Talk:WikiMapia/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Created

I created this article because I found the tool interesting, and not knowing anything about it, and finding the "about" box slim, my first instinct was to head here. There wasn't any info here, there is now some. Hopefully this is expanded.

Personally I don't give two hoots about "notability", but for the more awkward of you, I think it's reasonable for something with over 1.2 million Google hits to have an article here.

zoney ♣ talk 23:42, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

"About WikiMapia"

About WikiMapia WikiMapia is a project to describe the whole planet Earth. How to use Just move the map to find interesting places, click on rectangles. To add an interesting place or object use Add New link. Note: Please only add places interesting to everyone. Who We Are Wikimapia was created by Alexandre Koriakine and Evgeniy Saveliev, inspired by Google maps and Wikipedia. Contact us Your suggestions, ideas and bug reports are welcome. You may contact us using email: wikimapia@gmail.com

(It is inside somewhere of web page without a direct URL link.)

For reference only.

WikiMapia. About WikiMapia. Retrieved on 2006-05-30. AirBa 01:57, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

What happened to the WikiMapia links?

Map & photo templates on Wikipedia, such as {{Geolinks-US-buildingscale|38.880300|-77.406500}} used to include a WikiMapia linkas the first one. What happened to these? Did WM change somehow so that they didn't think it was good to link to anymore? --Howdybob 18:31, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I found my answer here at Template talk:Geolinks-US-streetscale. --Howdybob 19:08, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

User's guide

Wikipedia is not a guide to using WikiMapia: I suggest we remove parts of the "Using WikiMapia" section. Sum0 20:20, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Languages supported

Yes, situation with Ukrainian is rather strange. Besides, developers never give a reply on the letter about that, while there was no critics, just the ask to add Ukrainian. --pavlosh 12:20, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

We are receiving hundreds of letters, keep many in mind, reply to some.
All popular languages will be available in nearest future. (answer by developers)
--User:Alexandre Koriakine 14:20, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
OK (once again - my cogratulations with the project which is so popular!!!), but it's still unclear (and rather strange) that you skipped support of Ukrainian.
Anyhow, it would much more professional to provide availability before attempts to bury/hide critical notes as this notes might became "unuseful info" (as you perceive it now) not earlier than problem is fixed.
--pavlosh 12:39, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Dont see the point of wikimapia. We can add tags directly on Google maps. Use of rectangles to mark places limits the usability.

People see the points, not a single man. --User:Alexandre Koriakine 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Try to annoy WIKIA.COM with your language: http://wikia.com/wiki/Category:Languages, there's also no Ukranian.


What is the reply to the "point of wikimapia" question, above? It is possible to add detailed tags on GoogleEarth. So what basic differences / advantages are offered by WikiMapia? I do not understand the reply, "People see the points, not a single man": no disrespect of WikiMapia intended, here -- I really do want to understand the distinctions, between it and GoogleEarth, before applying myself to either.
--Kessler 00:12, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, thinking over my own question, just asked: WikiMapia is a wiki, so my contribution shows immediately to everybody, one-to-many, right? While GoogleEarth is not a wiki, so there my contribution in placemarks & annotations etc. shows only to me, right? Unless & until I upload my contribution to the GoogleEarth folks or to some site they've set up, thus publishing what I've done as an available "overlay"...

Do I have this distinction correct, then? That "it's a wiki"...

--Kessler 00:21, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Additional user-point about detail tags: on GoogleMaps and GoogleEarth they can be added, yes, but not published -- any user wanting to incorporate URLs pointing to either must first publish overlays providing people with the georefs and tags, no? cumbersome... delays... -- on WikiMaps the detail tags "publish" immediately or nearly, making 1-to-many lots faster & easier.

--Kessler 22:49, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

why show places link is disabled

wikimapia is currently not shwing places. the rectangles are not thr.how does the user identify places then?


