Template talk:GeoTemplate/Archive 11

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Order

When did the "Global systems" become alphabetically ordered? Are you trying to be fair or something? Just put Google Maps at the top like it used to be. The current top item "ACME Mapper" is just an annoying skin on Google Maps with ads anyway. --Apoc2400 (talk) 15:47, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Maybe Google and other googles could be a separate group. -- User:Docu

I'm really not a fan of the sorted order, either. It seems there should be a few popular entries at the very top, like a dab page. tedder (talk) 11:38, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

The sort order was done for the usability aspect. Simply having a table with services randomly sorted made it hard to find the service that one was looking for if it was not the top three. I did suggest in #Usability that if you wanted a particular service to be highlighted or differentiated that you could change the row style. Subtler effects such as a 10% font size can make enough of difference, while dramatic effects such as background color (this is probably what you want) require a legend at the bottom. This should probably be determined by popularity (top 4 or something). On a side note, what should be the criteria for removing a mapping service be? — Dispenser 17:13, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I understand highlighting one line, but even that still makes ACME Mapper appear more. It's the above the fold problem, which is why I mentioned the style used on a dab page- list them all, but put the 2-3 popular ones at the very top, nonsorted. tedder (talk) 18:30, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I added a link "View this location in Google Maps" at the top. --Apoc2400 (talk) 18:14, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I am leaving it as is until we get some statical data via a clickthroughs tracking system. Could you maybe look through and comment here on some of the designs posted at Template:GeoTemplate/sandbox. — Dispenser 15:15, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I want to reopen this discusssion, with the suggestion that you guys are too close to the problem to see the wider implications. Over the last couple of years this template has been degraded in usefulness as it function has expanded.

• As an editor, I am a heavy user, I want the locations with the minimum number of options and mouse clicks- I want Google satellite with show labels checked- I am working on pages with a hundred or more geotags that Need to be physically visually verified. Mouse clicks matter. Another user group are kids 6-11- some just reading where the motto Keep it Simple S.. applies. When I yse my EEE PC I have a limited number of screen lines- many users don´t have XXXL monitors-think PDA.
• Then many of the links are broken- throwing error messages like- Can't display at this resolution- or require extra plugins such as Flash. No indication on what value added facilities each link offers- there are just too many to maintain.
• We regular cull External links from articles- using the argument rm commercial spam. We could do the same here without losing any value- when, as has be said above, many are just skins on Google.
• The hat box could be reformated to gain two extra lines.
• Be Bold - get rid of the dross.
• Be Less Bold - use a collapsible table, so most users just see Google and OpenStreetMap, but have the option to see the full list on a mouse click

That should be enough to reopen the discussion- the status quo is not an option.--ClemRutter (talk) 09:56, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

If we're going to simplify the page, how about getting rid of Google Maps and OpenStreetMap too. After all, I never use those links :) --Stepheng3 (talk) 16:57, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

But seriously, there's a natural reason why things created by a committee tend to be more elaborate and complex than those created by individuals. That doesn't mean the template can't be improved -- obviously it can. But radical changes require strong motivation; they are not likely to happen quickly. Perhaps the easiest place to start would be pruning links that add no value. Care to propose one or two? --Stepheng3 (talk) 17:40, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Yep, there are two conflicting directions. Let the enthusiasts add as much spam as they like- but use a collapsible table to hide it from the rest of us. I like your criteria of deleting everything you don't use- it is simple and easily do-able we may lose a little functionality but it would certainly lead a clearer screen! :-}. Maybe a little too bold. --ClemRutter (talk) 18:29, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Clem, I thought about this some more last night. To the extent that your desire for GeoTemplate reform is driven by your own needs as a user, perhaps it could be addressed simply by allowing users such as yourself to create a custom GeoTemplate page -- in other words, copy Template:GeoTemplate to User:ClemRutter/GeoTemplate and edit it to your heart's content -- your clicks get redirected to your custom page and nobody else affected. Or maybe some switches in User:ClemRutter/monobook.js. I don't yet know how practical this would be, but if you're game, I'm willing to investigate it. What do you think? --Stepheng3 (talk) 01:01, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Put x Maps back at the top

Put Google Maps back at the top of the list. I seriously doubt that there are more than a handful of users who wish to use any of the other services which this tool links to.

