indicate why it is important.
• Citation for the last sentence?
  •  Fixed Moved and reworded. The last sentence is supported by the existence of the two papers using the term, which are examples of its use.

20th century

Early 20th century

• Why was geodesy suggested as a discipline supporting technical geography?
  •  Comment: elaborated on this by adding a quote from the document.
• Why is Oregon State University singled out??
  •  Comment: because they have a good source on the topic, which is cited.

Quantitative revolution

• Per MOS:PUFFERY, remove "preeminent" describing Geroge Jenks, unless you have sources specifically calling him that.
  •  Comment: One of the two sources given, The George F. Jenks Map Collection in peer-reviewed publication cartographic perspectives, does specifically call him that. The source states in the first paragraph, "He became internationally recognized as a preeminent cartographer and scholar alongside peers Arthur Robinson, John Sherman, and Erwin Raisz." If the word choice is still puffery, then I can remove it, but it is not words I synthesized myself.
• went as far as to suggest → suggested
  •  Done

Laws of geography

• The main claim for the quantitative revolution is that it led to a shift from a... → The quantitative revolution is primarily credited with shifting descriptive...
  •  Done
• What does ideographic and nomothetic means and why are they in parenthesis?
  • Nomothetic means descriptive, and ideographic means law making. The terms are based on a specific approach to knowledge. They are in parenthesis because that is the more formal term that is on the relevant Wikipedia page. Have taken them out of the sentence and included them in the body of the text to avoid confusion.
• This sub-section seems quite important since technical geography premise is to be scientific, so like other natural sciences, it tries to define general laws; as so, I think this needs to be expanded further in order to pass the broadness criteria. For example, what criticisms? What are exactly these laws and how they affect (technical) geography? How and why is spatial autocorrelation a central concept to technical geography? Why are the laws of geography even important to technical geography?
  • Such elaboration can quickly spiral out of control and may end up being another page entirely. I will try to think about how to do this and get back to it in the future.

20th century technologies

• Why is analytical cartography singled out? You could name a few other terms and disciplines that appeared.

Remote sensing

• overwhelmed → met
• The article fails to explain, in direct words, what remote sensing is, a brief description is a must.

Computer cartography and GIS

• All good here.

Global Positioning System

• Remove the capslock from the first word of satellite
• Geographers began to study, but more importantly have they come to any conclusions since 2000? Surely that the answer is yes. What are the implications to (technical) geography of GPS?
• Is there any relevant difference on the methods/models/geography/anything that might be relevant for the article used by each country navigation satellite system?

New Subdisciplines

• At least one study? If you know there are more studies then say some or several, depending, if you do only have one study, then say "one study" without the "at least".

Quantitative geography

• I know the article is called technical geography but even so being an article about one of the three main branches of Geography  2, MOS:JARGON would still apply. With that being said, the following sentence, (including visualizations such as the space-time prism and continuous transportation modeling approach) is too technical for the average reader, maybe try to put it into more plain English?

Geomatics

• This subsection is missing its most important aspect, what is geomatics?

Geoinformatics

• Everything good here, but maybe just put the last sentence about no exact definition is universally accepted after you gave two definitions. Perhaps: use of computers. Though there is no universally accepted definition of geoinformatics.

Geographic Information Science

• All good here.

Emergence of critical geography

• What same publication? Is this Edward Cave? If so, give the full name since most readers by now already forgot about him.
• Is the, lenghty, name of the publication really necessary? If yes, consider putting as a note. Further, it breaks the flow of the text.
• Without the parentheses it currently reads like this Cave discussed technical geography critical geography was considered..., which doesn't make sense. That needs to be fixed.
• Put the big parentheses about radical geography as a note as well.
• The last sentence of the first paragraph reads weirdly; the grammar is wrong.

21st century

• Citation for the last sentence?

Geographic information science and technology body of knowledge

• All good here.

UNESCO Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems

• All good here.

Controversy, and criticism

Ontological

• Examples of specialized sciences that have emerged from geography?
• This is an area of active scholarly debate, and any word choice will be inevitably met with criticism by others using a different model. → This topic is an area of ongoing scholarly debate, where word choice is subject to scrutiny and critique by researchers employing alternative models.

Gender bias

• Per WP:AWW, don't use "some", specify instead.

Lead

• The lead needs to nuked and made again, it talks about stuff that isn't on the body of the article. The lead should summarize all the important parts; the first and last sentences are good though.
• Also, per MOS:LEADCITE, you should not cite the lead.

Sources

• You are missing pages from a lot of the sources. This needs to be dealt to pass WP:V and for me to check the sources.

New status query

The Blue Rider, GeogSage, the rereview was last added to on 20 September; is there going to be work done on those comments soon? Is the rereview completed, or are their more sections to come? Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:40, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder. I'll go through them this week. I just started a new job and have been focused on some work related research. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 01:29, 12 October 2024 (UTC)