Use the pull-down tab in the upper-right corner: pull down "view" then click on "show places" -- if you click on "upcoming places" you will see those as well as the content of "show places" -- altho, like I just said below here, I'm not sure myself of what "upcoming places" really are.
--Kessler 00:15, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I just came across this problem myself, maybe this is what you meant: a bug, maybe -- in Lyon, France, trying to set up a new place around the "Parc de la Tête d'Or", there, I am getting the following error message --
"Sorry, this place is already tagged. You may edit it's description in info window. If you don't see any objects here then probably you have an old browser or specific proxy configuration."
-- but I am not using an old browser -- IE 6.0.2900 -- and clicking various options in the pull-down menus doesn't help, and I don't know what "specific proxy configuration" means. Anyone know workarounds for these?
ps. The English in that error-message needs adjusting, too: should read as follows --
"Sorry, this place already is tagged. You may edit its description in the info window. If you don't see any objects here then probably you have an old browser or some specific proxy configuration."
-- although this still doesn't clarify that "specific proxy configuration".
--Kessler 07:52, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


Sometimes browser returns zero coordinates this means that browser blocked some JS actions. We cannot see the real error here, so we are trying to guess what can be happened.It's really painful to make 4-cross blowsers.
--Alexandre Koriakine 12:25, 29 August 2006 (RUSSIAN TIME)


Still here... Yes the coordinates / "places" do seem to disappear and then reappear right now, in odd ways. It seems to have something to do with elevation: I am "flying over" Lyon France: at higher elevations most "places" seem to appear OK, but if I zoom in lower, things disappear -- clicking and un-clicking on the tabs doesn't seem to help. I thought it might be a memory problem here but it isn't: cache is clear etc. For me the "place disappearance" over Lyon happens right now at click #9 from the top: at #10 everything looks OK, but when I click to zoom in to #9 nearly all "places" and roads and city labels (overlays?) disappear -- better results for "places" if I have "view show places" clicked instead of "view upcoming", but still the rest disappears (I am in auto mode, but changing modes doesn't seem to help much, still things disappear as I zoom in).

Maybe a server problem, I'm thinking -- memory-overload at the server end -- happens a lot to Wikipedia.

--Kessler 09:32, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Corrected
--Alexandre Koriakine 12:25, 29 August 2006 (MSK)

Yep, working much better today.

--Kessler 15:59, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

WikiMapia needs to add "discussion"

I have a lot of questions I'd like to ask & discuss, about WikiMapia which I only came across today, but I see no place for this on WikiMapia itself. So I'll use Wikipedia here. But still it seems to me that WikiMapia ought to structure its *own* Talk / Discussion pages: this single Wikipedia page devoted to the WikiMapia subject is not going to scale up, as WikiMapia grows.

WikiMapia I personally find fascinating & very useful: great idea, & well-done! Among my many questions about it:

1) someone please explain "upcoming" -- which I see online as text associated with heavy-lined yellow boxes, around some things in Paris... It seems to involve a "voting procedure", perhaps part of the approval process for new sites although this is not explained; once in fact I've seen a "voting procedure" box without any other text there, so I put some in.

Generally, tho, the WikiMapia idea is a good one: great "content" expansion for the GoogleEarth/GoogleMaps type of utility -- the "placemarks" on the latter are far too limited.

Also,

2) what are the size limits on the WikiMapia description tags, does anyone know? There needs to be some limit. People are going to fill those up with garbage.

And,

3) The "delete" procedure is not apparent, to me -- I saw a couple of nonsense "places", in Paris, and I clicked "delete report" on the entry panel as-instructed -- all that happens is that the "delete report" button disappears, but the "place" remains indicated. So does that mean that someone now will review that "place" for elimination -- so that I have filed a "delete report", literally -- and that eventually the "place" in question will go away? I suppose the interesting "visual identification" feature gets associated with that somehow... But couldn't the same user login again, perhaps using a different computer, and file another "delete report" for that same "place"?

--Kessler 00:07, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

One more question/problem: qua "wiki", without the history of the pages it is going pretty tough to tame & control WikiMapia, isn't it? For instance I am finding a lot of "delete report" spam etc. "places" in Paris, right now -- just turned in about a dozen -- but unless WikiMapia has some means of identifying & blocking spammers, per Wikipedia's now-long experience at this, won't WikiMapia become deluged with spam?

On Wikipedia I can figure who has been doing what, regularly -- spamming, trolling, whatever -- only by looking at "history" pages and finding patterns. I don't see any way of doing this on WikiMapia, other than by random-patrolling of various locations. And once spammers get into destroying & defacing content, well, whew.

So, is WikiMapia going to be a self-policing thing, essentially, or is it going to have to develop an "administrators" level, the way Wikipedia did? Or are those the folks already-appointed, to go over my "delete report" selections and those "votes"?

