Wikivoyage talk:Geocoding

Is there a Standard Suggested Way of deciding which point of an area shall be selected as the Geocode for the area?

Are there any free databases of Geocodes we can rip off copy freely? -- (WT-en) Colin 01:38, 18 Nov 2005 (EST)

I've been using Multimap; it usually comes up with a good point in a city. As far as free databases, I think the TIGER database for US locations is public domain. --(WT-en) Evan 02:56, 18 Nov 2005 (EST)

Many big cities have a milestone/building that is the official center. --(WT-en) elgaard 13:22, 19 Dec 2005 (EST)

Related projects

Thanks to (WT-en) Elgaard for pointing out OpenStreetMap. I just noticed Geowiki, which is about the only way I'd like interactive maps to work on Wikivoyage. --(WT-en) Evan 15:26, 26 Jan 2006 (EST)

Altitude

Is it possible to add altitude. It usefull to know for acclimatization if your travelling to altitude.

Maybe we could add an {{altitude|somevalue}} template? --(WT-en) Evan 16:19, 25 February 2006 (EST)

Smaller focus

Is there a project that is currently undertaking the creation of a coordinates template for individual locations (ie, restaurants, hotels, etc.)? With the rising popularity of certain mapping programs such as Google Earth, it would be nice to provide specific coordinates for travellers. - (WT-en) Cybjorg 06:28, 14 March 2006 (EST)

Yes, I think it would also help with making our own maps. We're including coordinates in the listing templates, see Project:Using Mediawiki templates for details. --(WT-en) Evan 09:06, 14 March 2006 (EST)

Microformats

Please consider including the Geo microformat. All it needs is:

<div class="geo">  <!-- or span, or some other container, such as <P> -->
 <abbr class="latitude" title="37.408183">N 37° 24.491</abbr> 
 <abbr class="longitude" title="-122.13855">W 122° 08.313</abbr>
</div>

I hope that Project:Microformats will be useful. Thank you. (WT-en) Andy Mabbett 16:06, 25 November 2006 (EST)

Displaying coordinates on page

Note how Wikipedia displays co-ordinates on page (e.g in the top-right of [1]) and links the to a powerful mapping service. (WT-en) Andy Mabbett 07:08, 9 December 2006 (EST)

converting into a right format

It would great to supply detailed recommendations on how to convert format like '31°29'52.52"N 9°45'49.79"W' into 31.5..; 9.7... -- both for degree-minute-second part, and for west-east/north-south: what is + and what is -. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 07:07, 1 February 2008 (EST)

Done as a draft: Project:Geocoding#Converting from traditional format. Please welcome to improve it further. --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 04:58, 6 February 2008 (EST)

Check out http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/DDDMMSS-decimal.html. 80.202.112.184 13:58, 15 February 2008 (EST)

encouraging property owners to share latlongs

Discussion related to this article: Project:Accommodation listings#nearest attractions

Map link: almost hidden in the toolbox

When a page contains a GEO template, a link for a map shows up in the Toolbox pane on the left of the page. However, this option is so obscure that even seasoned veterans of the site may not notice it.

At the same time, adding the actual coordinates to the page would show up in printouts and other output, so people could plug them into their gps units. If I were taking a leisurely drive up to Chicago from St. Louis, I might want to stop at a few small towns with historic pasts, and would want to play with my gps and a map to decide what's acceptably close to my path and what isn't. I have been trying to play with the unused Coordinates template, but have yet to come up with a syntax that displays the coordinates properly. But it does display in a box on the main text.

Combining the box and display of the coordinates template and the map linkage of the geo template would combine the best of both worlds. Since there are about 1,000 pages using the geo template, and none using the coordinates template, perhaps the geo template could be updated to call the coordinates template and pass it the appropriate values, and also reference the map link?

We already have guidance that you should only use the Geo template for areas which are reasonably small, such as a city, since it only permits a single coordinate to be entered. There are databases which provide top/bottom/left/right coordinates for states, countries, and other large units to form a rectangle. If someone were to do large-scale work on these templates it would be good to include two more optional parameters to support future expansion.

