Talk:Globetrotters Geohash

Every Continent?

Do I have to go to Antarctica? --Jevanyn 17:10, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

If you do you should wait for one of those days when the coordinates are at the big end of the latitute numbers, so you can walk in a very small circle to do the ultimate multihash. -Robyn 03:39, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

An Antarctica requirement would make this impossible for practically everybody. I edited in that you would have to go to "the five inhabited continents North and South America, Africa, Eurasia and Australia". --Ilpadre 17:22, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Candidates

Please add yourself if you have visited more than one continent. --Ilpadre 17:22, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

How Many Continents?

Is reevaluation appropriate? I have always thought of Europe and Asia as being separate continents, thus making seven and making this award more attainable. My brief research revealed the vast majority of sources subscribe to the seven continent model. Interestingly to me, significantly more sources show America as a single continent and Eurasia as two continents than the converse. However a little more research will revel an argument can be made for the proposition that there are as few as three. --Bos 07:28, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

How would increasing the number of required continents make it easier to attain the award? Also, Europe and Asia are separate continents only from a political/eurocentric perspective; they are not separated by any tectonic plate boundary. The scientific (which in this case is the geographic) community prefers the Eurasia/two-Americas-model I used to separate the continents for the achievement. All the other models are more politically and historically grounded. What are your sources for a separate Europe/Asia-model? --Ilpadre 08:42, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Increasing the number would make it easier if you still had to only go to five. - Robyn

This clarifies the discussion I abandoned some years ago upon realizing it was dominated by pride of authorship. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent Bos

Should we vote on that? I'd be in favor of the 7 continent version too, with the requirement to visit all inhabited ones (or even all) to get the "full" achievement. --Crox 14:55, 24 October 2011 (EDT)

Since nobody but me supported the Eurasia model, we might as well directly switch to the Europe/Asia model, even though I've always strongly disliked and never understood the reasons behind that version (my dislike in this discussion being only a result from that). As a European, I feel the borders are arbitrary and that no cultural or political reasons exist anymore to exclude Russia from Europe. However, I won't object switching to a 6-continent model and make visiting all 6 continents (still, except Antarctica) obligatory for the full achievement. I am just baffled everybody considers Europe and Asia separate continents, but I'll have to live with that, I won't be the one who lets this achievement become a Bingo achievement case. This will further increase the difficulty of this award/awesomeness of the achiever. We already have a "candidates" section and a template with different levels, so everybody can still see who's come how far, so besides the definition not much will change. Still, both the template and the ribbon image will need to be replaced, the latter being my job, and even though this will break the symmetry, I think the result will still look nice, maybe even better. I might soon find the time to get to this. --ilpadre 01:49, 25 October 2011 (EDT)

I'd definitely favor the Eurasia model, because it is geographically founded instead of following an arbitrary line that has been defined for the soly purpose to keep the division which got deprecated when they found that there actually is a lot more land north of the Black Sea than they had expected. If you want to go by political/cultural differences instead of by geography, please explain to me how the cultural differences of Russia west and east of the Ural are so much more significant than e.g. those between Russia and India or Russia and China. --Ekorren 16:39, 25 October 2011 (EDT)

Interestingly enough if you define "continents" as synonymous with tectonic plates there appear to be at least seven, can easily be expanded to 15 and the geological researcher will expand that number to over 70. Bos

Just to clarify: I've never defined them as "synonymous". Just a plate boundary as one necessary condition if you want to separate continents. Big difference. --ilpadre 01:30, 26 October 2011 (EDT)

I think Ilpadre and Ekorren raised good points. However, this is the "Globetrotter Geohash" achievement, for geohashers who "visit locations everywhere in the world". The "continent count" is just the way to measure your progress towards reaching the achievement. Hence for me it makes sense to require to visit locations both in Asia and Europe to get the full achievement. What do you think? Alternatively, instead of continents, we could have used the different RIR regions as way to separate the world into regions, see https://www.arin.net/knowledge/rirs/countries.html --Crox 21:39, 26 October 2011 (EDT)

That's also a good point. Eurasia is the world's largest continent/continous landmass, so you should indeed visit points on both ends (Europa and Asia) to be able to claim having been "everywhere in the world". I rephrased the achievement description in a way that, I hope, most people can agree with - "for the full achievement you have to reach coordinates on all inhabited continents, in the following regions:", then listing Europe and Asia separately. (I'll soon get to making a new ribbon image, promise!) --ilpadre 02:25, 27 October 2011 (EDT)

I'm strongly in favour of the 7 continent model. 7 is the number that everyone knows, and yes, the division between them is primarily cultural and political, rather than geological - and that's just fine. The boundary between Europe and Asia is somewhat arbitrary; but so is the boundary between Africa and Europe/Asia, and between North and South America, and even between Asia and Oceania. Non-arbitrariness is not an important consideration. There is plenty of discussion of it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borders_of_the_continents Stevage 21:35, 1 November 2011 (EDT)

Interesting page! We'll probably have to consult it whenever somebody goes to those in-between regions and isn't sure which continent he just hashed in. --ilpadre 02:57, 2 November 2011 (EDT)

Graphics

I just wanted to say that the imagery for this award is beautiful. This was not drawn by Randall, right? Whoever did it, thank you so much! If you also did the images for some of the other ribbons then extra thank yous!Virgletati 20:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes. At this point one reason not to switch to the seven continent model is that it would break the ribbon. --starbird 08:01, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Borders

Where would the borders be between: North and South America Africa and Eurasia Eurasia and Australia/Oceania (probably less difficult to decide but since we're on the subject)

I do like the Europe - Asia idea since they are pretty different and far away places and deserve some commendation on getting both. But .. well...change is hard :) User:Phi-loci-raptor 2 Nov 2010

The traditional border between Europe and Asia is the Ural mountains. I was surprised when I realized that Europe and Asia were not separate rungs on the ladder, but I can live with that. It's an incentive to go to the neglected southern continents. -Robyn 02:37, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Europe and Asia are clearly two different continents. Treating them as one super continent is, um, weird and wrong. Also, we inhabitants of the southern continents don't feel neglected - it's ok. Stevage 02:28, 19 October 2011 (EDT)

Please explain: Why are they "clearly" different? Just because it's difficult to travel from one end to the other? Again: Eurasia lies on one tectonic plate. I don't see any scientific/geographic reason (only cultural and political ones) why Europe should be separated from Asia. --ilpadre 03:00, 19 October 2011 (EDT)

http://www.google.com.au/search?gcx=c&ix=c2&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=how+many+continents+are+there

HTH. Stevage 21:39, 1 November 2011 (EDT)

New Globetrotters Image

You might have noticed that I changed the ribbon image and the template to a new version, now separating Europe and Asia. You can still use the old template and image if you like the Eurasia version better. --ilpadre 13:46, 28 October 2011 (EDT)

You never fail to impress with your ribbons. Thanks, ilpadre! -Srs0 23:49, 11 November 2011 (EST)

How many continents (2)

I didn't realize the globetrotter was extended to span six continents now. Actually, and in light of the recent events, I don't see a reason anymore why it shouldn't span seven. Since it is a gradual achievement, you cannot really complain about it being too hard. A 6/7 globetrotter is still an impressive achievement. -- relet 02:31, 2 March 2012 (EST)

I always thought about creating an extra ribbon for those who actually geohashed in Antarctica. Maybe when I've got some spare time on my hands... --ilpadre 02:58, 2 March 2012 (EST)

Barely on-topic thoughts

I've always wondered if a travel tv channel would actually buy Geohashing around the world as a format.

I'd imagine the show to be rather epic. --The George 22:22, 12 August 2012 (EDT)