Template talk:GeoTemplate/Archive 12

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.

Hi, a comment on your coding for Flash Earth - I think when you click on the link from the relevent GeoHack page, it tries to open Flash Earth with Google Maps - at the end of the url it includes =ggl. However, Flash Earth has removed its Google Maps some time ago (maybe about a year ago now). So it might be better to change the default target maps for Flash Earth to use the Microsoft Virtual Earth (with labels) mapping - the url seems to end in =msl. Thanks for reading. 78.32.143.113 (talk) 12:37, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

http://stable.toolserver.org/geohack/geohack.php?pagename=Atlantis_basin&params=35_S_177_W_globe:Mars_type:landmark The Red dot is not linking to the article(Atlantis basin)? --84.44.176.24 (talk) 16:58, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I've fixed the label, at least. I'm not sure the dot is supposed to link to the article; it doesn't do so for globe:earth. --Stepheng3 (talk) 19:15, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

How does GeoHack infer the region if none is specified? Consider for example two islands in Oulunsalo, Finland:

• fi:Akio (coordinates) is correctly identified as region:FI, while
• fi:Kraaseli (Oulunsalo) (coordinates) is not identified.

Both are well inside the borders of Finland (the outer limit of the territorial waters is more than 50 km away) so I fail to see why one is inferred OK and one is not. Is this because the islands are off the coast (though well inside the territorial waters)? --Jmk (talk) 13:08, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I can't answer your direct question, but why not just specify the region? Change type:isle to type:isle_region:FL (note the underscore is required) in the template. That will override the mystery rules. --J Clear 00:12, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you mean type:isle_region:FI. --Stepheng3 (talk) 04:11, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I know perfectly well that specifying the region solves the problem (for that article). However, hundreds (if not thousands) of fi-wiki articles about Finnish places already contain a coordinate template lacking the region. Fixing the "mystery rules" would seem to be the easier solution. If only someone knows where they are and how one can fix them. Providing suitable coordinates for the international waters limit is not a problem. --Jmk (talk) 22:21, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes. The data can be viewed as a map at the UNEP GEO Data Portal. It's inaccurate at all borders, and the polygons would need to be expanded somehow or recreated from another source. This was last mentioned with GB links but we don't have a solution yet. --Para (talk) 23:13, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I see. Seems that the map is deliberately coarse (which is ok) and treats the coastlines as borders (which is not). Unless we can find a better source, perhaps we could just expand all countries towards the sea by, say, 12 nautical miles (the typical extension of territorial waters)? Of course, this would not be terribly accurate, but it would provide a good educated guess of a suitable region, for places that are near the coastline. --Jmk (talk) 14:27, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I noticed that for certain Coords that the Regional system link to the EPA Watershed data fails. In the case of Pennsylvania, it looks like some trailing zeros are missing. In the case of Mont Clare, Pennsylvania, it's missing a leading zero in the latitude minutes. The link for Philadelphia, which starts with decimal degrees, seems to work OK. --J Clear 00:08, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I see this was previously reported above. --J Clear 00:27, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello,

What is your opion offering relief maps from maps-for-free.com? (It's already included in the German Version of Wikipedia)

Example: http://maps-for-free.com/?val=45.8325,6.864306,10,Mont_Blanc

Regards, Hans —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hans Braxmeier (talk • contribs) 11:08, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Clicking on {{coord}} instances, including those in the test section at the top of this discussion page, is giving me the following GeoHack error message, followed by random garbage:

Please edit your local Template:GeoTemplate to use standard interwiki syntax and remove obsolete navigational elements.

The problem occurs outside Wikipedia as well, e.g. after entering coordinates at http://stable.toolserver.org/geohack/ . — Wdfarmer (talk) 02:04, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm unable to reproduce this problem. Is it still occurring? --Stepheng3 (talk) 07:03, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

No, it's not failing for me now. Don't know whether it was my problem or not. — Wdfarmer (talk) 07:35, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

he same thing happen to me today...Does it have something to do with Wikipedia New look? I've take a screen shot of what I get [1] Zyrkon (talk) 08:44, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the report, apparently the usability team decided to change start and end markers for HTML scraping that we've been using for the last six years. This is a disappointment since I checked when the skin first came out to make sure nothing would break. — Dispenser 13:48, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

What has happened to Bing Maps? I didn't use it that often, but it was nice to have it there. 173.14.246.89 (talk) 21:02, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Someone was removing a non-working service above it (Arcweb) and must have over-selected. I've restored the Bing code. --Dhartung | Talk 04:31, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

It's no longer listed as "popular" as it was beforehand. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:17, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Most of the topo maps for the "US-HI" region no longer work. They did a few months ago, not sure exactly when they stopped. Select topo for, say, 20°48′N 156°20′W / 20.800°N 156.333°W / 20.800; -156.333 (Maui) and it is blank. Zooming out I sometimes see bits of the other islands. Not sure where it is going wrong. Any suggestions of who to bug? Thanks. W Nowicki (talk) 00:15, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I confirmed this is the case using ACME mapper in topo mode. At large scales (1:2,000,000 and more) it shows some other Hawaiian islands, but not Maui. Zooming in, they disappear entirely. Clearly the service provider—http://mytopo.com in this case—has some hole in their data which is evident even in their direct online demo. Perhaps query them. ACME used to use terraserver for topomap data. That might be another place to start investigating. —EncMstr (talk) 00:33, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the datum. Should have mentioned that I sent email to the gpsvisualizer email contact and that bounced. I do see that Trails.com gives a result albeit tiny postage stamp size. Terraserver also gives a result at high resolutions, but blanks when zooming out. Topoquest.com is blank for me. I will try the mytopo suport email, which I did not find until going directly to their site. W Nowicki (talk) 19:44, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

