Talk:Amsterdam, Netherlands

Maybe you wanna go for this?

Hiro, her boyfriend, Benpicco and Christian issued a challenge for the Tale of Two Hashes achievement by geohashing in a place named Holland from the (52, 13) geohash on 2010-04-24.

Most places in the Rotterdam graticule would also fulfil this challenge, of course. Just thought I let you know. --HiroProtagonist 22:55, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

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Dus....

is de zaterdagmiddag-meetup op de coordinaten van 2008-05-23? NY stock exchange is vast dicht op zaterdag.... Gebruiken wij eigenlijk de NYSE? Of een andere beurs? Want de opening van de NYSE is in Europa pas om een uur of drie 's middags.

Ik zou de Dow van vrijdag gebruiken en als datum gewoon zaterdag. (De coordinaten hangen zowel af van datum als koers van de Dow Jones, dus met dezelfde koers van de Dow Jones heb je toch andere coordinaten op andere dagen.)

So....

will the saturdayafternoon meet-up be held at the coordinates of 2008-05-23? NYSE is probably closed on saturdays...... Do we use the openings of the NYSE in Europe? Or do we use some European Stock Exchange? Cause NYSE opening aren't known until 3 P.M. in Europe.

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Well, I'm not sure why everyone is discussing about which numbers to use for Europe: the algorithm clearly states to use the 'most recent' if today's is not available, plus, as you say, the NYSE is closed on Saturdays, so we'd be using the Dow from the day before. So - I reckon that we should say that the meetup on the 24th should use the Dow from the 23rd, and so on. In general I'm interested in meetings! But I'm busy the next two Saturdays... :-/

Who else is up for it?

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I agree. Saturday meetings are not a problem. However, the algorithm strongly imlies you could do this every day, just as a personal quest. If you add in the geocaching tradition of the first one to get there to leave an item and/or note and every next one trades that item for a new one, you could get a very addicting game. So the question remains whether or not we should use NYSE openings on weekdays. Using yesterdays opening gives you way too much preperation time, and using the current opening starts the game at 3.30 P.M. Dutch time, which might be a bit late.

Modifying the algorithm to use London SE openings shouldn't be that difficult, should it?

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Indeed, for non-weekends and the original geocaching tradition the current algorithm gives too much preparation time. There is quite some debate over it here, and it looks like there will be a 'decision' taken soon: Talk:Main Page#Europe Time Zones problem

Of course, we can do what we want regardless.  ;-)

Personally, I have to work apart from the weekends... I'm also limited to bikes / public transport, which may make life a little tricky when the targets aren't close to Leiden.

Meetups are only interesting if there is enough people to make it worthwhile. How many are we? Starting a list:

Neil (Leiden) Niels (Hoofddorp) Ansgar (Amsterdam)

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BTW, tomorrow's meet-up is across the water from the Machineweg in Amsterdam, in a farmer's field. I know geocachers get into trouble very often due to trespassing. Would it be completely out of the question to set our coordinates a little bit differently? Like across the water, where we don't break any laws?

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I'd assume tomorrow (Saturday) we use Friday's Dow Jones opening, but tomorrow's date. Then the meetup would be somewhere along the N11 (i.e. near Leiden). Today's coordinates would be across the Machineweg.

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Thanks for that answer. Forgot about that. I visited the Houtrak friday afternoon. It's close to home anyway. Noone there ofcourse, it being a friday. I made some pics, just to be sure. Noone else was at the Houtrak on Friday? It doesn't really count as a meet-up I'm afraid....

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Hmm... saturday's meeting was really close... shame I was in Arnhem at the time

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Gah! Me too, I live in Leiden and would have gone, but was in Belgium for the weekend. I'm away this weekend too, but the one after should be fine.

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Who on earth renamed our graticule to Amsterdam? Noord-west Nederland was significantly more accurate

The page history shows that it was Danatar, who was probably zealously applying the rule to name it after the largest city in the graticule. -Robyn 14:19, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

That was fast...very impressive. So is that a geohash policy of some sorts? I'd understand if people called it Amsterdam to begin with, but why rename it afterwards? Can we change it back?

