Lars You might want to find out a bit more about Query-to-map being developed by kolossos. It shows not just point features but also linear features such as rivers and roads. I believe it's hosted on Wikimedia's toolserver and is intended ultimately to be used on Wikipedia pages.
Details here: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Query-to-map 80n On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 1:26 PM, Lars Aronsson <l...@aronsson.se> wrote: > > These days I spend more time in Wikipedia than in OpenStreetMap, > but I haven't lost my interest in geography. Among the many things > that need improvement in Wikipedia is the geographic coordinates > that indicate the location of places, buildings, cities, and such. > > The OSM wiki has a <map> tag that looks like this: > <map lat=63 lon=16.5 z=5 w=360 h=720 /> > > In the page [[WikiProject Sweden]], this shows a 360x720 pixel > image based on zoom 5 map tiles centered around 63° N 16.5° E. > > Is this a user-friendly way to put a map in a wiki page? Would > normal users understand the z= parameter, or should the parameters > be designed some other way? > > Could the editing be made interactive, so that the user can see > the map on the edit page and zoom and pan, and when pressing the > "save" button the new coordinates are saved? This would take out > the hard work for "numerically challenged" contributors. > > Should we try to introduce the map tag in Wikipedia? Has it > already been tried, and what was the reaction? Do we have any bad > experience from its use in the OSM, to learn and improve from? > > It's not easy to convince the tech staff of Wikipedia to introduce > new features. They probably receive such requests daily. The code > must run, it must scale very well, and be very stable. If we > really want to introduce the <map> tag (or something similar) in > Wikipedia, we must provide really good arguments. > > Fortunately, there is a Wikipedia developer meeting on April 3-5, > where I could bring this forward. > > In Wikipedia, map coordinates are typically placed in an infobox, > as seen on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden > or at the right top corner of the page, > as seen on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B6k_Runestone > > In either case, the coordinates form a link to a switchboard page > titled GeoHack where you can chose your favorite map site, > including Google Maps or OpenStreetMap. > > Next to the coordinates is also a little blue marble. If you click > on this, you bring up a pop-up map called WikiMiniAtlas. This > little map can be panned and zoomed and features links to other > articles. But it uses primitive VMAP-0 data as background and has > no proper projection, just the naive x=lon, y=lat. > > In Wikipedia, the coordinates are given like this: > > {{coord|58|17|42|N|14|46|32|E|display=title|type:landmark}} > > Even though decimal degrees can also be used, most articles use > degrees-minutes-seconds. The display=title parameter puts the > coordinate in the upper right corner. The type:landmark parameter > (yes, a colon is used here, not equal sign) sets the scale for the > resulting map. Of course, zoom=5 is specific to OpenStreetMap. > Other map sites use different definition of zoom or scale. The > GeoHack switchboard page converts type:landmark to the appropriate > zoom for each target map site. > > I think WikiMiniAtlas is fine, despite some flaws. But when I > explain this to others, even experienced wikipedians, many say > they didn't figure they could click on the blue marble to show the > pop-up map. That's why I think an inline presentation (like the > map tag) would be a necessary improvement. More visible maps will > lead to more eyeballs, finding more errors in incorrect data. > > > > -- > Lars Aronsson (l...@aronsson.se) > Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se > > _______________________________________________ > talk mailing list > talk@openstreetmap.org > http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk >
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