The mytopo.com people finally got back to me last week, and today it looks like Hawaii is working again. W Nowicki (talk) 22:32, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I think it's about a time to move Yandex maps to Global services. It's got a world map and since few years. And it has space shots of cities all around the world. Elk Salmon (talk) 21:57, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

The usability issues raised above (#Usability, #GeoTemplate reorganization proposal, #Order, #Put x Maps back at the top; in that order) remain unaddressed. I still get anecdotal complaints from friends and colleagues that the template is effectively unusable to them. We really do need to address this, not least with a short-term work around. I'm going to point to this discussion from VP or such like, to request additional comments from uninvolved editors. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:24, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I entirely agree; we know what the most-used services are, it's time to preferentially list them towards the top and in a way that makes it obvious which link(s) will be the most useful to users. Not everyone has time or knowledge to wade through a large list of options. tedder (talk) 17:54, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I've helped redesign the German version which might be a direction to look at. However, I suggest we nuke all the links and start from scratch. It's rather painfully obvious from #Data and updates that no more than 5 services (really 1) are actually being used. Additionally, every time we do make an improvement, the buried/disorganized sections are cleaned up, shows that they were little used if at all. — Dispenser 22:11, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

The German version looks much better - what about using the first section from that (a top, say, 5) and putting the rest on a subsidiary page, linked as "Other mapping services"? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:37, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I too think the German version looks much better. Particularly the fact that it directly embeds a detailed map in the page makes it useful as then you often don't have to click on any of the extra links. From a users perspective it always struck me as odd that you have to click through another page rather than get to a map directly. Apmon (talk) 23:48, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Just give me a link to Google Maps without scrolling down and I will be happy. --Apoc2400 (talk) 23:21, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

From a user-friendliness perspective, it makes sense to steer users toward Google Maps. I'd be less grumpy about this fact-of-life if I could create my own custom GeoTemplate with the services I use (such as ACME Mapper and Dispenser's tables) similarly highlighted. --Stepheng3 (talk) 01:31, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I love Dispenser's cleaned-up DE version. But instead of nuking the rest of them, how about using a hide/show link that scrolls the rest of them open? tedder (talk) 02:51, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Why is this on WP:CENT? Some background information at the top for the uninitiated might be helpful if you want more outside comment. Gigs (talk)

It's on {{

CENT}} because it's about a massively-used template (over half a million links to it, and rising); as for background information, please read the first sentence of the opening post in this section. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits

10:55, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

You can't expect people to wade through 5+ pages of discussion in order to figure out what you want them to comment on. I'm not even sure what this template is for exactly. I vaguely remember running into it once or twice, but I couldn't figure out what to do with it. Is there an introductory page somewhere? Gigs (talk) 12:26, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I think a separate page would be better than either a hidden section or nuking. Compared to the former, it will give faster downloads, and work for people with Javascript unavailable. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 10:57, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with that. We should just present like the top 5 services (accounting for some niche view methods perhaps) and move the rest behind a "more mapping services" link I think. Perhaps the "Views" section should be moved as well. It's rather confusing to non wiki users I think. I would also care to show the much cleaner and simpler view by the Dutch wikipedia Dutch geohack version. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:30, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

While the Dutch geohack looks nice and clean, it has neither the embedded overview map of the english geohack nor the detailed embedded map of the german gehack 82.153.232.237 (talk) 14:39, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Interim measure

As an interim measure, I've restored a prominent link to Google Maps, the most popular service. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:47, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

As I said above (#Purple highlighting) I hope that one day there will be a more widespread acceptance within the wikipedia community, that OpenStreetMap is by far the most useful map service to link to. Not because the maps themselves are the best, but because they're open. You're allowed to screenshot a map from OpenStreetMap and stick the image on a wikipedia article. You're allowed to edit OpenStreetMap wiki-style to make them better, and the changes show up on the map. If we link prominently to OpenStreetMap here it will help reinforce this virtuous circle.

Your BIG google maps link is a step backwards in relation to that vision. The germans have the right idea: de:Vorlage:GeoTemplate

-- Harry Wood (talk) 12:41, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

As an active OSM editor, and proponent, I agree that OSM's openness makes it very attractive. However; i) The recent change is, as stated, an interim measure ii) It's based on measurement of our users' current preferences; iii) It's not our place to force a change in habit on our users; iv) People sufficiently savvy to reuse OSM in Wikipedia are likely to be clueful enough to find it without our molly-coddling them; v) There are still parts of the world - some well-populated - where OSM is not yet sufficiently-complete to be usable; and vi) I've already said, above, that I support a move towards the German model. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 19:20, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

{{

Please add id.wikipedia version of this template: id:Templat:GeoTemplate

Thanks --Ewesewes (talk) 08:19, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

 Done

For The Seven Seas 191° 3' 15" NET

12:44, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. 60.50.155.49 (talk) 01:56, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that's a good point. And yes, I'm sure it can be hidden. Any dissent? --Stepheng3 (talk) 03:06, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Just to be clear, I was referring to the arrow on the map, I don't really mind if the antipodes are shown as text, perhaps linking to a map that does show them graphically. 60.50.155.49 (talk) 01:39, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I've commented out the arrow for now. I'll think about how to create a link for the antipodes in the text.--Stepheng3 (talk) 02:15, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I've added the antipodes link back. It's now found under "Other information." --Stepheng3 (talk) 02:31, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

That's much better. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 08:47, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

If you go to the Bing Maps page on the left sidebar you will see a message about the new Bing Maps. It provides improved usability and has "streetside level" in select North American cities. It's is a lot like Google's

|-
| Gaea+
| colspan=3 | [http://gaeaplus.si/webstart?version=gaeaplus&command=FlyLookAt;{latdegdec};{londegdec};400;WGS84;0.0;45.0; 3D Satellite]

If everyone is OK with it I will be adding it shortly. You can test it from this link

Thanks, Mariano(t/c) 08:17, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

The

I tried adding the indirect link, though I'm not convinced it's working. A direct URL would seem to require translation of the coordinates to a national grid system (neither lat/long nor

OSGB36) which I doubt GeoHack currently supports. --Stepheng3 (talk

) 20:08, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

The URL seems to be using Irish Transverse Mercator coordinates. Adapting the GeoHack OSGB code, could the following be added to transversemercator.php to allow a conversion?