I also notice that the Geo template seems to only work in the Main namespace? When I try to use it on Project:Graffiti wall, the map link won't show up. So kind of hard to test. (WT-en) Bill in STL 18:45, 6 August 2010 (EDT)

Special:MapSources is linking to a map source with geocodes a "plunge forward-be bold edit?

Swept in from the pub

I have just made this edit to the Lombok article. It provides a link to Special:MapSources with the cords for the islands airport and has been provided in the articles Get in By Plane section "The new airport is located near the city of Praya on Jalan Raya".... I am unsure if this is within our current policies and guidelines for links, and if providing a link such as this in an article is within those policies and guidelines, then have I done this in the correct manner? -- Felix (talk) 17:27, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

A wikilink like Special:MapSources/45.0N,_75.0W technically isn't an external link, so likely doesn't trigger policies limiting external links to discourage spam from travel "middlemen" sites reselling hotel rooms. That said, we really haven't done much yet to standardise the inclusion of co-ordinates in articles (either for the city itself or individual listings), although a need certainly exists. Space was allocated for lat="" and long="" fields in the <listing> tags (do, see, eat, drink, buy, sleep) but they haven't been used yet and do nothing until mediawiki:listingsPositionTemplate is created with the name and parameters of a template. (The co-ordinates in individual listings would then be fed to the specified template.) K7L (talk) 18:02, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

The link in the Lombok article is currently formatted as an external link, which is misleading (and it's incorrectly formatted even for an external link). The link is also completely useless to someone printing the article, though that's less important if we convert it to an internal link. I also don't like hiding a useful link behind an otherwise pedestrian word like "located". If we want to include these links, put them someplace useful where the reader can tell what they are. LtPowers (talk) 18:51, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

So a format like [[Special:MapSources/45.0N,_75.0W|(45.0N, 75.0W)]]? K7L (talk) 18:57, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

In theory, but I don't know if we want to scatter visible coordinates all over our articles, either. I'm thinking if we use MapSources at all, it'll need to be integrated with our listings format, perhaps behind a "map" link. LtPowers (talk) 20:07, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Of course I am going to take that link out of the article now as really it was just put in there to stimulate discussion, especially in regard to using the rebirth of the travel project as an opportunity to explore some potential features precluded from the WT paradigm. The linking will of course remain in the article edit histories for anyone to look at if they wish. There are 3 versions, the first version was a standard link (it needed to be an ext-link as there is no current way to do it as a wikilink), the second was 'front-linked - to demonstrate a clickable link (we don't currently have a way to do this such as a {{mapsourcelink|8°45′26.36″,116°16′36.03″E}} template to use, the third offers a more overt (maplink). I tend to agree that if we were to do this it would need to consider something like a clear (maplink), otherwise it may not be clear there is a map link there in the text. If a suitable template is created with the provision for entry of geocord location parameters as mentioned by K7L then that may be something to consider. This could presumably provide a clickable (maplink) describer in the article text that would then lead to the appropriately geocord determined Special:MapSources page. It certainly wouldn't look very nice having visible cords all over an article, however LtPowers has a point about 'printing', but that would be assuming we wanted to provide more then a link to detailed maps and wanted to provide geo-locator details of significant article features, such as a transport hub (airport/railway station/port). -- Felix (talk) 22:44, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

As far as I know, Special:Mapsources/41°43'57"N, 49°56'49"W, scale=25000000 is a wikilink direct to the w:RMS Titanic. Not sure if this would qualify as "deeplinking", but it is a valid wikilink. A title like (maplink) with no co-ordinates should be <div class="noprint"> if it's anything larger than a tiny icon as users of a printed version will not be able to click the link in any case.

One possibility would be to use the address in a listing to anchor a wikilink to mapsources, for instance:

• 1 Boots Motel (Boots Court), 107 S. Garrison Avenue (at former US66 / US71 crossroads), ☏ +1 417 310-2989. Scary, haunted Route 66 motel from 2010 Halloween TV special Scared Shrekless, full of frightful Shrek monsters. Stay away! $US 66-71/night. 