--Kessler 00:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, it will be very soon, we have a list of todo's and we're making the things we need.
Upcoming - yes, a voting. Here will be a FAQ soon.
Deleting - usually there's a formula that looks at deletion reports, not a person.
We will make registration soon, but we don't know is it good to show IP addresses because of privacy (for people w/o registration).
Wikimapia it's a new thing, so some functions need to be invented, and some procedures we take from the history of wiki community.
So Wwikimapia is a self-policing, but here will be an administration of advanced wikimapians.
--Alexandre Koriakine 12:25, 29 August 2006 (RUSSIAN TIME)


OK, thanks for the replies & good luck with this guys: it works fine now and is very exciting, but unless you keep up with it there will be problems as Internet-style usage explodes and things fail to "scale up"...

--Kessler 08:57, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Take emailid as optional

Using the emailid one can contact a person who have placed a tag on wikimapia. This EmailID can be used for varied purposes.

Vjdchauhan 06:16, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


Where do you see an emailid? When I bring WikiMapia up I see no login -- only the map with lots of little squares on it, and no emailid's of others in any of those or their texts -- and I don't remember ever telling the system my own emailid.
--Kessler 07:26, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Registration will be made very soon. Really impossible to do everything in a minute :)
--Alexandre Koriakine 12:25, 29 August 2006 (RUSSIAN TIME)


OK don't worry: a piled-up inbox and impatient customers are sure signs of success!

--Kessler 08:54, 29 August 2006 (UTC) (but here in CALIFORNIA TIME it's 2am) :-)

Place search should show locational info

When we search for a place in place search, several results are thrown up, and some of them can take you to place wich is very far away (including some other country) from the relevant location. If possible show City/District/County information at least along with the listed results.

Vjdchauhan 06:16, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the search needs to be upgraded. And it will be done.
--Alexandre Koriakine 12:25, 29 August 2006 (RUSSIAN TIME)

how to change place size?

Does anyone see how to change place size/shape? Or is the only thing to do, once I've specified a place size/shape, to eliminate that entirely -- request its elimination -- and draw another?

--Kessler 08:14, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

At this moment we cannot give the right to everyone to change size and location (to prevent vandalism). We are thinking about making access for this function.
--Alexandre Koriakine 12:25, 29 August 2006 (RUSSIAN TIME)

Pls allow links in text

"Error, you are denied to update the information, please avoid inserting links"

Why? HTTP links seem to work ok, and are much-needed by users.

--Kessler 09:00, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Users allowed to put links. But, they cannot post a link twice! For example spammer put www.price-buy-sell-whatever.com at one card. It would be totally forbiddent to put the same link in another card. From the beginning we started to fight with spammers, so this an easy solution to prevent total spamming. So maybe someone used that link? Or you used it before?
--Alexandre Koriakine 12:25, 29 August 2006 (RUSSIAN TIME)
This is a reasonable "lesser evil" approach. In the future, I could imagine relaxing it for registered or known users. For example, last weekend, I tried to add several train stations in the Czech Republic, each with a link to an online timetable. The link was obviously the same (or almost the same) for all of them - which is perfectly normal because all are part of one network. The result was a frustration because I was quickly labeled as "spammer" ´:-) . But I agree that relaxing this rule now might destroy the project. Sapfan 21:33, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Yes. I agree with you. We are finishing registration system.
--Alexandre Koriakine 20 August 2006

OK I see now: I completed my "rue Mercière" piece once, entered it, and it disappeared -- I thought it really had disappeared, that your default for my "enter" button maybe was "cancel" instead of "save" -- so I re-did the piece and submitted it again, try #2, and got that "cannot post a link twice!" error message then. Your system picks up the link automatically if it gets "posted twice"... I'll be more patient with submissions, from now on. Many thanks for the explanation: I was worrying that the piece really had disappeared. Hope the Ukrainian weather is OK today -- clear here in San Francisco but it's 2:15am, probably foggy in the morning. G'nite.

--Kessler 09:14, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Same "place" / different language?

Can anyone see how to do a "place" for the same site but in a different language?