	/**
	 *  Convert latitude, longitude in decimal degrees to
	 *  Irish Transverse Mercator Easting and Northing
	 *  Adapted from https://fisheye.toolserver.org/browse/~raw,r=1/geohack/transversemercator.php at 2010-06-03
	 *  Data from http://www.osi.ie/en/alist/reference-information.aspx?article=50148558-fe55-4c49-b6d9-4892bd8011ac
	 */
	function LatLon2ITM( $latitude, $longitude )
	{
		/* GRS 80 ellipsoid */
		$this->Radius = 6378137;
		$this->Eccentricity = 0.0066943800229; /* square of eccentricity */

		$this->Scale = 0.99982;
		$this->Easting_Offset = 600000.0;
		$this->Northing_Offset = 750000.0;
		$this->Northing_Offset_South = 0.0;

		$latitude_origin = 53.5;
		$longitude_origin = -8.0;

		if (!$this->LatLonOrigin2TM( $latitude, $longitude,
				$latitude_origin, $longitude_origin )) {
			return "";
		}

		$grid_x = floor( $this->Easting / 100000 );
		$grid_y = floor( $this->Northing / 100000 );
		if ($grid_x < 4 or $grid_x > 7
		 or $grid_y < 5 or $grid_y > 9) {
			/* outside area for ITM */
			return "";
		}

		$e = sprintf("%06d", $this->Easting);
		$n = sprintf("%06d", $this->Northing);

		return $e.",".$n;
	}

Then mapsources.php could be amended along the following lines:

class map_sources {

/* ... */

	function build_output() {

	/* ... */

		$osgb36 = new transversemercator();
		$osgb36ref = $osgb36->LatLon2OSGB36( $this->p->latdeg, $this->p->londeg );

/*+*/		/*  Irish Transverse Mercator grid */
/*+*/		$itm = new transversemercator();
/*+*/		$itmref = $itm->LatLon2ITM( $this->p->latdeg, $this->p->londeg );

		/* ... */

		$search = array( 
			"{latdegdec}", "{londegdec}",
			/* ... */
			"{pagename_gmaps}",
/*+*/			"{itmref}" ) ;

		/* ... */

		$replace = array(
			$lat['deg'],
			/* ... */
			$pagename_gmaps,
/*+*/			$itmref
		);

		/* ... */

		return str_replace( $search, $replace, $bstext );
	}
}

I checked the OSI URL against Google Maps for 16 traffic junctions in major towns across the Republic of Ireland using a spreadsheet version of the formula. The coordinates agreed to within ±14 m, so this seems an accurate transformation. But I don't know PHP or GeoHack, so errors & omissions excepted.

— Richardguk (talk) 03:27, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Comments, anyone? — Richardguk (talk) 18:27, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I use this tool OStoWiki you might like to give it a spin. It does Irish Grid, both to and from, and I would expect an accuracy limited only by the precision of the input. I don't like code that does't do a Helmert transformation. Enjoy --ClemRutter (talk) 20:48, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Great, whatever! If I had to guess, I'd say that the above code does apply a Helmert transformation, but I'm neither a geodesist nor a PHP coder, so the suggested code is simply a minimal adaptation of the existing OSGB36 toolserver code. (Also, the rutter website seems to be down at present.) The Helmert transformation article claims that the Helmert formula resolves to within ±7 m, for OSGB36, and heuristically I'm getting ±14 m for Irish Transverse Mercator (as noted above), which seems a reasonable accuracy unless someone wants to recode. — Richardguk (talk) 23:17, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Thx for telling me my site was down- I have spent most of the morning trying to sort that one out! I have put the page in my Dropbox you should be able to pick it up from there.--ClemRutter (talk) 11:24, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Can I recommend a link via a conversion tool. I have one working at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/483977/openpostcode/convert.html - URL parameter examples are listed on the page. The source is open and free to use and uses the fieldenmap APIs which are free for non-commercial use. (Does this license apply to wikipedia?) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.251.211.55 (talk) 18:02, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Maps by Ovi (Navteq) are more accurate, more so outside the U.S., I can atleast confirm for the United Arab Emirates. Can someone please include Ovi Maps in this template. --IncidentFlux ^{[ TalkBack | Contributions ]} 11:17, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't see how to add a direct link to a location in Ovi, and I'm not sure what purpose an indirect link would serve. Could someone else look at this request? --Stepheng3 (talk) 17:59, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Ovi Maps is now showing the full direct navigation URL in browser address bars. Can someone please look in to this again. Thanks, --IncidentFlux ^{[ TalkBack | Contributions ]} 09:35, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

I've added a link that I think will work. It may take awhile to go live. I'd appreciate it if someone would check my work. --Stepheng3 (talk) 15:12, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, but its not working properly. Takes you to the right city, but its way off mark. --IncidentFlux ^{[ TalkBack | Contributions ]} 09:46, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I've removed the link. --Stepheng3 (talk) 01:00, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi

RE: [2]

Does this solve the problem? http://toolserver.org/~stwalkerster/kml/

I'll prettify the manual interface later, but you can hack apart the form to extract the relevant URL parameters for generate.php :)

Stwalkerster [ talk ] 23:17, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I want to add this temblate on nepali wikipedia. how to format the URL for coordinates? nepaboy talk —Preceding undated comment added 09:58, 30 June 2010 (UTC).