I absolutely love GeoHack and applaud those of you who help to maintain it but its usability took a nose-dive (in this user's view) when you ordered the list alphabetically!

Pretty please with a cherry on top! ;) 80.41.206.218 (talk) 21:00, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Done. --Apoc2400 (talk) 13:54, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't buy it; it is not for us to second guess people's preferences nor for us to favour Google. FWIW, I tend to use multimap in preference to Google since it give me an ordinance survey map layer. And how difficult is it to remember where the google link is in the list? --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:45, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

No need to second guess. We know which mapping services are most popular. Multimap is available further down, so what is the problem? --Apoc2400 (talk) 20:16, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

←I also feel that there should be a single "show me this on a map now" link - preferably a great big red button at the top of the page, or something equally prominent. It also seems logical that this should be Google, at least until Open Street Map is available globally (or there is code to switch between the two, depending on locale), or until the preferred map can be a user setting. Around last Christmas, I conducted some rough-and-ready usability tests of this page with friends and colleagues [*], and found that that many of them were completely bemused by its myriad choices. Indeed, it might be better for our users if coordinates linked to a single map, followed by a "more map options" link. ([*] We have a usability task force, I believe, who could, perhaps be asked to carry out more rigorous research on this.) Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:57, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

It should be OSM since we're enabling slippy maps "soon", it would replace that mini map I hacked up. Just add the appropriate code to MediaWiki:GeoHack.js.

On other note, the whole I want X to be first is because people can’t find it in the list it. If you want to make something stand out you might want to try adding ^Popular. We wouldn’t actually know what was popular since I haven’t written a click tracker, but if someone would send me code I’d consider running it. — Dispenser 06:44, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I think best would be to make it dynamic and allow people to set the order locally to whatever they like.[1] Finding your favourite service from the list may take a few seconds the first time, but it'd be much quicker after that initial shuffle. Popularity hints can still be useful of course, once we have the data. Here's some php for a tracker:

header('Location: ' . $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']);
$pid = pcntl_fork();
if (!$pid)
    file_put_contents('~/tracker.log', time()."\t{$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']}\t{$_GET['url']}\n", FILE_APPEND);

Forking is less expensive than an NFS write, so something like that ought to be unnoticable (when toolserver is feeling well). And the IPs can be massaged out daily with some cronjob checking for abuse. --Para (talk) 00:16, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

You might wan to add an exit to the if clause, right? --Dschwen 00:58, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Err, maybe. Normally the processes would exit at the end of the script anyway, but toolserver's persistent fcgi setup may indeed be trickier. If I repeatedly call a forking script that logs its pids, the original one comes up again often, but the child never. Yet all pids hang around in the process list. exit or exit(1) have no effect, but posix_kill(posix_getpid(), SIGKILL) makes the child defunct on ps, freeing its memory. It's probably mostly shared memory anyway, but maybe that will still help a bit? --Para (talk) 09:47, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Data and updates

Late September-December

Domain	Clicks	Leader
maps.google.com	1237624	100.00%
maps.bing.com	240257	19.41%
mapper.acme.com	120521	9.74%
www.wikimapia.org	41222	3.33%
www.gpsvisualizer.com	38312	3.10%
atlas.mapquest.com	37596	3.04%
www.flashearth.com	28367	2.29%
toolserver.org	27451	2.22%
www.blue-marble.de	25737	2.08%
www.openstreetmap.org	20762	1.68%
www.multimap.com	16286	1.32%
www.arcwebservices.com	16111	1.30%
maps.yahoo.com	13255	1.07%
exploreourpla.net	12117	0.98%
imageatlas.globexplorer.com	11262	0.91%
maps.google.co.jp	9657	0.78%
maps.msn.com	8240	0.67%
www.terraserver.com	7714	0.62%
www.geonames.org	7667	0.62%
Other (193)	135370	10.94%