For example I just tried to "add new place" in English for the little church of Ainay in Lyon, currently covered by a "place" in French called "Basilique Saint-Martin d'Ainay". But I received the error message: "Sorry, this place is already tagged. You may edit it's description in info window. If you don't see any objects here then probably you have an old browser or specific proxy configuration."

WikiMapia is going to need the capacity for hosting several different language versions for a single site: how else to handle international-significance & very-multilingual places such as "Notre Dame de Paris" or "Chartres" or "Borobodur" or "The Dome of the Rock"?

There must be some means of doing this, in the current software, but I haven't found it yet. Anyone know?

--Kessler 00:09, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

In menu there's a button - Add in anther language, I thtought it's clear.
--Alexandre Koriakine 14:30, 30 August 2006 (MSK)

I see the button you refer to, I think, but it is out-of-sequence for a user I believe: the sequence I am using is as follows -- language "English" already is selected --

1) click on WikiMapia pull-down,

2) click Add New Place,

3) center the new outline on the object (in this case the French version is entirely within the new English outline, although making the two overlap doesn't improve either, nor does making the new English v. outline larger than the existing French),

4) click on Save -- that gets me to, immediately, "Sorry, this place is already tagged..." and my English version is deleted. The drop-down "other language" menu to which you refer comes up only in the detail panel "Please provide a place information:", once a site is saved; but I can't get the system to save the site.

So, no "Add In Another Language" button in that sequence. How should I change it? Which menu do you mean? I can see that others have done this OK, I just can't figure out how they have. The site I am trying this on is "Basilique Saint-Martin d'Ainay" (existing French version) in Lyon.

--Kessler 15:54, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

OK I see now: the chance to add another identical detail page comes in the detail page drop-down Menu, at the bottom. Not obvious to me first time around. If other users run into this they may be following my sequence suggested above, so if it becomes a problem you might consider working in an instruction or choice higher there -- but OK for me now.

--Kessler 16:07, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Just saw the new improvement here: on the detail entry page that bright red "change the language???" Works well. Merci.

--Kessler 22:56, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

"tags" suggest comma-delimited

The "tags" need to be comma-delimited: at the moment entering,

Tags: Lyon, La Croix Rousse, Canuts, Labor History

-- results in,

Tags: Lyon La Croix Rousse Canuts Labor History

-- which makes no sense. Without the limitation, searches -- machine or other -- are going to be made on "Lyon La" and "Rousse Canuts" and "Canuts Labor", which may or may not help retrievals. Much better semantic / syntactic sense if comma-delimiters are retained. Project for the in-basket...

--Kessler 09:07, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

"Please only add places interesting to everyone."

How to define an urban neighborhood, for instance?

In Paris a number of "places" have cropped up indicating local post office locations, also supermarkets, and elementary schools, and favorite cafes and restaurants and bakeries and so on...

Are these OK for WikiMapia? Seems to me they are geographic locations of great interest to some folks, altho not to others: folks living in the neighborhood in question, or visiting it, might find WikiMapia really useful if the local post office location is indicated on it.

On the other hand this could turn WikiMapia into an unworkable project, with little rectangles literally "everywhere", and memory-loss, transmission degradation, graphic confusion, and other problems -- real scaling problem, trying to show the location of every local post office and grocery store on the planet...

There are going to be some things which have immense "local" interest but none anywhere else. Others with "national" interest, but only that: baseball park locations, in the US... Limiting this to locations which have only "global" interest seems artificial, too: plenty of others already have done that, like UNESCO.

So, what is the limit / how to define "interesting to everyone", for WikiMapia purposes? Local grocery stores to be included in that?

--Kessler 09:08, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

It's a QUESTION. But we are all describing the WHOLE planet, so supermarkets and cafes are very wellcome, that's the thing you don't see in original boring maps. And if there's some interesting info, that's great! We will try to avoid unworkable situation. So local stores included. I look from the sky and see a building - I want to know what's that. That's the IDEA. Long live California :)
--Alexandre Koriakine 12:25, 29 August 2006 (MSK)


OK & very much agreed -- I won't try deleting / recommending the deletion of any more of those Paris supermarkets. :-) Some of my own favorite places appear pretty weird to other folks too I suppose. Vive l'Ukrainie!