Apparently, there's a new, high-res map of Mars. The site is currently down due to volume of traffic, but if suitable it could perhaps be used on {{GeoTemplate/mars}}. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 23:17, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I added an indirect link. --Stepheng3 (talk) 01:41, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I can't find a way to pass it a latitude & longitude pair (and maybe a resolution) to get a map centred on that. However, it does take URLs in the form: http://viewer.mars.asu.edu/#/planetview/results?instrument=themis&minlongitude=[value]&maxlongitude=[value]&minlatitude=[value]&maxlatitude=[value], where each [value] is a valid decimal number. GeoTemplate offers us {latdegdec} and {londegdec}; we could do with, say, {latdegdec+10}, {latdegdec-10} and so on. I've raised a feature request for that. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:09, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

This edit is not showing up at http://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php some 5 hours later. — Richardguk (talk) 18:22, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

It seems to have updated in the past day. I thought the PHP code checked the Squid cache of the template every time it ran, so it is puzzling that it took six days to update in this case. — Richardguk (talk) 23:02, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

In the course of writing a simple article, I was using this template while one user went over the top trying to make, and then remake a political point. If this template needs to be touched- could you do me the courtesy of discussing it here first. Too make it perfectly plain, I want to use the same tool today as I have for the last 4+ years- and get to it quickly. While in the future we may go open source, at the moment a satellite image is useful- a patch of white space isn't very informative. --ClemRutter (talk) 20:39, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Please discuss here before making changes. That should be in the edit notice, if it isn't already. --Stepheng3 (talk) 21:23, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I checked and this isn't in the edit notice. Also, the current edit notice points editors to a nonexistent talkpage: {{TALKPAGENAME}} in the edit notice should be replaced with Template talk:GeoTemplate. Finally, the edit notice is edit protected, so we'll need an admin to make both these changes. --Stepheng3 (talk) 21:27, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

{{

Please change the edit notice for Template:GeoTemplate to the following:

{{Ombox|text='''All:''' <p>Please obtain consensus on the [[Template talk:GeoTemplate|talk page]] ''before'' changing the primary mapping service.</p> '''Unregistered users:''' <p>If you wish to add a mapping service leave a message on the [[Template talk:GeoTemplate|talk page]], preferably with instructions on how to format the URL for coordinates.</p> }}

Request Moved To

Set Sail For The Seven Seas 200° 52' 0" NET

13:23, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I am strictly against featuring proprietary Google maps in the big heading at the top of the template. This goes against Wikimedias mission - we should support free contetn, such as OpenStreetMap for instance.--Kozuch (talk) 20:33, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. If the main purpose of this template for average visitor is to show geolocated content from wikipedia on a map, then I believe GM is much more appropriate default choice (for that purpose), simply because of far better coverage and value added. There are plenty of geotagged locations on wiki (those, lying a bit off the crowded western cities, full of OSM enthusiasts equiped with GPS gadgets and internet connection), for which OSM displays just a red marker above big gray plane, while GM almost always shows something usable (orthophoto, terrain, at least) to get a rough idea what the hell is around a thing. Regards, --Teslaton (talk) 23:57, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

• I suggest to add free map OpenStreetMap on top of the page, but not remove popular Google Maps. Who support me? For free encyclopedia - free map! --
  talk
  ) 17:57, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Something like this (whichever comes first)?:
    View this location in Google Maps^popular or in OpenStreetMap^free, or select an alternative service below:
    May be, but we should take care, not to eventually duplicate service list below, step by step... --Teslaton (talk) 18:34, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

The wording is fine, but if we are going to do this the change needs to be useful. As it stands the template is like a junkshop window- there is so much info that one can find nothing. In principle, any change should remove stuff not add it. Having said that- if we use colour to highlight the only two bits of the information that 99% of our users want to see then we will be thanked. In principle I don't believe that you should be timid about a change you make- be bold or don't bother. So!

View this location in Google Maps ^popular or in OpenStreetMap ^free, or select an alternative service below:

--ClemRutter (talk) 19:09, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

In the data I collected only about 30% of Google users were using the links at the top, the rest scrolled down to the entry (regardless of highlighting). I suppose if we got a statistician here we could do some T-tests with different configurations. Anyway, here's my entry the redesign. My aim is to make this more friendly to the minority iPad users.

Feature services Maps Maps, Aerial, Birds eye Maps, Satellite, Terrain OpenStreetMap Freely licensed maps

(Can you tell I worked on the Google button the longest?) — Dispenser 20:56, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this may be the right way to make it more user friendly and less geeky. I'm just afraid, too many folks here would have ideological problems with logos of hated "proprietary" services, despite of fact, that this is just a helper template to help visitor view a location, not an article. --Teslaton (talk) 23:52, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's good. --

talk

) 15:34, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I like it. Obviously the OpenStreetMap logo can be made to look less sucky. And it's OpenStreetMap not OpenStreetMaps (changed it) -- Harry Wood (talk) 16:02, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

• What are the arguments to say that Google has "far better coverage". Is there a metric somewhere that could confirm this statement? w.r.t. the value added argument please have a look to this page. You can display articles from various Wikipedia languages (such as English) or pictures from Commons on OpenStreetMap tiles. I therefore strongly recommend to: remove Google from the top, replace it with OpenStreetMap and provide links to some value added maps (English WP and Commons would make the most sense). Nakor (talk) 20:29, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

It looks if I have got involved on this topic- when I should have just walked away.

