Template talk:Mapit-AUS-suburbscale

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Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Sydney/Suburbs#Suburb Mapping Template

See also: Template:Geolinks-US-streetscale (this is the US version, on which this is based)


Contents

[edit] Testing (Bundeena, New South Wales)

[edit] Testing 2 (Botany, New South Wales)

[edit] End test

[edit] Broken display

This template is presently causing quite bizarre coordinates in th etitle area. An example is on the Template page as "Coordinates: -33.8915° N 151.1382° E". Australian coordinates should be written with a positive number of degrees south, not negative degrees north! I don't know how to fix it though. --Scott Davis Talk 09:54, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I will try to fix it. To select one of the Geographic_coordinate_conversion#Ways_of_writing_coordinates, it should probably just read "Coordinates: -33.8915, 151.1382", otherwise we'd need to improve the input in the template. -- User:Docu

Thankyou. I don't know if complex wiki language is good enough to remove the sign, then pass the rest to the coor d template with an S. Otherwise, we would need a bot to change the input string to lose the sign at input if we wanted to keep the S. Personally, I think two unadorned real numbers is a bit too cryptic. You can probably keep the degree sign "Coordinates: -33.8915° 151.1382°" which helps a bit. I don't recall looking before, but had presumed the point of the AUS template was to get the hemispheres right. --Scott Davis Talk 22:55, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

All the mapping & directory web sites use the -33.8915, 151.1382 notation (i.e. negative degrees north), so the minus sign in the template usage is probably good to keep (unless someone wants to write a bot to convert all usage, and then do stuff in the template to convert it back to the format that it was originally in, which I can't honestly see the point of). However for the Coordinates thing at the top of the page, any reasonable format is fine IMHO (e.g. "Coordinates: -33.8915° 151.1382°" is fine), or it could be removed (I personally don't have any preference either way). -- All the best, Nickj (t) 03:31, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
OK, I've made this change now, please feel free to revert if it stuffs things up or you think it should be done differently. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 03:41, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Thankyou. I wasn't game to try to change it, so alerted the two who looked like they understood when I noticed the problem. SInce you both agree, it must be right :-) You have certainly solved the wrongness problem. I'm not sure if it creates a readability problem or not. --Scott Davis Talk 05:11, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for fixing it. The new format works! -- User:Docu

[edit] Google street maps

Can someone in the know please update this so it includes Google's excellent new street mapping for Australia? Thanks, ҉ Randwicked ҉ 12:46, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Just noticed that Google had added it, came here to do that, and saw your message - Good to see someone is on the ball, even if I'm not ;-) Google as street directory should be there now - I've listed it first because it seems the nicest. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 06:54, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 21 June tidy up

I've done a bit of a consolodation of the sources - before this Google Maps appears twice and Wikimapia had its own section. --Scotthatton 14:40, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Good to consolidate Wikimapia in with the rest; The only reason for listing Google Maps twice was once for the sat images, and once as a street directory (can toggle between these, but if you know you want the directory or the map, could potentially be quicker to go right to it). -- All the best, Nickj (t) 08:01, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
I've removed GlobalGuide as a street directory, as it doesn't seem to add much value (seems to be wrapper around the google maps street directory + lots of advertising). -- All the best, Nickj (t) 08:09, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Usage" back to front?

Is it just me or are longitude and latitude back to front in the instructions on this template page? Plus whenever I use this template I have to reverse the coords, which makes me suspect this template is actually back to front... anyone else? pfctdayelise (translate?) 15:55, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The order of named parameters to templates does not matter. The example was probably made by a mathematician (x before y) not a geographer (latitude before longitude). The beauty of templates is that whichever way you think, the output is "right". --Scott Davis Talk 23:25, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] guidance, please

Hi. Nice work here, but a bit of guidance for geo-template newbies would help limit breakage. As far as I can tell this template seems to incorporate the coor template, so a bit of guidance, or discussion would help. Given this, I assume that when adding this to a page, existing coor templates should just be deleted? For instance, I tried just adding {{Mapit-AUS-suburbscale|long=151.342564|lat=-33.424730}} to Gosford, New South Wales but it created a clash of the absolutely-positioned coordinates at the top right. Also (AFAICT) it forces us to go from human-readable DMS with N/S/E/W as accepted by a variante of the coor template (e.g. for Gosford currently has {{coor title dms|33|25|36|S|151|20|30|E|type:city(301551)_region:AU-NSW}}) to computer-readable decimal degrees.

OK so my request is for someone (who knows what they are doing) to make some explicit for replacing existing coor templates in the Usage section. Are there two camps of geo-templaters who get upset at each other substituting one for the other? In the end I decided to leave Gosford alone for now.

