Difference between revisions of "Geohashing talk:Current events"

Latest revision as of 14:39, 5 March 2020

The experience for a brand new user coming to the Main Page and wanting to geohash is confusing. A recent discussion in the geohashing IRC channel led to a number of changes to the Main Page and pages linked from there, including this one. Seeing as it is the second link in the left nav bar, people are going to click on it, and we should make it more relevant than a static page essentially restating what is on the Main Page.

Once upon a time, for the first few months of geohashing, people used to post their geohashing intentions in one big glorious mess on the page for that date. But then people got the hang of using expedition and graticule pages, and by October 2008 no one was doing that anymore. It's still a natural thing to expect. A new user asked me "where are all the expeditions I can go on listed?" He understood the answer, but wanted to know how he, as a new user, was supposed to know where his graticule page was and if anyone was going.

This revamp of Current Events is a new proposed use of the page. It's another way of showing off your expedition where everyone can see it, and an easy way to browse what is planned.

I hope that someone can automate this, to automatically seek and display the pages with the Expedition planning category for each date. This is a start.

Please check it out, use it if you can and rewrite anything that needs it. -Robyn 03:21, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Date links

JimL, the recent expeditions aren't meant to be a repeat of the main page photo pages, but a new thing (or an old and gone thing reinvented) for text links to the recent expeditions. I was leaving them empty for moving old ones to, but you just gave me a better idea. -Robyn 00:50, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

How many days should the old ones stay around for? I think a week. Should they be archived (maybe on the same 2009-06-10 page as the photos) or just deleted? I think they would work well on the photo archive pages, that would be after the photos have left the Main Page. I think I favour archiving them, but only just. The drawback is clutter for people who want to view the photos a month at a time. Does anyone other than me do that? Does anyone who does that care?

The current style of links to the categories is obviously not for archiving as it could be recreated at any time. -Robyn 01:03, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Automated Crawling for Current Events

Since I will likely be bored, and confined primarily to my apartment, this weekend, I will look into creating a bot to crawl the Expedition planning category, and auto-creating the list of planned expeditions for all dates available, as well as for the last couple days. I don't know if we can easily have an automatically populated list like we have on the front page, since it would probably be best to keep the amount of work for creating expedition planning pages down. The unfortunate thing is that with a bot, the data on the page may not be the freshest, but I have some ideas on how to deal with that. --aperfectring 18:13, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I am of the opinion that the majority (if not all) of this should move to somewhere either on the Bot's page, or its talk page. Any objections? --aperfectring 12:38, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Since it has been a day, and no one objected, I have moved the conversation to User talk:AperfectBot in order to keep this page clean. --aperfectring 19:42, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Colour-coded table

I liked the old format better. What's the code? It's not by place, number of people or success. I find the colours distracting and the centred dates hard to find. -Robyn 00:19, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Color should indicate success. Green is good. Red is bad. Yellow says we don't know yet. Jiml 02:50, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I can't say I was ever a fan of fail/bad/red being associated with coordinates unreached. I was happy when they re-named the categories to reflect this (that did happen right?). Juventas 05:39, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Colors: Green is Category:Coordinates reached Yellow is Not green and Category:Expedition planning Red is Otherwise
I can easily get rid of the colors if desired, I just thought it would be nice to have a nice way to see whether people reached coordinates or not via the summaries. Geohashing *IS* always about the experience first and foremost, but there still is importance associated with reaching coordinates. If there is another, more appropriate, color we could use for coordinates not reached, I would much prefer that to getting rid of them altogether.
I don't think I explicitly set the dates to be in the middle, and it should be easy enough to bring those to the left side.
Overall, though, I think the table view is a much cleaner display of the information. I find it a lot easier to see where expeditions took place, and who went on them, with this format. As time went on, I found that the wall of text that used to be here started annoying me more and more. --aperfectring 07:58, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for moving the dates. Apparently I find wall o' colour more offputting than wall o' text. I now longer enjoy browsing the this page to see what is going on. I can't objectively say whether the table improves the experience, because for me it is overwhelmed by the colours. If I'm alone in this then I'll stop complaining, but I'd far rather see a dot of colour than a whole swath. -Robyn 23:23, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I really like the table, but would slightly prefer if it had no color. Sara 00:10, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Color removed, let me know what you think. --aperfectring 01:10, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I apologize for getting this discussion off on the wrong foot by saying good/bad. I was trying to be a bit funny, but I guess I hit a nerve, which I can understand since I was making fun of the good/bad concept.... Anyway, I really like the table, and I liked having the colors, but I could see the wide band of color as being too much. Could we get a little splash/splotch as a quick summary of how the expedition went? I know that all expeditions are good in that they happen, and I'm thrilled when I see a window full of expeditions, but a quick summary might be nice. What would folks think of using the red/green arrows and maybe making undetermined ones yellow banded? Jiml 04:21, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I kind of liked it better with colors. But I guess a splash of it will do? :D -- relet 06:18, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Lower case names

Any reason it changes upper case to lower case in the names of people who don't link to their profiles?