So I've setup the click tracking software and have collected a few weeks worth of data. Any suprises? Google Earth is surprisingly more popular than bing, wikimapia is the fourth most popular domain, mapquest still has some mind share. Highlighting vs. Big Google Maps Street link doesn't make much of a difference. We have a user complaining that geocoding is only for street maps and we have users on this page complaining that they only want Google maps (is it for Driving directions, Street maps, Street view, or Satellite photos? we need to ask). It is also now possible to embed WikiMiniAtlas into this page. — Dispenser 16:30, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Was it biased? Was Google Maps in first position? --84.44.176.24 (talk) 16:55, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I needed to shutdown the tracking software as it was consuming too much disk space. And since I'm (eventually) going to delete the data I have copied the cumulative totals for the 2 million click over the three+ months. Looking for outliers by files sizes by Nov 20-22 is unusually calm with only 200-300 (average is 670) and Dec 11 with 1281, figures are KB of the gzip'd log. I don't suspect tempering to look more like the weekend effect to me.

Anyway Google is five times ahead of its leading competitor Microsoft. The particular links that each breaks down into are Google: map (644649), satellite (350461), open [Google Earth] (141125), terrain (19616); Bing: aerial (86497) birdseye (77403), map (76001); after which point the Google Maps mashup and special Google links pollute the results.

Finally, there's some interesting talk on dewiki to slash the links down to an "editors" choice collection. Perhaps we should consider wipe and add links in one by one? If you have any question you may want to ask before delete the data. — Dispenser 21:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Based on the data Dispenser collected, I've made bing no longer be marked as "popular". Bing is not very far ahead of the next one down. If we're going to make a 'popular' that's not just google then we should probably include at least acme and maybe several more down. I think having google and open street map be the only highlighted ones makes sense, though. Jeff (talk) 22:05, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Purple highlighting

Similar to the above discussion, who is choosing which of the listed map services get the pink highlighting? I suppose the pink highlighting makes it more "usable", in so far as it directs all those people who just want to go straight to google maps. So that's good. I wont try to suggest that the wonderful and not-at-all-evil corporate google maps should be de-emphasised in any way.

...but wikimapia? How come wikimapia gets to be highlighted? There's one map service on that list which provides truly open licensed maps, and embraces full wiki style editable maps, in a way which makes it very well aligned with the goals of wikimedia... and it aint wikimapia.

-- Harry Wood (talk) 01:28, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

This, once again, made Google Maps harder to find, often below the bottom of the screen. That is a problem --Apoc2400 (talk) 21:52, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

What did? I think you want the discussion above -- Harry Wood (talk) 11:08, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Glad to see that's been fixed. Hopefully there will be a dawning collective realisation that OpenStreetMap is by far the most useful of the map services to link to here. This is not judging on usability of the map interface, or the completeness of the current map, but because OpenStreetMap is creating open-licensed maps. The wikipedia community can embrace it wholeheartedly, and use it to create map images on wikipedia articles. If pages like this help to build enthusiasm for OpenStreetMap (local people needed to help build the maps!) then this benefit feeds back very nicely to wikipedia. -- Harry Wood (talk) 17:16, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

How to create a new language version?