• As I said above the whole page is a dogs breakfast. It needs some love and attention. To start with the data tables for individual coutries disobey the most fundamental rule of IT. Keep Information and Formatting separate- so it is a major job to correct the formatting without interfering with the data. And the formatting is awful. Each of the tables contains data contained in some of these six fields- Service|Language|Coverage|Map|Satellite|Other, so could be presented in a template. The formatting of the tables could be standardised so the data columns have a fixed width and then the whole page becomes readable. Having applied a little discipline to the tables we move up to these quicklink buttons.
• I don't like the idea of using company logos on Wikipedia- that includes Google. It again makes the page look more fussy. Google would never clutter up their website with our logos or anyone elses.
• It is a prejudice I know- but I have removed every trace of Microsoft from any of my computers. Why would anyone want to use this bingthing? What does it add? If it does add anything- is it sufficient to get a free plug at the top of article?
• Yes, I was one of the users that ignored the quicklink to Google- I just didn't see it. Now I have found it- it is really useful
• I do use this template as a editor not a reader, and I have bookmarklets set up to Geotag- and for that reason I exclusively use Google, that is my sole interest in clicking the link. OpenStreetMap may be an ideological soulmate but it is totally useful for that purpose. (A bit like the Co-op Bank- UK reference!).
• As a former teacher- giving student instructions on how to use WP, the Google Link is the only one that is simple enough to explain, and powerful enough for their needs.

So can we please bear that all in mind before we make the template even more difficult.--ClemRutter (talk) 22:34, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

1. Even the presence of orthophoto layer alone, covering almost whole dry land makes it "far better covering", because even if you managed to open a location with minimal or no vector data wide around, you can still get oriented. On OSM, you just see marker in the middle of nothing.

2. No, I haven't made any in-depth scientific comparison using precisely tuned metrics... But if I pick and compare just few localities eastern of Slovakia I know (e.g.: Carpatho-Ukraine, Romania, Western Turkey, Armenia), the coverage of settlements, roads, landscape elements is much better on GM when compared to those on OSM, not to mention the presence of high-res air photo resources and the possibility of hybrid view.

So again: nothing wrong with the concept of OSM, but for this specific purpose I see GM as much more appropriate and user friendly "default" and I see no reason to idolize or emphasize the free content ideological aspect to the extent, that it should beat every other aspect. --Teslaton (talk) 23:52, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Believe it or not, it is better than what we had three years ago. I've included nearly every design at Template:GeoTemplate/sandbox, one of which I used for the basis of the German redesign. Reflecting from that experience, I should have wiped more off the page. There are services that after years are still not configured. The only reason why I hesitate is that we have a really long tail for clicks.

So here's what I'm going to do.

1. Move the current page to /all, and start fresh.
2. Establish an Featured section at the top, based on click track: Google (60%) and Bing (12%) will be included and other "fun" services such as flickr or geocommons will be included. (OSM was beaten by the Toolserver, btw)
3. The infobox possibly with the optional map component
4. Eliminate poor, duplicate, and most local services
5. Aim for iPad friendly interface, square boxes, logos
6. Establish FAQ here

I will keep in contact with the usability team. — Dispenser 04:26, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes a recode seems to be the way forward. Apologies if I didn't show enough respect for the work that you had already done. When I get a moment I will see if I can tidy up the regional tables in the way I suggested which will make data transfer a lot easier.—Preceding unsigned comment added by ClemRutter (talk • contribs)

I've start a FAQ, so we can start putting questions that might be asked. I'd like to get the new page up by Monday latest. — Dispenser 22:10, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Resolution

I think enough has been said to make a clear agreement that the page should be again worked on. We should make the page much simpler, more usable and possibly split it into more specialized templates, that could be used for specific areas of wiki. I think there is no point in keeping 30 different services in the first table that appears. Featuring one proprietary and one free service with headlines is a good compromise for now. Let us work on the fly so that we save labour proposing various changesets. Btw, that German template does have OpenStreetMap at the first position... --Kozuch (talk) 17:32, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I would be happy if it was only 30 services, but take out Wikimaps and their users will cry foul. I'll work on a new click-track data set. German template has OSM on the top because they zealous. However, they are paying for the Toolserver and bought extra hardware to run an OSM render for integrating with Wikipedia. — Dispenser 21:16, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

German template has OSM on the top because they honour Wikimedia's mission. So should do we. --Kozuch (talk) 20:58, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

English Wikipedia is more pragmatic then the German one. Over half the clicks are to aerial/satellite views. Google Maps continues to be 4 times more popular then its nearest rival. It offers street view imagery, simplified topographical, geo-tagged photo, and Wikipedia article overlays with arguably the best interface in the industry. OpenStreetMaps does not have these features or equivalents nor does plan to in the future. However, as an encylopedia we shouldn't limit ourselves to only street map. Here's a list from some brainstorming: WWII timelines (see which countries join which side and when), atlas maps (climate, annual rain, steel production, fishing yields, wind, forest/greenery, water, mining deposited [e.g. copper, uranium, natural gas], agricultural production [in tons and dollars]), with finer grandulairty we could see income per capital, birthrate mortality, alcohol consumption, and breast cancer rates. — Dispenser 16:54, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Compromise?

Would it be agreeable to have the first line simply say "Please choose one of the following services to view this location" and then have the popular ones (Google Maps, OpenStreetMap, Bing, Wikimapia) be highlighted the way they are now? My arguments for this solution are:

• It seems unfair to highlight one of the popular services twice while the others are highlighted only once.
• Google Maps is currently arguably somewhat broken, as is explained in the footnote.

Cheers, AxelBoldt (talk) 22:06, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

It was added by netbook users who wanted the good links in the first screen (400px tall), without needing to scroll down. — Dispenser 16:54, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Moving forward

Its been clear since the inception, that a redesign is in order. In two weeks, I'm going to ask an administrator to move the current template to a /all subpage where it will still be accessible from the new design. For the new design I intend to include few links cross a wider variety of map data. WikiMiniAtlas will be integrated and (modified) buttons from above for featured services. I will also look for workarounds to update problem plaguing WMF squid servers. — Dispenser 22:26, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Modernize the coordinate notation?