--Kessler 15:57, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Another potential opportunity for development: Make a dropdown list of "place type" - such as castle, theater, cinema, zoo, grocery store, hospital, .... - get a list from any paper map or phone directory - and "force" users to select one when creating a place. Then, give visitors a choice to see just certain categories of places (and perhaps display a distinct icon for each). A person on a trip by car may appreciate to see castles, musea, gas stations or hotels but perhaps not schools, train stations, factories, etc. The present choice "Public / Private" is a step in right direction, but lets get it further! Sapfan 21:20, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for suggestion, I think it's to be made in tags (a list of common/useful tags). A public/private - hope it'll work in nearest future (in India people mark their houses using Wikimapia as a yellow pages). Anyhow we're trying to improve the quality of the content, and I think at this time it's ok map, except maybe asian countries, especially Vietnam. I think they think different, not that strict as western people (both sides of thinking have pros and contras). It's a case to study. Alexandre Koriakine 9 sept 2006

WikiMapia vs. GoogleEarth, compared

Doing some in-depth comparisons of these two, right now, and here's what I am discovering:

  • Far easier copying & pasting WikiMapia URLs, from the interface into my online HTML texts, than entering GoogleEarth coordinates / doing the calculations / formulating a different http address for each -- kudos here to WikiMapia, then, and I was thinking of replacing my GoogleEarth URLs with WikiMapia...

But... there's always a "but"...

  • GoogleEarth is way ahead, for now, on low eye elevation map resolution in some geographic areas: over Avignon France, for example, WikiMapia right now zooms down to about only 14,000 ft. eye altitude, then blanks out, while GoogleEarth's image of Avignon gets all the way down to 3,000 ft. eye altitude before the image gets ridiculous / useless -- i.e. at 3,000 ft. eye altitude the GoogleEarth image still is very useful, with overlay street shapes and names at least even if the buildings are kinda fuzzy -- while WikiMapia's current 14,000 ft. eye altitude is too high to do anything useful at all with the Avignon city center image, everything down there being kinda fuzzy, buildings and streets included.

So the race, in this, is going to be to the swift: first-to-market -- just like Mr. Gates and his "DOS", in the legend -- if WikiMapia can get those hi-res images of Avignon installed faster / earlier than GoogleEarth can, it will win, but not otherwise I think. Any bets? :-)

The WikiMapia images come from maps.google.com, don't they? Yep, there's that 14,000 ft. eye altitude "fuzzy" image of Avignon, currently, there too: looks like the GoogleEarth team is way ahead of the GoogleMaps team, down in Mountain View, in terms of offering something readable at low eye elevations, then -- even if they may in fact be sharing space satellite images. By showing the street shapes and names, at least, the fuzzy GoogleEarth 3,000 ft. eye altitude image still is useful, while the one from GoogleMaps isn't.

Can't think of a WikiMapia workaround for this myself. But it does mean I'll have to keep my GoogleEarth links, for now, at least until the WikiMapia / GoogleMaps get more clear at low eye elevations over French cities: until they don't just blank out but focus in -- with street overlays etc. -- on the fuzzy underlying image, the way GoogleEarth does. Maybe WikiMapia & others can get GoogleMaps to do that: loosen up and let the fuzzy focus at low eye elevations show through -- they have the images, or at least their GoogleEarth team does.

--Kessler 22:36, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Error message "zoom level"

Just encountered a new / first time error-message: "We are sorry, you cannot add objects at this zoom level. Please zoom in closer."

Trying to put in a "place" for Doñana National Park, one of the largest and most important UNESCO / WWF etc. heritage site animal preserves in Europe. It extends from El Rocio to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, in southwestern Spain, covering the entire Marismas Nacionales at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River there: certainly a large are in need of high elevation for indicating the entire thing, but very much in need of identification.

So, how else to do this? Workaround? If the above error-message is going to pop up for anything "big", Wikimapia will be deprived of an awful lot of natural / nature sites, such as any major national park: the Doñana, Yosemite, the Serengeti, etc.

--Kessler 03:35, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

In Wikipedia you may also find some articles, where you need to have access to modify. So Later it will be some kind of advanced users with possibilities to select big areas.
We are making 'users system', this also would help the situation. We will give to known people a high rating manually (I mean you also).
p.s. I passed in France nearly 2 years. And.. never been to Ukraine. :)
--Alexandre Koriakine 20:46, 4 September 2006 (MSK)

Me neither -- Ukraine -- I know my way around Paris, tho. :-)

--Kessler 23:03, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Terms of use and licence?