How does one create a new language version of the map sources page? --Jmk (talk) 08:51, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

By translating this page into your language. You don't need to copy everything; most of the stuff on here is because somebody thought this or that was important. You can look at the sandbox to see alternative designs. — Dispenser 20:04, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Alphabetisation off

Why is MapTech shown above MapQuest? Q before T except after...well...nothing :-) Nyttend (talk) 00:23, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

These two links are now listed in alphabetical order. -- Zyxw (talk) 04:50, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks; the coding is significant enough that I was afraid to be bold. Nyttend (talk) 14:43, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Sky coordinates

I don't know the best place to ask this but I'm asking here. Articles about things located in our sky that have coordinates, at least all I've looked at, when one clicks on the coordinates it goes direct to one site eg Orion coordinates go to here. Things on the surface of the Moon and Mars go to a "Geohack" page, albeit a short one, like places on the Earths surface do. On Google Earth one can look at the Moon, Mars, and the sky coordinates, in addition to Earth. From a Wiki article one can access Google Earth to look at a feature on Mars via the Geohack page by clicking the coordinates link at the top. But you cannot access Google Earth sky map from the coordinates in an article about something in our sky.

I think we should have a Geohack page for the sky so we can look at astronomical features in more than one mapping system such as this one and Google Earth and any more that exist, the same as we have for Earth, Mars and Moon. Do users think this is a good idea, and is it possible, can anyone create it. Comments/Thoughts people. Carlwev (talk) 19:17, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Celestial coordinates are added by {{Sky}}; I've just asked about this, and other things, on its talk page. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:10, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

PlanetEye Link Broken

The PlanetEye photos link doesn't appear to be working, it should be updated from:

[http://www.planeteye.com/Map.aspx#lat={latdegdec}&lng={londegdec}&z={osmzoom}&mediaLens=media PlanetEye]

to

[http://www.planeteye.com/maps?refcon=wikipedia&pll={latdegdec},{londegdec}&z={osmzoom}&title={title}&type={type}&scale={scale}&region={region}&sd=photos PlanetEye]

If someone can do that, it would be much appreciated. Awesome. Thanks, Matt.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Qmnonic (talk • contribs) 19:44, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

The current link worked when I tried it. Here's a test using 40°38′23″N 073°46′44″W:

1. http://www.planeteye.com/Map.aspx#lat=40.639722&lng=-73.778889&z=13&mediaLens=media

URL as shown in browser after clicking above link (the first set of coordinates and the "placeid" may be different each time the link is opened; the second set of coordinates roughly matches the coordinates provided):

http://www.planeteye.com/Map.aspx?lat=-34.6091422603449&lng=-58.3724358923298&z=13&placeid=7146#lat=40.6397489085488&lng=-73.7788581848145&z=13&v=0&mediaLens=media&AlbumID=-1

Here's a test of the URL format you suggested, using the same {{coord}} template:

2. http://www.planeteye.com/maps?refcon=wikipedia&pll=40.639722,-73.778889&z=13&title=John%20F.%20Kennedy%20International%20Airport&type=airport&scale=40000&region=US-NY&sd=photos

URL as shown in "Share this link" box after clicking above link:

http://www.planeteye.com/maps?pll=40.639722,-73.778889&z=13&pn=&pq=&pd=&set=&sn=&sd=photos&v=&c=

Link #1 goes to a page titled "Travel Destinations" with a Microsoft map and four photos. Link #2 goes to a page titled "Your Travel Map" with a Google map and the same four photos. Perhaps there should be some additional comments on why one page is better than the other before changing this link. Also, it appears that PlanetEye does nothing with refcon=wikipedia, title={title}, type={type}, scale={scale} or region={region}, so why are these being included? If we go ahead with this change, I would suggest it look like this:

[http://www.planeteye.com/maps?pll={latdegdec},{londegdec}&z={osmzoom}&sd=photos PlanetEye].

-- Zyxw (talk) 13:20, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

The current link works in FF and Safari, but doesn't seem work in IE7 (because it's a hash, instead of a query string?).

My initial intention was to isapi rewrite the existing url (/Map.aspx#lat ...) to the new url (/maps?pll= ...), but I can't access the hash parameters from the server, and as you noted, the lat/lng it shows in the query string after hitting that page are wrong, so that was a no go. Hence, my request to update the url to the new map instead.