Hunting Season

I created a template to give info on Hunting Seasons in the US and put it on the Current Events page. I think it would be good for people to know that hunters may be about on public land/in the woods and what safety precautions are a good idea. I have no knowledge of hunting times in other countries so that info should probably also be added. Since hunting is seasonal, I don't know if we can automate the warning to appear during just the fall/winter months or if it will have to be done manually. Pedalpusher (talk) 12:13, 24 October 2014 (EDT)

Header Layout

Can we put the TOC somewhere else? The page looks horrible in the chameleon skin. --SIGSTKFLT (talk) 14:39, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

@@ Line 7: / Line 7: @@
 I hope that someone can automate this, to automatically seek and display the pages with the '''Expedition planning''' category for each date. This is a start.
-Please [[Geo Hashing:Current events|check it out]], use it if you can and rewrite anything that needs it. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 03:21, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
+Please [[Geohashing:Current events|check it out]], use it if you can and rewrite anything that needs it. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 03:21, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 ==Date links==
 JimL, the recent expeditions aren't meant to be a repeat of the main page photo pages, but a new thing (or an old and gone thing reinvented) for text links to the recent expeditions. I was leaving them empty for moving old ones to, but you just gave me a better idea. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 00:50, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 ==Automated Crawling for Current Events==
 Since I will likely be bored, and confined primarily to my apartment, this weekend, I will look into creating a bot to crawl the '''Expedition planning''' category, and auto-creating the list of planned expeditions for all dates available, as well as for the last couple days.  I don't know if we can easily have an automatically populated list like we have on the front page, since it would probably be best to keep the amount of work for creating expedition planning pages down.  The unfortunate thing is that with a bot, the data on the page may not be the freshest, but I have some ideas on how to deal with that.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 18:13, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
-===How should it work?===
-Cool! In manually populating the page, I found it most productive to search for e.g. "2009-06-13". There were only two pages in the planning category, but there were things on graticule pages and graticule talk pages. A bot could probably link to the page and section it found that text, and paste the first line following it. Graticules like New Jersey that post the daily location even when no one goes could be either put on an exclusion list or prevailed on to include a string like "no plans yet" that tell the bot to skip this one. At any rate, when it is botted, there must be room to '''easily edit manually'''. How often would the bot look? -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 18:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
-:I think the key is to influence people to '''create their expedition page before leaving''', and make sure that the expedition page is added to the category.  If we can get that mentality in place, then the bot can check for [[Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:Expedition_planning|changes in pages that link to the category]] and only update the page as needed.  Do keep in mind that this is all just vague thoughts right now, and I will plan it out much more fully when I am not at work. =P --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 18:39, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
+I am of the opinion that the majority (if not all) of this should move to somewhere either on the Bot's page, or its talk page.  Any objections? --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 12:38, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
-::This is so wiki. I love how I can have ideas and then people make them better and make them work. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 18:43, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
+Since it has been a day, and no one objected, I have moved the conversation to [[User talk:AperfectBot]] in order to keep this page clean. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 19:42, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
-:::Oooh, I just had a flash of genius (it hurt).  But I had better post it before I forget.  We could have a "Have the bot create your expedition planning page for you" section where you give it your graticule's name or lat/lon, the date, and possibly a user (for who is going), and it will create the page using the approved template for you in a couple minutes.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 20:28, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
+==Colour-coded table==
+I liked the old format better. What's the code? It's not by place, number of people or success. I find the colours distracting and the centred dates hard to find. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 00:19, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
+:Color should indicate success.  Green is good.   Red is bad.  Yellow says we don't know yet.  [[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 02:50, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
+::I can't say I was ever a fan of fail/bad/red being associated with coordinates unreached.  I was happy when they re-named the categories to reflect this (that did happen right?). [[User:Juventas|Juventas]] 05:39, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
+Colors: Green is [[:Category:Coordinates reached]] Yellow is Not green and [[:Category:Expedition planning]] Red is Otherwise<br>
+I can easily get rid of the colors if desired, I just thought it would be nice to have a nice way to see whether people reached coordinates or not via the summaries.  Geohashing *IS* always about the experience first and foremost, but there still is importance associated with reaching coordinates.  If there is another, more appropriate, color we could use for coordinates not reached, I would much prefer that to getting rid of them altogether.<br>
