Talk:All Graticules

Abbreviation Standard

Have we decided on a standard yet in regards to abbreviations in the list as well as on the graticule page titles? (I am specifically referring to U.S. state abbreviations which are currently a mix and match.)--KDinCT 12:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

No one has a preference? --KDinCT 23:42, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll opine that the formal page name of a US graticule should be "City, FullStateName". While there's no question that we all (should) know the USPS two-letter code for our states, not everyone else in the world does. Just my $0.22. --UncleOp 19:27, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

A similar standard should be used for Canadian provinces as well. Right now there's a mishmash of abbreviations, full names, or just 'Canada' without a province. Booberfish 14:30, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Ordering of Australasia

The Australasia contains only 2 countries; Australia and New Zealand, and when the locations are ordered by Coordinates, they kind of overlap, making it harder to find what someone is looking for.

Perhaps it should be split into two categories, or sub-categories.

P.S. Some people from New Zealand (like me) object to being grouped in with Australia under the term Australasia, which seams too Australian. --Phire 12:38, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Active vs. Not Active

Where I do see active vs. not active as being a helpful determination, I am concerned that we may end up with duplicate graticule pages when people don't realize that it is listed in one place or the other. As such maybe this page should be changed to "All Graticules" and then divide out active vs. not active with categories?--KDinCT 12:55, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I was worried about that. I wanted to create pages for the bigger cities in Norway, because I'd love to get people into this, here, and I think they're more likely to if they search for their hometown, and find it. On the other hand, having a separate heading on the "active" page, or even a separate page is really not optimal. AshleyMorton 13:00, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure I see the point of having inactive graticules here - I doubt that it's going to actually draw more people to join, and it just crowds the list - IMO, at least. Zigdon 17:42, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Is there a reason we really need to have non-actives listed separately? Unless it is going to be universally implemented I do not see the benefit. --KDinCT 23:43, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree - I'm the author of the number of the "not active" pages (though I'm not the only one). I personally do believe that they might help people get on board, but I'm not picky about their location - I would suggest that it's time to split this page up a bit, and have several different pages, one for each region. On the other hand, we could just integrate them right into the main ("active") list, and then just call this page the "List of Graticules".AshleyMorton 00:22, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the key problem is that this page (Active Graticules) serve two different purpose. The first is to list all active graticules, the second is to list and name graticules (for exemple for the official tool). I think those should be two different pages. KDinCT proposition look nice for example, have a page like List of Graticules for a full list, and having Category:Active Graticule for the active ones... --Gissehel 21:40, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

And I'm not sure if adding a link on this page for a graticule may directly attract people, but adding a link to this page (as a page for List of Graticules, not as Active Graticules) will make a link from the official tool. And if someone see that it's area has been referenced, the graticule page has been created, and he just have to write it's name, yes, it may change things. --Gissehel 21:44, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I like the List of Graticules and Category:Active Graticule idea as well. One is a subset of the other. Booberfish 03:49, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Ditto.AshleyMorton 07:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I volunteer to undertake this task, and plan to on Tuesday 10 June 2008. Major changes probably shouldn't happen on the weekend ;) For practice, I'll be working on my own state of Washington. If you have some pointers for me, please, talk to me - I am relatively new to MediaWiki (as you can see - no timestamp attached to my sig? Grrr....) 09:02, 5 June 2008 (PDT)

North America ordering

At quick glance I could discern no particular reason to the ordering under North America. So I added "my" two graticules at the end of the list. I'd suggest these be either ordered by lat/lon (direction is immaterial to me), or ordered by state-then-by-city. I can start a cleanup if that sounds good to people. --Del 13:52, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah - I see that the Category pages sort nicely. So the question is how best to put entries on this page... --UncleOp 13:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

These are perfectly ordered North to South (by latitude) and then subsequently West to East. This allows for a quick view to prevent duplication (the same graticule named for two separate cities). Conveniently the two Maine graticules you added being in the northeast aren't that far off from their proper place in the list. (Additionally, if people want to see them listed alphabetically they can look at the categories page. No reason to have them listed to same way in two places.)--KDinCT 14:04, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

"Strike that; reverse it." I.e., in North America they are ordered by descending longitude (West to East) and then descending latitude (North to South). But I see the pattern now. N.B.: that not all of the regions order the same way (at least as of this posting); contrast North America (and its comment) with Australasia. Cheers! --UncleOp 14:16, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Strike and reverse comment noted. (*smiles* I was thinking it right and typed it wrong) This was the way all of the continents were originally ordered and Australasia recently changed. I am open to a more logical way of ordering if you (or anyone else) can think of one. It would be nice if all of the lists were using the same convention. The only convention I would be opposed to would be alphabetical (due to my comment above).--KDinCT 14:31, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I added a link and comment to the North America category. Is that OK? Should I (or someone) do likewise for the other main headings? --UncleOp 15:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I think this is a great solution. --KDinCT 15:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

