Template talk:Geographic Location

Vfd discussion

Before this template gets used in many articles (it is already used at Brahmanbaria District), I place it here for deletion. I think discussion should take place first on whether we need a template like this one. --Globe-trotter (talk) 21:02, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

• Keep for use in large cities which are divided into districts. {{Routebox}}es are based on individual highways or rail lines, which don't make sense as a method to place districts next to adjacent districts of the same town as there are normally many local roads joining them and it doesn't matter which one the traveller follows. K7L (talk) 22:54, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
  • I'm not following. You want to use this to navigate among districts within a city? LtPowers (talk) 02:17, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
  • The {{routebox}} assumes things are arranged linearly, such as towns along one rail line or one highway. That model doesn't always fit a subject - it's fine for most city/town-level articles, but what about a region surrounded on all sides by other regions? or a district surrounded on all sides by other districts? K7L (talk) 16:19, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
    • That's because the routebox shows you how to get to the destination, along routes that are linear. LtPowers (talk) 16:39, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

• Delete per policy. If anyone wants to keep this template, please, start a discussion on its talk page. We may find a compromise solution, but we can't start using this template right away. Even the Routebox template is kind of overused. This one will be a disaster. --Atsirlin (talk) 20:04, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

• Delete, It is against policy to create templates without discussion first. In any case, we emphatically do not need this one. Where city districts are concerned, a map will always be much better than anything you could do with the template. Pashley (talk) 12:05, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

• Keep (with tag) "Before a new Mediawiki Template is put into general use it needs to be discussed". "In general a template should be discussed prior to being created or modified." (emphasis added) I don't see that there is an absolute discuss-and-agree-before-creating policy, per Wikivoyage:Using Mediawiki templates. There is, however, a clear don't-use-until-discussed-and-approved policy. Don't confuse deletion with being put into general use. The template shouldn't be deleted until there is a discussion and clear opposition to its use. On the other hand, the template must not go into general use and should probably be tagged or somehow noted as such (according to linked policy, the uploader should explain any experimentation use on its talk page). I have started the discussion with a proposed change worth reading at Template talk:Geographic Location. AHeneen (talk) 14:24, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

• Delete We seem to have this issue come up all the time now, where we have templates created and the the discussions as to the merits of them taking place on vfd. Clearly this isn't the way it is supposed to work. --Inas (talk) 22:06, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

• Keep as experimental. I think our solution emerging to new templates is to add an experimental tag, and delete the template later if it fails to gain consensus for its use. --Peter ^Talk 20:38, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Outcome: kept, for now. --Peter ^Talk 20:52, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Keep?

I think the template in its present form (with just arrows radiating from the city name in the center) is an eyesore and not very practical. However, navigating to adjacent neighborhoods/districts/regions ("regions") is a worthy subject for a template. Currently this can only be done by going to the page higher up in the geographical hierarchy to see all regions and determining where to go next or maybe seeing a region's neighbors listed in the beginning paragraph or "understand". By using a template that goes on the bottom, this would make navigating cities and other regions much easier for WV readers...especially when accessing WV on a mobile device while traveling.

Instead of the city name, how about a basic map of the region with a sliver of adjacent regions in the center. We could use the existing maps (like the below example w/England) or create new simple maps (no roads, subregions, etc) using the existing maps and just eliminating certain layers. Along the sides of the map would be links to adjacent regions. The problem would come in creating a template suitable for all regions. One problem would be multiple districts along one side. To solve this, how about having a certain number of slots along each side of the map (4 vertically labels 1-4 from top->bottom, 3 horizontally labeled left-right) for the links to neighboring regions. Instead of using arrows, the links would have a line running between the link & map (but not touching either side). These lines could be different colors or dashed to represent neighbors across water or very close, but not touching. The links across the top/bottom would be placed like (opposite on bottom side):

Region 2 (middle)

Region 1 (left)            Region 3 (right)

This proposal calls for an example. Imagine the England map at right is at the center of the template instead of "city name". Using the "slots" set-up (described above) for links to adjacent regions, there would be: Top: Scotland-2 (middle slot); Left: Ireland-2-water (just above center, blue/dashed line to represent it is over water), Wales-3 (just below center); Bottom: France-2-water (middle); Right: nothing.