It's long past time to drop the DEG MIN SEC notation. It is ARCHAIC! Use DEG.DDDDDD or DEG MIN.MMMM instead and allow appropriate degree of precsion according to the feature being identified. The accuracy for a large city only needs to be within 1 km or so, for example; whereas the accuracy for a particular outcropping of rock should be within 10 meters or so. The accuracy can be suggested by the number of digits after the decimal point. Alanbrowne (talk) 21:53, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree about excess precision. However, precision can be indicated in dms coordinates by rounding or omitting the seconds (and in some cases, the minutes). This template displays both decimal and dms. I don't see any reason to remove the dms notation that many people are comfortable with. --Stepheng3 (talk) 00:29, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

The first line in the in 'Wikipedia articles' section is not rendering correctly. I see wiki markup instead of links. I can't see anything wrong in the template itself. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 11:10, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems that GeoHack's coordinate substitution doesn't work for wiki links, only for URLs. So I'll rewrite the above links as URLs. AxelBoldt (talk) 09:00, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

fixed. Thank you. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:01, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Multimap now redirects to Bing (spit) and should IMO be removed from the template. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:49, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree. No point linking to bing twice. -- Harry Wood (talk) 16:06, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

{{

Yes, I'm an admin, but I don't know exactly how to perform this edit without breaking something, so I'll ask for help from someone who does. Please remove Google Maps and OpenStreetMap from the list of "Global Services" — after the links to them near the top of the page is a note that alternative services appear below: in effect, Google Maps is said to be an alternative to Google Maps. My suggestion would resolve redundancy and reduce the rather large size of this template. Nyttend (talk) 02:01, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

There's a discussion, above, at #Featuring proprietary content which deals more extensively with the (currently rather ugly) View This Location In... line. I think it's reasonable to leave Google and OpenStreetMaps in the Global Services for two reasons: first, me (and I presume others) are blind to the View This Location In ... line and see only the table; and secondly, the table offers two or three links (map, satellite, other) for each of the two, that is to say, does offer alternatives (as well as duplicating the main links).

But if someone has the confidence to kill MultiMap, for the reason stated immediately above, that would be great. -Tagishsimon (talk) 15:42, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

In #Compromise?, I pointed out those links where added for the benefit of netbook users. — Dispenser 20:01, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand how this helps the netbook users, but I very well understand (which I'd completely overlooked) the idea of providing different links below. I've simply reworded "an alternative service" to "one of the services listed", since that solves the grammar issue. Nyttend (talk) 02:43, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

It been discussed many times before, as a starting point I recommend Archive 12. The problem: Users want to know where the object is or get to Google Map (70%) or Bing (15%) [as of October 20] with as little hassle as possible. With smaller screens a user is require to scroll to get to the links of interest even if they're easy to spot. — Dispenser 02:49, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

The GeoHack toolserver location function does not work right.
A good coordinate for this cemetery article is N 42.293 W 71.177 = N 42 17' 33" W 71 10' 36"
But if you put in the DMS form, it comes out in slightly the wrong place. And if you put in the decimal degrees form, it comes out in the right place with the wrong zoom factor.
One way around this is to put in this weird form: coord|42.293|0|0|N|71.177|0|0|W|region:US|display=title
Is there some other way to get this to work right? -71.174.187.78 (talk) 23:23, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Which mapping service did you use? Which article is that from (so we can double check the source)? —EncMstr (talk) 23:42, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The article is Baker Street Jewish Cemeteries. The roundoff/calc error seems to occur when the coord function links from the article to the associated GeoHack/toolserver page -- you can see that the decimal coords have been fuzzed from the proper translation of the DMS form. GoogleMaps, OpenStreetMaps etc all then point to the slightly (but enough to be irritating) wrong place. The calc is either wrong or needs more bits of resolution. This created a situation where I was tempted to put in the slightly wrong coords in order to end up pointing to the right place. The same thing happened when I tried to adjust another article -- Not Good! Wonder how many articles have already been contaminated by this?

I was using Acme as my primary tool for generating coords. Nifty tool!

It is equally important to correct the zoom issue. Someone's code thinks that if M and S are not specified then do a coarse map. Which is an OK idea but wrong unless the D is really a whole number! Thank you for working on this.-71.174.187.78 (talk) 14:29, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

You should at least use

type: which provides a better basic scales and/or dim: to specify the largest dimension (in meters). Regarding automatic scaling based on formatting, PHP has a buggy modulo operator so my code for scaling based on precision does not work. The D, DM, and DMS default scales in a compromise for that. — Dispenser

18:20, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

NASA's LRO Creating Unprecedented Topographic Map of Moon: press release, FYI. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:23, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

Is this all I need to do, or do need to notify someone somewhere else? thanks. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 15:56, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

That edit adds an interwiki link from the English GeoTemplate to the nv (whatever language that is) template. The nv template properly links back to English. As for whether the nv template is properly working, that's another matter, but it looks reasonable. What were you intending to accomplish? —EncMstr (talk) 18:19, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Should this pop up on the GeoHack site after while? The link here is currently in English even though the URL includes "&language=nv" Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 19:19, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm, it looks like it is set up properly as implied by the documentation. That is, the nv coord template links to toolserver GeoHack with the language parameter, which should use nv:Bee álnééhí:GeoTemplate to format the coordinate page. Perhaps Dispenser or someone more knowledgeable about how that works will chime in, but maybe GeoHack doesn't know an nv translation from template to Bee álnééhí? —EncMstr (talk) 19:41, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, it was made today... it says it'll take a few days for any changes to come into effect. I guess I'll just wait. thanks. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 21:08, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

It the Wikipedia squids servers which don't know that the page has changed. I will have to either re-code for Vector, write a better caching mechanism. I don't have much time right now so I'll add a hack to request a different URL every day. — Dispenser 02:22, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Works now. thx.Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 18:01, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

This map is very useful for finding the locations of

I just tried one (from onslow village) and got a generic page saying that the URL had changed and old links wouldn't work. -- SGBailey (talk) 08:29, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

For the last couple of years, Yahoo maps is entirely JS based and doesn't require flash. Why does it still say "requires flash" on these pages? How can that be rectified? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.61.113.101 (talk) 17:59, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Is it possible to change the URL for Street-directory.com.au (Australia) to

http://www.street-directory.com.au/sd3/map.php?x=$long&y=$lat&l=10&mt=4

e.g.

http://www.street-directory.com.au/sd3/map.php?x=143.810588&y=-37.397826&l=10&mt=4

It will give it a more conventional zoomable/scrollable map. The l parameter is zoom. I think 10 is a nice "broad context" default value; higher numbers zoom in.