Click the address and the map appears. It's not possible to use the name as a wikilink because the URL to the property itself is being frontlinked by Extension:Listings (a bug) but pointing the address to the map gives something that looks like just a plain civic address when printed. Do keep in mind that this is a wikilink - an external link prints (with the URL) as hardcopy. K7L (talk) 00:38, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

That sounds good, but some places may only be identified with coordinates and no address (maybe directions). Examples may include parts of a beach, points within a park which no road access (like a waterfall several kilometers from the parking lot and "address"), and listings in countries and towns where the address system is patchwork or the streets aren't signposted (many parts of Africa). I propose a small, color globe symbol similar to the current symbol used beside coordinates at the top of the page. There just needs to be a way to display them as text AND open in a map (not at the same time). Maybe click once and it expands horizontally to display the coordinates with an option to display on a map, like: 0°0'0"N 0°0'0"E ^Map. Only problem would be use on the mobile site or touching it on a touch device. Another option would be to have two symbols: 1)a map that would link to the location plotted on a map when touched and 2)a globe that would expand (on same line, not new page) to display the coordinates.

I also recall making a lengthy suggestion for improvements to listings on one of the WV General pages, which included how to integrate coordinates and improved usefulness on mobile site (when one is launched for WV). We also need inline templates to use within sentences to display coordinates (and a telephone one would be useful too). Example: "Near the Big Wooks Cabins and ranger office, lies Lincoln Falls {{Coordinates|0.0000N|0.0000E}}—a popular picnic spot known for its scenic beauty at sunrise, when the sun hits it just right." AHeneen (talk) 01:15, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Those links to the Titanic and the Boots Motel have both been very interesting diversions, certainly both somewhat more interesting then my somewhat pedestrian link to an airport in SE Asia. So it seems that the potential for this to be something quite useful for the traveller is sort of more than halfway there, but not quite there yet. That address linking in a <listing> is quite interesting. Away from use in a <listing> it would be good if only the basic geo-cords printed, yet when in webpage view provided a clickable (maplink) in the text. If the full URL was printed rather than just the geocords it would have the potential to make a real mess and clutter of the article, Something like the expanding globe could be quite popular on mobile devices, are you thinking of a forked logo like Google earth use when there are more than 2 points of reference available with a pointer 'hover' or click? -- Felix (talk) 01:33, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

As far as I know, a wikilink like the North Pole appears as just the plaintext 'the North Pole' (no co-ordinates, no URL's) when printed, but on a webbrowser the co-ordinates are visible on mouse-over and clicking the link goes to the map source page. Try File → Print Preview in a web browser (it works in Firefox, not sure about others) to see what the printed guide would actually look like. The print version has no visible URL's on wikilinks, only on full external links. K7L (talk) 04:03, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Well that looks quite elegant, can't see a lot of problems with that and it is a Wiki-link so I assume there are no glaring potential conflicts with existing links policies, certainly it deals with any external link issues. This formatting seems to be workable as well the North Pole (maplink).
If I preview that using <Print> in Safari (for Applemac) it displays as "This formatting seems to be workable as well the North Pole (maplink).'', and the (maplink) colour is preserved. If I select print to PDF the North Pole (maplink) link still remains active which seems like a bit of a handy bonus. This seems like a very handy feature, but it would of course be better done as a standard maplink Template that only required the geocords to be inserted. Anyone else have some thoughts on this? -- Felix (talk) 15:02, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Below (By plane) is a 'real world' example that has 2 embedded wiki links. One goes to the WP article on the airport of the article concerned, the other goes to the Wiki Mapsources page for the airport locality. Both of these seem to have good benefit to the traveller aspects. For example this particular airport is problematic. Last year the islands existing international airport closed and a new one in a distant location replaced it. Yet the airlines and IATA were very slow to assign the new airport code. There was a lot of confusion amongst travel agents and travellers. A lot of this confusion still prevails even 1 year after the changeover. Some people think there is no airport on the island now, others think there are both open, and many people have difficulty understanding where the new airport is located. If they do understand it has been moved they often think it is too remote to access, even though it is only a fairly small island. When looking at WP page stats it is interesting to see that LOP gets almost as many page views as DPS on the nearby island of Bali, yet that is a far busier airport, with high levels of both international and domestic tourism traffic. A significant volume of visitors come to the island of Lombok from the adjoining island as Bali is the nation's primary tourism destination and has a higher level of international flights. In context map and location information is very important information for travellers. There really is a lot of confusion surrounding this and the popular travel forums are quite busy with queries concerning access to the islands airport. Also people seem to have considerable difficulties locating maps for island, especially online. Both islands are significant Indonesian tourism destinations. So this example is quite worthy as an example of the potential usefulness of (text embedded link) features such as this.