Also (AFAICT) the use of this template seems to give the lovely wikipedia jigsaw-globe icons and pagelets within the "Community" layer of the google maps application. This is remarkably cool, but it is probably worth pointing out! At least via a link to the relevant project page -- for instance, I presume this is implemented via a bot/spider?

Thanks, Andrew Kepert 08:45, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

PS just discovered that the google earth links seem to be via the coor template, as this is all that appears within Green Point, New South Wales which has a marker in google earth. It should probably be more accurate, as it places the marker in the middle of Brisbane water, but this is another issue. I'll have to poke around some more. Andrew Kepert 08:52, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
We tend to use Gazetteer of Australia for determining the coordinates, it spits them out accurately as decimal, and the new {{coord}} template is capable of translating them back as human-readable °'". Orderinchaos 20:02, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Of course, the Gazetteer of Australia can convert degrees to decimals, and then the template can convert back to degrees; but that process introduces rounding mistakes. I'm concerned to notice that, for example, Swan View and the Gazetteer entry do not show the same DMS coordinates. Comte0 12:52, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Actually, GA doesn't do the first conversion. The decimals are correct, the degrees are wrong, being rounded down to the nearest minute even with 40 or more seconds. For just one verifiable, worked example:
Applecross Senior High School (a named point):
  • Using decimal coords from GA: [1]. (Right on the target, demonstrating the value of these coordinates)
  • Using degree coords from GA (to 6dp): [2]. (Just south of Bill Bennett Park, 1.3km (0.81mi) to the north, demonstrating the inaccuracy of the degree figures).
I am aware of many others (one amusing one falls in the middle of a lake, but I can't find that one right now) Orderinchaos 17:19, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] new topographic and bathymetric link set

I have reversed an earlier edit by Gobeirne to delete a link to the Bonzle Digital Atlas of Australia. I see no reason to remove this. I have checked the site linked to and it appears to have significant new map content I have not seen in any of the other links, in particular, topographic and bathymetric information which I have modified the original link description to reflect. Reapse 11:43, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Nice one! I looked over a year ago for topographic maps to add to this template, and at the time found nothing for Australia that had this type of information accessible via a long + lat in the parameter string. So yes, it's definitely worth having, in my opinion. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 00:02, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] coor link removed

As the title section already links to the coordinates, I've removed the duplicate in the heading "Maps and aerial photos". Please let me know if any problems arise. Orderinchaos 23:21, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re-renamed

Per discussion at WP:AWNB, the fact that this template has diverged and developed separately from its overseas cousins, and that the Mapit name was in use in over 80% of articles using either template, I've moved Geolinks back to Mapit. Orderinchaos 03:58, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

For those interested, the discussion on WP:AWNB referenced above is archived at Wikipedia: Australian Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 26 #Template madness. -- Zyxw 12:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Geolinks alteration

Alteration of Geolinks is under discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Geographical_coordinates#Proposals. Changes or deletion are likely soon. (SEWilco 19:41, 23 October 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Google maps

What happened to the template with the Google maps and street maps for each suburb, I thought this was very handy and now that it has been removed has become an inconvenience when trying to look things up. Cheers_Ad@m.J.W.C. (talk) 07:12, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Agree personally with you, but they've changed all Geolinks templates all over the world to this new format (I'm trying to get a minor change through so it displays as proper coordinates and not decimal, that should be forthcoming in the next day or two as it seems to be just a bug causing it). If you click on the coordinates you should still be able to find the mapping links - if any are missing or not working as they should let me know as I figured out a while ago how to edit that page. Orderinchaos 07:21, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
Okay thanks for that, I'll check it out. Cheers_Ad@m.J.W.C. (talk) 07:33, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
The new template looks awful and completely unprofessional and unsuited to Wikipedia entirely. Why was this never discussed at AWNB where these sort of changes should go? That's just bad editing. I'm now going to have to convert all 300 odd railway station pages plus anything else that I've put effort into to another template that doesn't look like it was written by a first-time Wikipedia user. Thanks a million guys - nice to see that consultation is still ongoing on Wikipedia - not. JRG (talk) 11:29, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
It was a Wikipedia wide change - I agree it should have been discussed, we Australians really were not consulted at all as to what we thought of the changes. :/ The discussion there was (see the 23 October link above) generated no consensus, as far as I can see, and involved way too few users of the templates. Orderinchaos 12:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Having read the discussion page (see the proposal above) I can see that at least the one-liner proposal was put to a vote for the specific Geolinks/Mapit templates and was soundly rejected. I can see why - I put that template into articles I wrote as an external link section which fitted nicely and provided users with a selection of links to look at in whatever medium they wished. Now it's a single line template which doesn't help at all. Why do we therefore have to follow suit? JRG (talk) 12:16, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Agreed - the whole idea of this template was to discourage users from creating hardlinks to Google Maps themselves, which was rampant prior to the widespread use of Mapit. As users are not developers, I wouldn't be surprised if that sort of trend now re-emerges. Orderinchaos 12:28, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Moving forward

Summary: Several users have privately or publicly raised a view that the Australian template Mapit-AUS-suburbscale should be reverted to the template as it stood until 30 November. This RFC aims to determine whether this is a consensus viewpoint, or a minority viewpoint. (Note also a similar debate here regarding the {{geolinks-cityscale}} template.)