+I don't think I explicitly set the dates to be in the middle, and it should be easy enough to bring those to the left side.<br>
+Overall, though, I think the table view is a much cleaner display of the information.  I find it a lot easier to see where expeditions took place, and who went on them, with this format.  As time went on, I found that the wall of text that used to be here started annoying me more and more. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 07:58, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
+:Thank you for moving the dates. Apparently I find wall o' colour more offputting than wall o' text. I now longer enjoy browsing the this page to see what is going on. I can't objectively say whether the table improves the experience, because for me it is overwhelmed by the colours. If I'm alone in this then I'll stop complaining, but I'd far rather see a dot of colour than a whole swath. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 23:23, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
-::::That is in line with my [[Talk:Main Page#My Vision of the Future|My Vision of the Future]], so I heartily approve this possible new development. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 23:02, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
+: I really like the table, but would slightly prefer if it had no color. [[User:Sara|Sara]] 00:10, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
-::::BTW, if the page goes by planning pages, then it doesn't even have to crawl. It would be sufficient to link under each date to, e.g. [[:Category:Meetup on 2009-06-14]]. But it would be better to have them listed right there on the page, especially if the bot would retrieve graticule names. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 00:57, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
+::Color removed, let me know what you think.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 01:10, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
-:::::My vision is to have, for each date, a list of expeditions in planning.  Each of which would contain a link to the planning page, where the text is the graticule's name, the name(s) of the participant(s)t and a summary of the location.  The last part will probably be the biggest challenge.  People usually have a section where they list who is going (though not everyone signs up right away), but the summary of the locations that I have seen are usually a bit longer, and would need to be cut down.  To get a graticule's name from its lat/lon requires looking at [[All_Graticules]], but that shouldn't be very difficult.  For All_Graticules, I think I will pull down a copy of the page daily, and run off of that, so I am not constantly trying to download that monster of a page.  BTW, has anyone noticed that All_Graticules doesn't follow the naming conventions?  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 12:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
+:I apologize for getting this discussion off on the wrong foot by saying good/bad.   I was trying to be a bit funny, but I guess I hit a nerve, which I can understand since I was making fun of the good/bad concept....  Anyway, I really like the table, and I liked having the colors, but I could see the wide band of color as being too much.   Could we get a little splash/splotch as a quick summary of how the expedition went? I know that all expeditions are good in that they happen, and I'm thrilled when I see a window full of expeditions, but a quick summary might be nice.  What would folks think of using the red/green arrows and maybe making undetermined ones yellow banded?  [[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 04:21, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
-::::::Moving '''All Graticules''' to '''All graticules''' was discussed, but rejected over concerns for the automation that uses it. I was thinking about this last night, that the "I'm going on an expedition" bot should solicit date and graticule (required) with the option for specifying participants and a one-line description. Perhaps there should also be a provision for specifying that it is a retro or alternate. As a first pass for listing already created planning pages, I would just grab a line of text. So what if you have a lot of "Hey guys this is totally doable" or "I wish I could go but I have to pick up my dog at th". At least you have links. People might even learn to start with a good tagline. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 16:47, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
+::I kind of liked it better with colors. But I guess a splash of it will do? :D -- [[User:relet|relet]] 06:18, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
-:::::I agree that the primary goal is to create the list.  It should be trivial enough to include a user list.  For the descriptions, if it is too long (some people are VERY verbose in describing the location, I have noticed), perhaps I should cut it off after 100 characters or so (something like 20 words), and if it is longer than that, add an ellipsis.  The length isn't set yet, I will likely go with what looks best.  I have used the same toolkit as [[User:ReletBot]] and gotten it to log in, and download the Main Page so far.  I will continue working on it.  For now I will hard code pages to look at/create a list for.  [[User:AperfectBot]] has now been created.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 17:23, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
+==Lower case names==
+Any reason it changes upper case to lower case in the names of people who don't link to their profiles?
-===Arbirtrary Section===
+== Hunting Season ==
-(because the sections were getting big to edit)
+I created a template to give info on Hunting Seasons in the US and put it on the Current Events page. I think it would be good for people to know that hunters may be about on public land/in the woods and what safety precautions are a good idea. I have no knowledge of hunting times in other countries so that info should probably also be added. Since hunting is seasonal, I don't know if we can automate the warning to appear during just the fall/winter months or if it will have to be done manually.  [[User:Pedalpusher|Pedalpusher]] ([[User talk:Pedalpusher|talk]]) 12:13, 24 October 2014 (EDT)