Below is a 'real world' example of the application of this sort of inter-Wiki linking that is potentially accessible to us now as a Wikimedia partner
Please note I have applied the linking to both the airport on the Indonesia's island of Bali, as well as the island of Lombok. -- Felix (talk) 16:52, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

By plane

Lombok International Airport, (LOP ^IATA, ICAO:WADL),^[maplink] (Indonesian: Bandara Internasional Lombok), is the only current operational airport in Lombok.

The new airport is located near the city of Praya on Jalan Raya, Tanak Awu, Lombok Tengah in central south Lombok and is approximately 40 km south of Mataram, and 55 km southeast of the established Senggigi tourism precinct of West Lombok

• The Ngurah Rai International Airport, (DPS ^IATA),^[maplink] on nearby Bali is only a short distance by air (flight time 25 minutes) with several daily flights by both turboprop and jet powered aircraft. Ticketing is normally in the range of Rp 200,000-300,000 for a single journey unless very heavily booked.

Note that the^[maplink] has been applied as an adjunct to the IATA code for the airport. We would need to establish some limitations to maplinking in the body of the article, such as to transport hubs (airports, railway, bus terminals and ports otherwise the articles would fill up with links to every second thing mentioned.
There appears to be some potential to apply some useful linking attributes in the listings as indicated with the Boots Hotel example provided by K7L above, but not necessarily with this style^[maplink].-- Felix (talk) 16:52, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I think the idea is that these should not print in hard copy at all as there's no way for someone with a paper copy of an article stuffed into the side of a carry-on bag to actually use the link? K7L (talk) 20:58, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, the fact that the links don't print out is more a benefit than a deficiency, otherwise the print out would look like a dogs breakfast. If they have the need for a link then presumably they also have on-line access to the article concerned. A pdf print-out of the article appears to carry embedded links so it can be saved digitally, with all the links still available whilst off-line if required. This certainly seems to be something that adds usefullness to the articles and is of clear benefit to the traveller. The Special:Mapsources linking brought forward by K7L seems appropriate, but no doubt better packaged in a {{mapsourceslink|geocord,geocord}}. If using a template then perhaps that offers the opportunity to see just the geocords revealed in a printout, where other embedded links in the article could remain concealed. This would assist someone trying find a location with a GPS and a handful of printed Wikivoyage articles. -- Felix (talk) 21:32, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

This discussion might be better moved to Wikivoyage talk:Geocoding. LtPowers (talk) 00:19, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

This is not just about geocoding, it is about inter-wiki linking as well. -- Felix (talk) 20:58, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Coordinates should be visible on the page, not in a tooltip, for better access accessibility, ease of copying and comparison, etc. Not all devices or browsers have tooltips. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:49, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Title

Does anyone know why the browser-window title bar for Project:Geocoding says "Geocoding travel guide"? Other Wikivoyage-namespace pages just display the name of the page ("e.g., "Wikivoyage:Don't tout"). (WT-en) LtPowers 10:36, 4 December 2011 (EST)

That's bizarre. The Main Page uses a <titleoverride> tag, but that's not the case here. I assume there must be something configured on the back-end that is causing the change? -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 13:39, 4 December 2011 (EST)

I'd guess it is something to do with the rdf in the text, since it causes name page wierdness elsewhere, even though it is in nowiki text. I'll remove it and see if I'm right. --(WT-en) Inas 17:28, 4 December 2011 (EST)