—Felix the Cassowary 14:16, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

The OSM-3D project is now complete and includes all European countries except Scandinavia (up to 60 degrees north).

Direct link:

http://www.osm-3d.org/map.htm?lat=49.412222&lon=8.71&zoom=13

--Doijizs (talk) 15:33, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

A problem was reported here with regard to links from pages with special characters in the pagename, like Space Mountain (Disneyland). I don't know if it can be fixed here, or if this should be reported elsewhere. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 02:42, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Might we consider adding http://www.nearby.org.uk/ to the Other Information section of GeoTemplate. It seems to accept a wide range of arguments. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:30, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

It seems like there has been a lot of debate about improving this page. I still think the current one is very Bing biased, because it's the only result that appears highlighted in green. I think this would attract a lot of users to ignore everything else and click on Bing, just as a result of the current presentation alone. That's bad because it's biased.

Personally, I think the entire map service chooser page is a waste. If you want my idea, there would just be a global Wikimedia preference option, a simple drop-down menu under Special:Preferences, where I can choose my preferred map once. Then next time I will never have to see this page again because the links would automatically take me to my favorite map service rather than to the map service chooser page each time. Imagine how annoying operating systems usage would be if I couldn't choose a default browser. --Bxj (talk) 20:03, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with part of your suggestion. However, I often find it valuable to choose different mapping services. For example, for cities, I am most likely to choose Google's "map" view to be able to easily plot a driving route. But for Pacific Northwest mountains, I tend to choose ACME's topo map to see glacier extents, steepness, etc., especially where there are no roads. If there were a default mapping service set, I'd keep it at "show me all the choices". —EncMstr (talk) 03:56, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Preferences only apply to users who have logged in, but most readers of the encyclopedia have no account. Those of us account holders who love maps are inclined to love different map sources for their particular strengths, for example the better slant views of Bing or the dense street views of Google. So, the Preferences setup would only apply to an intermediate class of users, neither large nor fanatical. Jim.henderson (talk) 10:59, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

There is a very good map-service for all cantons of Switzerland (http://map.geo.admin.ch/?lang=en); it should be put on the first place of the services for Switzerland. With a link like http://map.geo.admin.ch/?zoom=5&X=265700&Y=621771&lang=en (where X and Y are Swiss Grid coordinates) you can point to the desired map. There are many layers which can be displaied, e.g. http://map.geo.admin.ch/?Y=600568&X=199647&zoom=7&bgLayer=ch.swisstopo.pixelkarte-farbe&layers=ch.swisstopo.hiks-siegfried&layers_opacity=1&layers_visibility=true&lang=en for an old map of Bern. P ev (talk) 21:08, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

I believe the hard part would be converting latitude and longitude into Swiss grid coordinates. —Stepheng3 (talk) 01:58, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

This is already done for the other services for Switzerland. By the way: the link to Swisstopo is broken! I edited the template myself; hope it will work! P ev (talk) 06:03, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Here is the URL: http://vn4.cs.fiu.edu/cgi-bin/gnis.cgi?Lat=25.756701&Long=-80.375801&vid=&tfaction=&referer=tfhome

In the URL are Lat and Long parameters. Just replace the decimal latitude and longitude values in the URL above. Please add as a United States Mapping Service.

May 6, 2011 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.176.228.149 (talk) 23:29, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Update to original request:(May 6,2011) Replacing the Original URL in the Original request with a correctly formed service URL as follows;

http://vn4.cs.fiu.edu/cgi-bin/gnis.cgi?Lat={latdegdec}&Long={londegdec}&vid=&tfaction=&referer=tfhome

The TerraFly.com Mapping Service is part of the Florida International University HPDRC and CREST projects, the service has been running for more than 10 Years and is an ongoing developing project as such we would like to have our service added to the Wikipedia United States Mapping Service listings. For further details look here:

TerraFly on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrafly ^[1]

TerraFly.com homepage http://www.terrafly.com ^[2]

--Mullerk cs.fiu (talk) 16:52, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Is there a parameter for the zoom factor? I played around with the mapping service to see if I could reverse engineer it, but since it is Flash-based and doesn't have an apparent way to generate URLs of what is selected, it wasn't possible to determine. —EncMstr (talk) 17:36, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

response

Yes an additional parameter can be concatenated to the URL to specify zoom/scale levels based on the initial imagery resolution in meters as '&Res={resolution}' the API's supported resolutions in metric equivalents are as follows = 0.0762 , 0.1 , 0.15 , 0.1524 , 0.16 , 0.3 , 0.5 , 0.3048 , 0.6 , 0.6096 , 0.75 , 1 , 1.2 , 1.2192 , 2 , 2.4 , 2.4384 , 2.5 , 4 , 4.8 , 4.8768 , 8 , 9.6 , 9.7536 , 16 , 19.2 , 19.5072 , 32 , 38.4 , 39.0144 , 64 , 128 , 256

example = http://vn4.cs.fiu.edu/cgi-bin/gnis.cgi?Lat=25.756701&Long=-80.375801&vid=&tfaction=&referer=tfhome&Res=4.8

Which should translate to:

http://vn4.cs.fiu.edu/cgi-bin/gnis.cgi?Lat={latdegdec}&Long={londegdec}&vid=&tfaction=&referer=tfhome&Res={scale}

or

http://vn4.cs.fiu.edu/cgi-bin/gnis.cgi?Lat={latdegdec}&Long={londegdec}&vid=&tfaction=&referer=tfhome&Res={zoom}

Of this I am a bit uncertain as to which would translate best at the moment.