Yeah, it's a guideline. But I think your page may predate it. I didn't check, but I know it's been around a long time. To change it back, go to the page, click on the history tab, find the edit by Danatar, click undo, and save the page. Then leave a note on Danatar's page explaining why you prefer the name, so you don't get into an edit war. I fiigure if it's your graticule you know what's best for it. Know that I'm not in any position of authority though. I'm just a wiki user, like you and Danatar. -Robyn 14:35, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

It's a policy, and I agree on it. Most dutch graticule pages were created before this guideline however. "Noord west Nederland" is unclear for anyone outside the Netherlands. And it's not correct either. "Holland" might be the most correct, and totally unclear for anyone not knowing the difference between Holland and the Netherlands (ie: the world). All dutch graticules that weren't named after the largest city have been renamed. We even got Rotterdam back! (apparently it has more inhabitants than Antwerpen). The only useful dutch exception to this largest-city rule is Texel, if you'd ask me. Can you explain your objections to naming this one Amsterdam?--Arvid 16:14, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Well my basic objection is that the guideline is based on an American way of thinking, in which most of the inhabitants of a graticule identify themselves with the largest city. Everyone in the Portland, Oregon graticule (comparable size to Amsterdam) identifies with that city. However, the Netherlands are so crowded, that any graticule contains multiple major urban areas. For instance, I don't think anyone in the Hague feels as if they belong to Amsterdam. And your example of Rotterdam and Antwerp is even worse, that graticule should have a double name, being it spans two countries, and two major cities. Secondly, I don't think that whether non-dutch understand the name is that important. As long as a search for Amsterdam leads them directly to the Noord West Nederland graticule, I think it's sufficient. I will totally defer to the majority though, if no one agrees with me. Niels 08:17, 14 October 2008

I don't get why naming after the largest city is an American way of thinking. I understand the difficulty of identifying with the name, but I don't think that's a reason to diverge from this guideline. My grandpa is Frisian, but he lives in the Groningen-graticule. Well, try tell someone who identifies with Frisia that. I have two objections against "noordwest, "midden", "oost" and the like. First: it's in dutch. We might as well start making all of our wiki pages in dutch too. Anyone that doesn't understand: pity. The second is that it diverts from the general "largest city" guideline. The Netherlands are a special case with all these different thinking people in a little area. I might not identify enough with the city I live in to understand. I certainly wouldn't have a problem with my graticule being called "Zwolle" because that's a capital, if that was the rule. Or when Münster was in the same graticule as me, being it called "Münster" although I live in a different country. I wonder how people in Maastricht feel, living in the Liège graticule. Or people just south of München, living in the Innsbrück graticule. It's a convenient naming system, it's not there to identify with, or be the most (political) correct.--Arvid 16:27, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, we don't have to agree on it. I just feel naming after the largest city is strange. Why should we be so rigid about it? We had a name, it was accurate, and I simply do not see the value of changing to Amsterdam. I didn't raise my objection in order to get into a fight about it, I just wanted to state I think it's nonsense. I also think that Liege should be called Liege-Maastricht, just like Rotterdam-Antwerpen. And I feel the name Amsterdam falls short. Secondly, the argument that Noord West Nederland is not English is totally invalid. It's a name, it's not supposed to be in English. They also renamed Brussels back to Bruxelles recently.Niels 14:15, 18 October 2008

Arvid makes a very good point. While it may be a strange system, I don't think it favours the US in particular. There are parts of the US that fall, for example in the Victoria graticule, a city that is in a foreign country and named after the queen of a country against which the US fought a revolutionary war. But it's just a name. I wouldn't have changed your name, myself. I don't speak Dutch, but I understood the old names. You know that the old name will redirect to the new one, so there are no broken links or anything, eh? -Robyn 20:24, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't claiming it favors the US, I say it's an American way of thinking, where all cities are far apart. In Europe that simply doesn't work like that. Sometimes I feel area descriptions are just more suitable. I liked the name Noord-West Nederland, and I don't like the name Amsterdam, even though I've lived and worked there half my life. But if you like this better, please don't let my opinion influence you....as I said I was just asking a question and then stating my disagreement with the answer. Niels 14:15, 18 October 2008

I vote to change it back; I don't want to live in Amsterdam. Joris 2008-10-18 07:41

Re Brussels/Bruxelles: I can't remember where it's documented, but we seem to have come to the understanding that country names are in English and city names are in local. The jury is still out on what to do about places that don't use the latin alphabet. -Robyn 14:38, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Anyone interested in a meetup? 10th, 17th or 31st of March 2012

Hi, would anyone be interested in a meetup sometime next month? Georgina 05:22, 29 February 2012 (EST)

Visiting from 8 - 11 August 2013

Hello, I'll be in Amsterdam for the next couple of days, and would love to go geohashing if location and time constraints permit it. Make sure you announce any plan you might have! --Crox (talk) 13:48, 7 August 2013 (EDT)

Solution for graticule

I only recently found out about geohashing and would like to bring new activity to this graticule. I have therefore proposed a solution to the problem of hashes ending up in the sea, so that there would be more potential meeting points. If someone is tech-savvy, they might automate the process, but it could also be done manually, I suppose.