  • Support reversion - the RfC at the original location generated no consensus even for worldwide, and the only Australian users who commented opposed the proposed changes and favoured the status quo. Wikipedia works on consensus and debate, there's been too much running around needlessly enforcing artificial standards to the detriment of the encyclopaedia in my view, and no attempt to consult *users* (as opposed to developers) to see what they think. Orderinchaos 12:23, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose reversion - There are very few location related articles that require a direct link to a specific map service, instead of the general coordinate information about the location. Those coordinates link to a centralised list of map services for Australia. It's information Wikipedia is about, not a linkfarm, especially not for reuse of Wikipedia data, and Australian articles are no different from other location related articles. If you find users inserting links to their favourite map service when the article has coordinates already, the solution is not to have editors pre-add their chosen services to the articles, but we should instead educate those users about coordinates and the variety of available services. A solution to that problem could perhaps be to have a bot convert all new external map links to coordinates. --Para (talk) 14:34, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Other editors note: Para is a "developer" as mentioned above. JRG (talk) 21:36, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Also note to be fair that I have been the primary maintainer of this template for most of the year, although primarily because it was somewhat neglected and as an editor I felt a need to step in to fix it. Orderinchaos 21:51, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Strongly Support reversion - the new format is quite frankly awful. It looks like it was written by someone who was on Wikipedia for the first time, looks completely unprofessional and does not suit the encyclopedia at all. How this was supposed to be an improvement, I do not know. I was annoyed because I thought it was the Australian users who hadn't notified people, but I know that's wrong - and it's even worse when people enforce "standards" just for the sake of doing so. Australians were simply not consulted about this change, which is really poor editing. I have added this Mapit template to hundreds, if not thousands, of articles, and had placed the template in the external links section where it provided a good set of links to external mapping services based on the coordinates that non-developer users could link to and get an idea of what the article in question was talking about; that no longer is the case. Unlike what is claimed above, users don't add their own links to the template - the template has been generally left alone. They may be links in the original version of the template, but they are helpful links related to the article's location, and aren't useless external links that provide no further information about the article's subject matter. If people want to add the coordinates within the article, then do so, but do it properly, not in a way that looks like it was written by a five-year-old, and leave the links alone. JRG (talk) 21:36, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Support reversion: What we do here should be done for the convenience of readers, ahead of what is convenient for User:s or developers. Now, I ask, if I was a first-time reader, which of the following would best *inform me* where I can find map information?
  • 42°01′48″S 147°29′31″E
or
  • Maps and aerial photos
  • Street map from Street Directory, Google Maps and Multimap.
  • Satellite image from Google Maps and WikiMapia.
  • Topographic and bathymetric map from Bonzle Digital Atlas of Australia. --Melburnian (talk) 22:19, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Reversion, while the new version looks a lot cleaner, I feel that it is not as clear as the older version. See Melburnian's comments above, which put it a lot better than I could. Lankiveil (talk) 05:14, 28 December 2007 (UTC).
  • An aside, I've just read through the proposal page for this change, and it's seems evident to me that there was no consensus to make this sort of change to the template. Most disappointing. Lankiveil (talk) 05:18, 28 December 2007 (UTC).
  • Oppose: Discussion was announced above in section #Geolinks alteration as well as other templates and the Village Pump, and AWNB would have been used for announcement if announcer had ever heard of it. Discussion is again under way in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates#Geolinks-cityscale and should be there instead of tucked away in a Template Talk page. If you want a different format for the template message discuss it; discussion was open for some time over there on the format of the message. -- SEWilco (talk) 15:44, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Oddly enough, this location's far more likely to get comments from users than "tucked away" on a Wikiproject talk page where only 11 people can be found to comment on changes and even then, only just over half support it. Our suggestions were ignored and demeaned over there so why persist in futility? Orderinchaos 17:05, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Prefer the new version. Aatomic1 (talk) 16:51, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Please note that I have suggested a compromise - please see the other discussion --Scotthatton (talk) 02:06, 8 January 2008 (UTC)