Although Wikimapia is a fantastic tool with multiple applications, I do not want to take part in it any more as long as its terms of service will not be made public. Although asserting the spirit of Wikipedia (which proposes a true collective reflexion on its governance), the two authors of Wikimapia do not give any information on the fate that they intend to reserve for the contributions. No licence is mentioned, neither on the software nor on the collected data. All occurs as if they quite simply dream to resell their concept to Google!

That's why some friends of mine and I are on (geo)strike! (We registred our locations with the tag StopWikimapia)

Alexandre, why is your software not open source, just like Wikimedia is? Lots of people would very pleased to contribute to it. Why not writing the term of use of Wikimapia on a special wikipedia page or on another wiki? Sincerely --Olivier Auber

Since our project is very young we don't have terms of use or licence yet, but we think about this, it's not an easy thing. We would like to discuss this subject, but not with people who abuse the work of other people. If you think there is need of dicussion - then talk, but you choose to offend us and abuse the service. It's a shame to not to respect the work of other people.
--Alexandre Koriakine

I'm disappointed that you understood our little demonstration as an offence. Of course it's just a (serious) joke. Some friends of mine have drop emails to you in order to get some info about your intentions and to discuss about licence and terms of use. They've got no answer. Of course everybody can understand that you are busy. But you have a kind of responsability, just like the one we have as initiators of several services requiring contributions. So the goal of the geo strike intiative was to get some feedback from you. And we've got one! You erased all our geostrike locations! Ok no worry, it doesn't matter :-) You say "We would like to discuss this subject, but not with people ...". If your project is really developped in the wikipedia way, you will have du discuss with almost everyboby! And everybody will help you in the development in return. If your goal is just a commercial service, talking with bank people will be sufficient. So will wikimapia be open source or not (software and data)?--Olivier Auber

I see now that you are reasonable. I don't have answers on your questions yet, first we have to develop Wikimapia to a certain level, the work is not finished. Whatever decision will be taken or whatever goals we have in our minds, undoubtedly there is one side which will be satisfied in any cases - people which use Wikimapia.
--Alexandre Koriakine

I'm happy to talk with you Alexandre. You see, our little demonstration was not useless:-) I think the satisfaction of people using Wikimapia depends at the same level of the technical aspects and the trust they may have in the service. Wikipedia would not exist if Mediawiki, as well as the the datas collected, were not open source. Just like it is with Wikipedia, everybody should be abble to copy all the data and launch a small Wikimapia. This is the absolute condition to preserve the one major Wikimapia and to avoid the confrontation with Google Earth. Corporate companies as well as individuals won't give their data to Google (and pay for it). They could do it to Wikimapia if they trust you. The idea I propose (if you agree) is to start a special wiki for you to discuss it (WikimapiaFutur?). Let people explain the way they could be satisfied by Wikimapia! --Olivier Auber

BTW, I see that I am registred as a spammer ("Sorry, you are denied to send or update the information because you identified as a spammer. If it is a mistake, please contact us via email."). Can you please authorize my IP again? Don't worry, I will stay on (geo)strike only on my home private location (http://wikimapia.org/s/#y=48817650&x=2382166&z=19&l=2&m=a&v=2) till my legitimate questions find appropriate answers--Olivier Auber

Proposal to integrate Wikimapia with Wikipedia

Alexandre, this may not the be the best place to discuss it, so you can communicate with my on my talk page if you wish. Basically, I would like you to integrate Wikimapia with Wikipedia. How it would work: When contributors draw their rectangles around places, landmarks, etc., the info. box that comes up inviting them to write a note about the landmark should feature a Wikipedia article about it, if there is one. If there isn't one, writing a note for a place on Wikimapia would automatically create such an article on Wikipedia. You could talk to User:Fred Bauder, who runs the Wikinfo project, which uses special software to incorporate Wikipedia articles into its own structure. David Cannon 22:09, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I think Wikimapia is a great concept. Integration with Wikipedia would maximize its usefulness by connecting landmarks with well-written and verified information. It would also allow Wikimapia to "ride" on Wikipedia's popularity. David Cannon 22:09, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Great idea David! Maybe this page of meta.wikimedia could be the right place to talk about the possible connection between Wikipedia and Wikimapia? --Olivier Auber