-Using [[2009-06-14_49_-122]] as a test bed, and some code [[User:Relet|Relet]] graciously donated, I have come up with a bot which creates a line of text in the following format:
+== Header Layout ==
-link - personA, personB, personC - Where it is and if it is long then I...
+Can we put the TOC somewhere else? The page looks horrible in the [https://geohashing.site/index.php?title=Geohashing:Current_events&useskin=chameleon chameleon skin]. --[[User:SIGSTKFLT|SIGSTKFLT]] ([[User talk:SIGSTKFLT|talk]]) 14:39, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
-:That looks awesome. Will the bot be confused if it gets an edit conflict, like I just did??
-::It doesn't do any editing yet.  Most likely it will pull and put the page so quickly that no one will notice.  If there is any error on write (which an edit conflict is), I will likely take a simple approach and just discard my changes, sure that I will catch it next time.  On a side note, people should put their expedition planning pages in this format: [[Template:Expedition/Example]]  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 23:07, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
-See [[Talk:2009-06-14 40 -104]], as of its original creation time, as a perfect example of an expedition planning page that the ideal bot should be able to find. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 17:40, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
-:I will look into ways of parsing that, since I agree, that should be enough to create an entry.  Currently the bot ignores talk pages, since the ones I saw in the category were the historical planning, and the expedition information was on the page itself.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 15:08, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
-::When I get done with work today, I am going to work on being much more permissive about the location and user parsing on pages. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 19:09, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
-:::Vancouver sometimes plans the expedition on the main page and then moves the planning to the talk page when we're done, and sometimes plans straight on the talk page. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 03:02, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
-:::Current cycle, which is finishing up as I type this, includes an update to finding users.  If it can't find a user section, it finds all unique User:* tags, and uses that as the user list.  The next cycle, which will begin right after this completes, and be done in 45 minutes or so, includes a fix to the user list generation, and includes an update to the location text.  After those two, it should be fairly good at picking up stuff from the planning pages.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 00:02, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
-::::OK, so it took longer than I thought, and had a few bugs, but a new version is on its way, guestimate of 20 mins? --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 02:05, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
-:::::/me sighs at people intentionally doing stupid stuff.  I think I have now got a good setup to work, we shall see in 30 mins. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 02:44, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
-::::::People are doing stupid stuff to test the bot? Take it as flattery. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 03:02, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
-After some talk with [[User:Ekorren|ekorren]] over the weekend, I feel that the bot should also do some searching of graticule pages (or talk pages) for planned expeditions.  That part will require some work, and I will think about how to go about it.  My current thought is that if your graticule tends to talk about upcoming hashpoints on your graticule page, then you can include your graticule in a list, which the bot will traverse, and parse your pages for info about upcoming hashpoints.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 15:16, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
-:If you searched for all occurrences of "YYYY-MM-DD" for the given date, discarded the ones that linked to existing expedition pages and then just posted a link to that page with the line following, you would get most of it. Finding the graticule is harder if the link is on a user page, and you'd get messed up occasionally by things like [[Talk:Vancouver, British Columbia]] being the clearinghouse for expeditions in the whole area. Portland, Oregon does the same thing, I think. But there would be nothing that the user couldn't sort out by following the link. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 18:35, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
-::I have noticed that people will usually mention the different graticule in the location description, so it shouldn't be as big of a deal there.  I think that plans made solely on a graticule talk page probably deserve to be in something akin to a "tentative" category.  When people talk about hashpoints on the talk page, usually its to see if anyone else is planning on going.  I would also advocate that if someone is making more definite plans (e.g. describing their bus route to a hashpoint), then it deserves to be put on its own expedition planning page, and linked from the graticule's talk page. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 19:09, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
-:::Agree, but what we should do and what we do don't always match. I like that this project is a combination between looking for planning pages and encouraging people to make planning pages. I favour erring on the side of having EVERYTHING on the Current Events page and letting the user who is considering it judge for themselves whether the link destination constitutes a definite intent or not.  I can distinguish a lot better than a bot between "I wish I could do this one" and "leaving right now to do this one." -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 02:37, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
-===Testing===
-Next step: pull all pages from Category:Expedition_planning and parse them, producing a list, and thus verifying my algo, and its error handling. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 22:43, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
-Update: The output from the test runs will be put here: [[User:AperfectBot/Test_Page]]