I'm right. --(WT-en) Inas 17:29, 4 December 2011 (EST)

I fixed it by changing "<" into "<". Still don't understand why it happens, though. But thanks for the detective work. (WT-en) LtPowers 14:45, 5 December 2011 (EST)

Well, it is definitely a bug. Looks like the code that generates page titles follows a different logical path when there is RDF on the page. Probably another bug to not ignore RDF within nowiki brackets. --(WT-en) Inas 15:34, 5 December 2011 (EST)

Destination guide

I think I understand what a destination-style article and a destination are, but how does a "destination guide" differ from those? Jim.henderson (talk) 01:55, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

A guide is a reasonably-complete article. K7L (talk) 03:06, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but more generically (which is how it's used here), it's an alternative term for "article". It's short for "travel guide". LtPowers (talk) 16:46, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

remove outdated historical info on RDF?

It might be worth removing the outdated info instead of keeping it (for what?) and marking it "historical". None of it looks useful and it's all in the page history of anyone wants it. K7L (talk) 17:44, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Geocode regions?

Do regions really need a geocode? Trying to reduce a region to a single point on a map seems silly to me, as knowing where the region is centered tells you very little about the actual boundaries of the region. For example, here's what you get when you click the globe icon on the Ontario article and pick Google Maps. It's not the geographic center of the province, just a random middle-of-nowhere location that someone on Wikipedia thought looked like the farthest point from any border. Is that useful?

It seems to me we should restrict single-point geocoding to destination articles (small city, large city, district, and park articles).

-- LtPowers (talk) 14:56, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Progress bar

The progress bar charts our progress relative to all destination articles. But I don't know how helpful that is, as single-point geographic coordinates are only useful for relatively small areas. Many of our destination articles probably shouldn't have geo tags. LtPowers (talk) 14:22, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Apologies. It appears I raised this question a few months ago. In my defense, the above section was not visible until just now, due to a coding error higher on the page. My concerns stand, though. LtPowers (talk) 14:23, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing a while back, but then I discovered that Template:Geo has a "zoom" parameter. You are able to automatically zoom the map in and out for users depending on what you want them to see. I think the geo template on USA is quite useful, but you can see a bad example at Italy that needs fixing. This can also be applied to districts when you want to zoom in on a small, specific area. James A ▪ talk 14:30, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

{edit conflict}

Well, the progress bar I made would be easy enough to change if we can establish a consensus not to put geo for regions and countries. (If we do, though, the progress bar won't be correct until existing geo templates are removed from 136 country articles and 1455 region articles which already have them.) Personally, though, I think we can use the zoom attribute to give regions and countries a link to a reasonably framed map. Otherwise they all get left without any link to a map at all. Texugo (talk) 14:32, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

The policy page should be made to give some guidance on use of the zoom attribute and making geo links for districts/regions/countries. Texugo (talk) 14:41, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I have corrected geo parameters for 'Italy'. With this dynamic map: GeoMap that's done quickly. -- Joachim Mey2008 (talk) 15:00, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Map coordinates in China

Swept in from the pub

Hi all, I am pretty new to Wikivoyage and am working on the article Jiaxing, in China. I have been taking coordinates for attractions from Google Maps and adding them, but when I turn on the map in the article, all of the markers are off by a bit - not enough to take them off the map of the city, but enough to, for example, put something that should be in the middle of the city in a lake instead. This may have something to do with the GPS/satellite distortion that China has in place, so that what Google Maps thinks are the coordinates for an attraction are not what OpenStreetMap thinks are the coordinates for the same location. I can't easily find the coordinates for the attractions according to OpenStreetMap, because most of the attractions do not seem to be on there. Is this a known issue? Is there an easy way to find coordinates that will display correctly on the map in the article? --PalaceGuard008 (talk) 11:24, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