I requested the inclusion of more parameters, to make the map more contextually relevant after the link was updated. I hadn't updated things on the PlanetEye side prior to my request, but have updated it now to display this information (on the map, and in the infowindow). But, you're right, scale isn't necessary. I included the refcon parameter for our own tracking.

Using your example JFK airport example, here is a working example:

http://www.planeteye.com/maps?refcon=wikipedia&pll=40.639722,-73.778889&z=13&title=John%20F.%20Kennedy%20International%20Airport&type=airport&scale=40000&region=US-NY&sd=photos

So, I think the following updated url gives the user the best information (with or without the scale parameter):

[http://www.planeteye.com/maps?refcon=wikipedia&pll={latdegdec},{londegdec}&z={osmzoom}&title={title}&type={type}&scale={scale}&region={region}&sd=photos PlanetEye].

Let me know if you think that makes sense, thanks. Matt.

Qmnonic (talk) 15:30, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Any thoughts? Does anyone have a sec to make the change noted above? Qmnonic (talk) 18:19, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Can someone update the link for me? Please?? Qmnonic (talk) 13:40, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I updated it, but it's not clear that this is an improvement. Compare the first test cases I tried: before and after. Before clearly says there aren't any photos found. After nicely titles the page and places a marker. Is there a way to retain the no photo message? —EncMstr (talk) 15:39, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks EncMstr. I'll look into the missing "no photos" message. --- Qmnonic (talk) 16:52, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Mapping services

[Moved from Template talk: Coord. ]

Currently there are 29 services (30 if you count the fact Google Maps are listed twice) available. This can cause problems when I set the coordinates for one service but a someone else uses a different service. For an idea of the problem see the eight examples listed at Talk:Nunavut#Map shift northwards. I would like to suggest that a new parameter be added that would indicate which mapping service the editor had used to set the coordinates. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 17:40, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

The service used shouldn't matter; the coordinates should be the same throughout. If one or another of the services is not interpreting the standard coordinates correctly, it should be removed from this template. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:45, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I made a stupid error there. It's not the coordinates that are the problem as all the services centre on the same place. It's the scale that causes the problem. If you look again at Talk:Nunavut#Map shift northwards you can see that using the 67 30 20N 91 08 00W that Wikimapia produces the best of the four maps and using 73N 91W it's Google Maps. The problem is with the other services that don't show the map at the same scale as the one used to set the coordinates/scale. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 21:54, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Plea for the simple life.

All this democracy and choice is wonderful- but I do dream of the day when GeoHack just has two buttons

• Google Maps
• Other options

Yes, I do use a IBM Thinkpad and do resent having to scroll down the screen everytime. It is even harder on my eee PC. It is just making an essential easy task into an event that needs thought. If it is too difficult to rearrange the alphabet or too painful to do a disambig page, how about a collapsible list, following of course the massive link to Google Maps. Don't wake me up, I am enjoying my dream.--ClemRutter (talk) 18:50, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

yeah yeah. You're repeating the point made in the discussion above #Put x Maps back at the top. didn't really need a new discussion heading. -- Harry Wood (talk) 11:10, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Open in new Tab/Window

It is highly inconvenient that on the geohack page for a site the links to the various map providers open in the same window or tab. This should be changed. So PLEASE insert target attributes in the html anchor tags. Cush (talk) 11:40, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Really? It's preferable to me, and matches is also the expected behavior for links. That allows the user to decide if they want to pop the link in a window or not. tedder (talk) 13:41, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Agree. The current behavior is consistent with all other Wikipedia links, external links, etc. To open a new tab or window, center-click instead of a regular click on the link—if using a modern browser. —EncMstr (talk) 20:12, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Um, iirr in earlier versions the links did open in new tabs/windows, or not? So it was possible, to open several map websites without having to navigate back to the geohack page. I haven't used the geohack page in quite a while, though. Cush (talk) 21:41, 25 October 2009 (UTC)