Since that sounds complicated, here's how simple it might look in a template mark-up:

Image:England Regions map.png

Left1:

Leftl1:

Left2:Ireland

Leftl2:W

Left3:Wales

Leftl3:

Left4:

Leftl4:

And so fourth. I had to leave out the | bar that starts each line and add a space so that all of that wouldn't be squished together on one line. What does everyone else think? AHeneen (talk) 14:21, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, I see several problems here. In a city article, we have the Go next section where neighboring destinations are listed. Why would we want to list same destinations in a template? Does it really matter where they are? When I am in Berlin, I don't care that Dresden is to the south, Leipzig is to the south-west, and Hamburg is to the north-west. Navigation between the regions is not something that you do from the mobile device when traveling, and in most cases it will simply bring you to another country, which makes little sense for countries with real borders and border controls. Finally, the template could be marginally useful for city districts, but I can imagine many situations where it becomes useless or even misleading. Imagine that you are sitting in Berlin/East Central and looking at the template. What will it show?

In general, I think that this template should be discouraged because it is a cheap substitute for normal maps. Map tells you everything, the template does not.

Two further problems are as follows. First, templates with images are not something that people with mobile devices and slow connections will appreciate. Second, we have maps only for countries and, occasionally, for big regions of the countries. We have very few maps for the lowest-level regional subdivisions, so we have no source of maps for this template. Full stop. Draw maps, don't play with the templates. --Alexander (talk) 17:01, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, we do have compass directions turning up in ==Go next==, usually in {{routebox}}es. The routebox, however, ties things to specific highways - which may not make sense in a region where there are many ways into the same adjacent regions. K7L (talk) 17:09, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, anything based on cardinal directions is going to run into edge cases and other strangeness, since geography is rarely so cut and dry. Perhaps, if the concern is navigating among district articles, we would be better off standardizing a way to list them at the top of the Go Next section. I think we're all agreed this template is too big and unwieldy. LtPowers (talk) 22:38, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with LtPowers that most geography is too challenging for this type of directional display. For districts, we do have go next links, but we tend to use them based on theme (e.g., if you're interested in more candy than you've found here in Lollipop Woods, check out Molasses Swamp in the north of the city). Routeboxes are great for intercity navigation, but less so for districts per K7L. If we could alter this template to have an eight point compass and use it for districts, that might be worth keeping. --Peter ^Talk 20:48, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Even eight points is overly simplified for most district geographies. We should find a square hole for this square peg instead of trying to fit it into a round one. LtPowers (talk) 21:58, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

You think? Any huge city district breakdowns that I can think of would be taken care of with an eight point compass on individual district articles. Are you thinking of an example? --Peter ^Talk 22:09, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I just reviewed our huge cities that have 10 or more districts, and found one district bordering 8, and a handful of 7s. --Peter ^Talk 22:16, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

It's not the number of bordering districts, but the distribution of them. Brooklyn/Bedford-Stuyvesant and Flatbush, Manhattan/Chinatown, San Francisco/Southeast, Paris/1st arrondissement, Paris/4th arrondissement, London/Westminster, London/South... all look to have problems with a strict ordinal direction-based organization. And that's just with a brief perusal. LtPowers (talk) 02:23, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Ah, good point. Although most of those would still be doable, London/South is a great example of why this would be difficult. --Peter ^Talk 04:58, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Other than as an interim arrangement until a map is drawn/ discovered this template has minimal utility. In my opinion, it should be deleted once a (more useful) map is on the destination page. -- Alice^✉ 23:41, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Geographic location

Swept in from the pub

Why don't we make a template similar to Template:Geographic location, at least for countries? -- Ypnypn (talk) 16:50, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Funny you should ask! I think the answer in that discussion is that it probably doesn't work for our purposes. --Peter ^Talk 22:57, 4 February 2013 (UTC)