That's an interesting pickle I've never thought of or encountered before. In general, it does seem that any Google Maps coordinates for China are wrong or at least of a GCJ-02 system different from standard WGS-84. Some links for reference: [2] [3]. Google Maps coordinates are usually not encouraged in the first place due to some copyright issues, while OpenStreetMap is usually generated by local users so they tend to be true to form. OSM may be ignoring China's rules about satellite imagery too, so it's all a toss up. I'm afraid I don't really have advice for this situation, other than personally checking coordinates with a phone/GPS while on the ground. -- torty3 (talk) 11:50, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

You could possibly switch on the satellite layer for Google Maps to at least tell when the markers are off, though again we're stumbling on legality here. I'm even wondering about whether OSM surveying would be permitted in China. -- torty3 (talk) 11:58, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

If you can locate the place on OpenStreetMap, e.g. it is on the NE corner of two streets you recognise, just put your mouse cursor there & right click. That gives you co-ords you can copy into the article.

OSM map can usually be accessed via an icon at top right of article. If that is not there, first add co-ords for the town (which can usually be copied from WP) in a geo tag & save; that should make a map appear. Pashley (talk) 12:00, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses torty3 and Pashley. By the sounds of it there isn't really a work-around, I'll have to physically try to find it on the OSM map (I think the main difficulty comes form the way it represents canals - there are lots of them in that area but they are all represented as simple blue lines in the OSM map, so difficult to use them to reference location.) --PalaceGuard008 (talk) 16:19, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Just out of interest, what possible copyright issues could there be from using GPS coordinates from Google Maps? --Andrewssi2 (talk) 21:02, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

None that I'm aware of. Coordinates are facts, and you can't copyright facts -- only their presentation. Powers ^(talk) 22:07, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

The Open Street Maps FAQ raises some issues with getting data from Google Maps, and I believe our current guidance about not relying on Google Maps as a source for GPS coordinates was written to facilitate contributions to and from Open Street Maps (note: I didn't write that guidance some I'm not 100% positive of the reasoning behind it). -- Ryan • (talk) • 03:16, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

The FAQ for OpenStreetMap does give reasons, but are any of those reasons applicable to Wikivoyage? Unless I am missing something, we are not actually uploading anything to OpenStreetMap at all, just creating a layer on top with our listings? Andrewssi2 (talk) 03:22, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't know, maybe Paper Towns? Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:31, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, this has always been the case with China and Google Maps, for as long as I remember using Google Maps (close to a decade now). China seems to be the only country for which such offsets are observed; this is particularly visible when you look at a pair of border cities (e.g. Heihe/Blagoveshchensk, Khorgos, or towns on China/Vietnam border). The satellite view is perfectly continuous, while the map view has a dicountinuity: sometimes you see a border river disappear, sometimes some blank space inserted between the two countries. For this reason, I feel that the objects' coordinates obtainable with the GM satellite views are correct, while those obtained with the map view are off. So, for example, if you want to enter the coordinates of a train station, I don't use the coordinates for the map label "Some station", but switch to the sat view and locate the station on the sat image. -- Vmenkov (talk) 00:11, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

I prefer GM for most coordinate searching, although I rarely use the satellite view. I mostly use OSM for China map coordinates for reasons stated by everyone above. Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:18, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Contact for tools.wmflabs.org/wikivoyage

I am mainly contributing on French Wikivoyage and I cannot find who to contact for a problem with this map gathering all the geocoded pages (for the French Wikivoyage). Would you know someone who maintains it, or if there is a discussion page for it? The problem I noticed is that some pages do not appear on the map (mainly the most recent ones like Aizuwakamatsu) and some have a strange location (ex: Osaka is located on the map in the location of its airport, which is the first PoI of the page). In the French Wikivoyage, we do not use directly the "Geo" template but we have a summary box template which has coordinates and calls the Geo template. Any information about how the map retrieves the coordinates for the French Wikivoyage would be welcome. — Fabimaru (talk) 16:26, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

In fact I now realize that I don't need the map from tools.wmflabs.org any more: the one from Destinations and its French counterpart does not have the problem. Edit: French map still points on tools.wmflabs.org, maybe it has been updated since the last time I had a look. — Fabimaru (talk) 16:49, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

How to find Wikidata or Wikipedia entries by their GPS position?