---Mullerk cs.fiu (talk) 17:20, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Can you explain what those resolutions mean? If you know about Google Maps scale factor, maybe explain it in terms of that. An alternative to zoom or scale is a parameter which specifies the map portal width in longitude degrees. —EncMstr (talk) 17:46, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Lamentably I am not familiar with Google Maps scale factors, so I am unable to produce a clear response using that as a guide. The listed resolutions are the pixel to meter ratio. For example ~ 0.1524 equals 6 inches/pixel, 0.3048 equals 1 ft/pixel, 1.0 equals 1 meter/pixel resolution, and so on.

--Mullerk cs.fiu (talk) 15:36, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

2nd Request

We've been awaiting a response for sometime now and were curious if there were any problems/concerns arising from our request to have our Service added to add United States Mapping Service: TerraFly to the list of services. Mullerk cs.fiu (talk) 22:08, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

See http://geo.nls.uk/maps/api/

Should go along with Vision of Britain.

URL: http://nls.tileserver.com/?lat={latdegdec}&lng={londegdec}&zoom={osmzoom}

Requires Javascript.

HTH. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Streapadair (talk • contribs) 11:45, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

 Done Voomie (talk) 12:11, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Request to add Russian military maps from Topomapper.com Topomapper.com is a map viewer for worldwide topographic maps. Complete Europe, Asia, Africa and South America is covered with seamless Russian military maps at the scales 100k-500k (mainly 200k). For many countries in Africa and Asia these maps are still the best available topographic maps, see examples of Afghanistan, North Corea and Morroco. I am not aware of any other topographic map server with such a complete coverage. Beneath the topographic maps Topomapper has map layers from Google, Bing and Yahoo and a physical reliefmap. With the "Dual Map View" different map types can be compared with 2 synchronized map views. URL: http://www.topomapper.com/index.html?zoom=9&lat={latdegdec}&lon={londegdec}

Y A valuable addition to this catalogue, thanks. Voomie (talk) 23:00, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I intend to add an additional service to 'Other' : GloCode.com, which proposes a single global 'postcode' system as an human-memorable encoding of latitude and longitude. I am one of the developers of the system. I have also been a proud wikipedian since 2002 :) Please shout if any issues WillSmith (London) (talk) 15:16, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

The following sites have street maps in South Korea, with accompanying street view technology:

Daum Local (http://local.daum.net/)

Naver Maps (http://map.naver.com/)

Rickvaughn/talk 16:54, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

What are the parameters for these? --Redrose64 (talk) 13:25, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Are there any stats available on the number of times users have clocked on a geo-coord to get to the GeoTemplate page; and any stats on the number of referrals from discrete pages? And if not, is there any possibility that we could generate or start collecting such stats?

The context of my question is the perennial challenge made to those who add geo-coords to articles, that they are inappropriate, useless, etc. It would be easier to defend them if I could point to actual rather than supposed usage. thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:55, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

It's not worth the effort of making a tool to compile this information from the web server logs (Apache format). But, the old click tracker is still running and it counted 26,000 click-throughs last Wednesday (Aug 31). Also, it rather silly selling this as the only application for geo-coords when people are using my database. — Dispenser 05:11, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Tell me more about your database. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:41, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

26,000 click throughs from when to August 31? —EncMstr (talk) 00:09, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm assuming that's in the 24 hour period. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:10, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

The map "Map 1:50,000 from 1880" in the Israel section is actually one inch per mile, or 1:63,360. Can someone fix that please? I don't see how to. McKay (talk) 02:38, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I'd be happy to attempt the change, except that I believe 1:50,000 is correct. —Stepheng3 (talk) 07:08, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

On the map it links to, the menu upper right does state "1:50 000" in one option. This may be incorrect though: there are other mapping services linked from this template exhibiting similar errors. For example, under "Great Britain" we have maps described as "Ordnance Survey NPE 1:50000 (England / Wales), 1945-1955"; "Ordnance Survey NPE/7th 1:50000 (Scotland), 1945-1955" and "Ordnance Survey 7th series 1:50000, 1947-1960", and the webpages that these link to show "1:50k". However, the actual maps are identical to some printed maps in my posession which clearly state "Scale: One Inch to One Statute Mile = 1⁄63360", or similar. Maybe both websites were put together by somebody unaware of non-metric measurements. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:14, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

The actual 1880-ish maps of Palestine (27 sheets which I have in hi-res scans and my library has on paper) say "One Inch to a Statute Mile". At amudanan.co.il, these maps are overlaid onto modern 1:50000 maps so in some sense the presentation is at 1:50000. However I still think it is more accurate to call them 1:63360. Incidentally you can inspect the maps at the National Library of Australia. McKay (talk) 05:23, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Does this have any effect on the toolserver use of this template? Is there any indication whether Wikipedia / Wikimedia would be excluded from the paying websites?

I don't think so; we're not using the API, we're merely providing links to GM. </famous last words>--Tagishsimon (talk) 13:14, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

There are some links on this page to the services, that may be affected by these, but the "main" link in the Global services section is fortunately not using API. --Jklamo (talk) 19:05, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, both of you.

Fram (talk

) 21:35, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Following site have street maps of Serbia. It should be listed as local map provider. www.planplus.rs --

Shouldn't it just be: http://m.nokia.me/?c={latdegdec},{londegdec} — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.100.130.7 (talk) 09:45, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

That doesn't work for me. —Stepheng3 (talk) 20:58, 22 December 2011 (UTC)