Swept in from the pub

Specifically, can I open a map and zoom into a certain place and get all Wikidata/Wikipedia items displayed that have a proper GPS coordinate?

This would be very useful to identify WD and WP items and relate them to WV listings, because often the name search in WD shows too many item or it does not give any results because of language barriers.

Cheers Ceever (talk) 20:23, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

For Wikipedia articles go to the Category of an area, if it does not have already add GeoGroupTemplate. See for example w:Category:Towns in Derbyshire. Do not know about Wikidata --Traveler100 (talk) 20:41, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

There is a map for Wikivoyage, I am sure I have seen one for Commons but cannot find one now. Would be useful to have one for Wikidata. --Traveler100 (talk) 20:46, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

For Wikipedia OpenSeaMap has on option under View. --Traveler100 (talk) 21:00, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

For Wikidata try Wikidata Locations Tool and also Wikidata Map (I think the first is a lot better), both from wmflabs. There used to be a "nearby" option in the beta features on Wikipedia, but I can't find it in the preferences over there. AlasdairW (talk) 21:24, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Very helpful! Anyone know the difference between red and blue markers here: https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-todo/around.html?lat=-15.7736&lon=-68.648&radius=15&lang=en ? Ceever (talk) 23:08, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

This shows articles around you: https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Special:Nearby https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Nearby It could be coupled with a fake GPS app if you want to see a place which is not around you. Syced (talk) 06:12, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Top! Cheers, Ceever (talk) 23:59, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Precision guide

Check out Today's xkcd for a handy guide. Powers ^(talk) 12:39, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Lat/long precision

Swept in from the pub

Wikivoyage:Listings says that using more than four digits after the decimal point in the lat/long coordinates is unnecessary. I'd read that before but didn't necessarily retain it, and exactly how unnecessary it is wasn't clear to me. But https://xkcd.com/2170/ has cleared it up: 12.1234 is a room, 12.12345 is a person in the room, 12.123456 is a piece of paper that the person is holding, 12.1234567 is a small drawing on that paper. I think that four digits is going to be plenty for our purposes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:21, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

You can see in this edit to the Porirua article that coordinates are strongly preferred to be four digits. It's a good standard that avoids our coordinates from getting too long, but I wouldn't spend time worrying about it. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 21:36, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

I would go a step further than SelfieCity and say this. It may be that 12.123456 doesn't look any different on a dynamic map than 12.1234, but neither does excessive coordinate precision do any harm to our content or the project as a whole. Where no harm is done, policy should remain silent. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 21:44, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Lat/longs are mainly used on this site to put markers on a map, not as numbers displayed for readers. If I right click on a dynamic map at zoom 18, I get 5 decimal places, and it is unnecessary extra work to trim this to 4 decimal places when pasting it into an article. 10 decimal places is excessive, but there is no harm if the odd listing gives 6 or 7 decimal places. (And the precision of longitude varies with latitude - when you get close to the poles 12.1 is a person.) AlasdairW (talk) 22:19, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

@AlasdairW: Right, because the regions between the lines get "wider" on a rectangular map. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 22:44, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

• I'm actually having trouble finding the place in policy that says four decimal places are required. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 22:33, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

I should have looked at the first link in the discussion thread. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 22:35, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

---

Do we want to start a discussion on removed the four-decimal requirement from policy? --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 22:37, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

There is no requirement, and there never has been. There was only a factual statement, which until a couple of hours ago simply said "more than four decimal places is excessive unless precision of 1 m or less is necessary". This statement is objectively true, whether it's on the page or not. More precision provides no benefit.

I agree with AlasdairW: We should not be enforcing the One True™ Amount of Precision For All Listings. It's not important, and there are the occasional exceptions. If, like me, you had trouble remembering what's useful, the answer for almost all destinations is four numbers after the last digit, and now you've got a fun way to look it up. Please do not interpret my comment as a request to create a bunch of pointless make-work or to create yet another rule. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:18, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Now, this is not to bully anyone, but if Wikivoyage:Listings was just a statement, then why was this edit to the Porirua article explained as "numerous formatting errors"? Perhaps Nurg can explain. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 00:50, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

The formatting errors were incorrect hyphenation of phone numbers and use of the wrong dashes in hours. Given that I made no mention of coords in the edit summary and left the Top Taste coords at 6 decimal places (only bothering to shorten the Curry Village ones), you're wrong to conclude from that edit that coordinates are strongly preferred to be four digits. I agree with WhatamIdoing that the bit about coords is just a statement. If anything about it is directive, it's that the lat and long should have the same number of decimal places. I wonder why that is important. Nurg (talk) 10:38, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

The entire page is not "a statement". The exact sentence about precision was "a statement". Notice, e.g., that it does not say "You must always use exactly four digits after the decimal point". It does not even say "You should use no more than four". That type of phrasing would fall into the category of "rules". But that's not how that sentence is formed. "This is more than you need" is not a "rule". It is a factual statement, which is meant to inform contributors, who can then make their own decisions about what to do, e.g., about whether it's worth the trouble of removing an extra digit. Hopefully, if people are more aware of this, then they won't worry when they can "only" find this level of precision. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:32, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

@Nurg: Thanks for being clear about this. I understand. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 13:59, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

If I may... it's not entirely accurate to say "there is no harm" from excessive precision. The precision of a coordinate is part of the coordinate data, and it says something about that coordinate. Sure, maybe now all it's used for is putting a pin on a map, but in the future, these coordinate pairs could be used differently. The precision then becomes an important part of the data. It's best to encourage discipline when it comes to selecting a precision so as to future-proof our data. As a copyleft site, we simply don't know how our data will be used. Powers ^(talk) 23:07, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

How to add (and find) geo coordinates?

Swept in from the pub

Hi, I've been wondering how to put geo coordinates on locations and places when editing (generally visual editing but any helps). Thanks a lot, CupcakePerson13 (talk) 23:22, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

See Wikivoyage:Geocoding for information. Template:Marker and Template:Listing provide a parameter into which you can insert geocoordinates. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 23:24, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! Is there any information on what colour they appear? CupcakePerson13 (talk) 00:43, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

The parameter “type” can be set to see (blue), do (gray), buy (green), eat (orange), drink (black), and sleep (dark blue). Listings without type are green and vicinity (get in, such as airports) are dark red. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 01:19, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

CupcakePerson13, you may find it easier to add coordinates from the specialized listing editor. When you're reading (not editing) a page, look for a small, light-gray "edit" link at the end of most listings. Click that, and look in the upper corner to find a map tool and the form to add coordinates. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:16, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

From Wikivoyage:Geocoding: 26291 of 26217 destination articles have a Geo parameter. 100.282% complete. Wait, what? SmileKat40 (talk) 10:53, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

The article is doing an incorrect sum - It is diving the number of article with Geo by the total number of destination articles. There appear to be 50 destination articles without Geo paramter - Petscan and 124 articles which have Geo which aren't destinations - mainly itineraries. AlasdairW (talk) 14:29, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

article geo link not working?

Swept in from the pub

Is anyone else having this issue -- Matroc (talk) 18:54, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

You mean the icon at the top right corner of articles doing nothing? Yup, I've had that problem since I think yesterday or the day before yesterday. --Ypsilon (talk) 20:04, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

And it's really annoying, I use that version of the dynamic map everytime when I'm working with coordinates in articles. Would really appreciate if it could be fixed. --Ypsilon (talk) 14:39, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

It seems to be a z-index problem. You should add a rule like z-index: 2 to the mw-indicators class in Mediawiki:Common.css. --RolandUnger (talk) 06:32, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Any admins with coding skills around? --Ypsilon (talk) 15:01, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure — and certainly not me — but perhaps in future we could solve this problem by promoting Matroc to template editor if s/he wishes, or even admin? --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 15:08, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Strikethrough mention of administrator per User talk:Matroc. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 18:43, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Fixed it. The problem is also discussed at Phabricator. --Alexander (talk) 20:22, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! :) --Ypsilon (talk) 16:05, 16 June 2020 (UTC)