It has been undone by an edit sometime. Bummer. Categories are part of the strength of a wiki. If this page is being parsed and the category link was breaking the parser, it would be nice to know where the link could go instead. --UncleOp 20:57, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I am thinking about it again and maybe we should completely reorder all of the continent lists to be North to South and (West to East). I think it would make the sort order look a little less random (since the human eye tends to read the first number first and not the second number first). Want a little discussion before putting forth the effort since it would be a big change. --KDinCT 16:12, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with this and think it is a very logical solution. This would be especially helpful for someone viewing the list for the first time. noych 16:43, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Would someone explain the choice of "West to East" vs. "East to West"? EtW is ascending, and fits well with relative distance from the Prime Meridian. Is this considered too Euro-centric? I suppose it also matters which side of the PM you are starting on. As to North-to-South vs. South-to-North, one can flip a coin, since ascending would imply StN, but starting with negative numbers also seems strange to some (me, at least). --UncleOp 19:02, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

To me "west to east" makes sense because that is the way English text is read (i.e. left to right). Same thing with "north to south" it is just seems 'natural' (top to bottom). At least that is my two cents. --KDinCT 19:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

West-to-east should be done before north-to-south, as in most continents, people already sort WtE in their minds already when working out time zones. --Tim P 23:07, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

EtW is actually descending. WtE would be better. --Tim P 23:07, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I also think it should be consistent on the page. I wrote a quick hacky script that can reorder all the graticules in each category, while preserving the initial text (guidelines etc) and section headings. At the moment the output order is "english reading order" ie in each category all graticules with the most northerly latitue come first and are ordered from west to east followed by graticules in more southern latitudes.I put a copy of the output here. If people agree this is what is wanted then I can copy it onto the Active Graticules page. Nzsteak 11:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

While merging the two lists, I noticed Europe is sorted West to East (then North to South) and North America is sorted North to South (then West to East). I presumed from the talk that they liked it that way, so I retained the ordering. Your code sorts all the Graticules North to South, then West to East. Either is fine with me, but perhaps the Europeans have a different opinion. --Thomcat 12 June 2008

I note that there are (currently) no Canadian or Mexican links in the North America category; I presume this is either the way the Wiki works or just a matter of how the person(s) editing the main category page happened to do it. My entries seemed to automagically appear, so I am happy. Or someone is very quick to edit :-) That leads to:

Q: So why don't we have Canada or Mexico in North America at the moment? Do the respective pages simply have to include the category, and haven't? Seems to be the case for Vancouver, BC; that page doesn't have any categories listed...

It is simply a matter of the graticule page not having any categories listed. I just went in quick and added ones that I could blatently tell were in Canada but someone should go around all of the border graticules and confirm that they have reference to the correct states and to Canada. I also note that some of the Canadian graticules also have reference to their states. --KDinCT 15:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Contact Information

Should we be putting up contact information on our local graticule page? I think that would help give an idea of numbers to expect at a meet up, and also allows us to know if we'll be meeting someone after spending (considerable) time and effort. --waq

Some of the graticule pages already have lists of "locals" or similar "who the humans are" links. Since the graticule creation has thus far been ad hoc, it's not surprising that some pages are very different from others. Hey, it's a wiki, so if you have the spare time, you can add a template. I decided to model the graticules I made after Randall's Boston page, and noted:

• He didn't make it "Boston, MA" or "Boston, Massachusetts", just "Boston"; I think this was an unfortunate accident/precedent.
• A fellow added a graticule "next to" one of "mine" and used "my" template, which is cool, since the pages thus share some look-n-feel.

--UncleOp 13:35, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

My little piece of New England that I set up (Hartford, Connecticut, Providence, Rhode Island, Springfield, Massachusetts) all have the same look-n-feel but I agree that every graticule's page is a little unique. I come across some that are lacking but unless I may visit that graticule (and likewise don't mind keeping up with daily editing) I am not going to put in the effort to set up a graticule page that I will never have a committed interest in. The only thing that I think is important to be consistent between all of the graticule pages is the use of the graticule template so that there is easy maneuverability between local graticule pages and the area is easy to visualize with the map (and I have gone and added these to graticule pages that I may never visit myself). Beyond that I think the little idiosyncrasies that each graticule page has is sort of nice. It gives it local character. And to answer your real question of contact information...I have purposefully left off contact information thus far because I think that someone’s name shouldn't be listed until they have made a successful visit to that graticule at least once. Just my two cents. --KDinCT 15:06, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

ordering of European graticules

The ordering of the list of European graticules is all messed up. At the top it says it should be ordered west to east (and north to south), but it is slightly randomized now. Should it stick to the geographical ordering, or should we try to order it by country? (The latter could be difficult, since many graticules will cover land in more than one country.) MHD 10:08, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe someone's fixed it since you wrote, but the ordering is exactly right, right now - first in ascending order by longitude (i.e. West to East), then in descending order by latitude (i.e. North to South). AshleyMorton 15:02, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Length of Names

I think we need to put a bit of a cap on some names. The intention is that the graticules are named by the largest centre within them, though it's obviously legit (particularly in a mostly-rural area) to name them after some geographic feature ("Delmarva Peninsula" could clearly be a legit one, or "Isle of Lewis", or "Shikoku" - particularly if these names are more well-known than the town/city). However, some of the current names stretch on and on, listing far too much information - this will break (or at least bedn badly) several of the things that depend on names. AshleyMorton 15:02, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Naming conflicts

Although the official wording states that an Graticule is named after the ""City Name, Country" where "City Name" is the most major (by population) urban center contained within it.", this doesn't work in rural states where there is no urban center.

The best we can do in some spots of South Dakota is large towns, which is fine.

My question specifically, is, when we have a small town completely "within" the graticule, but have a larger town that barely dips into the graticule, which takes precedent?

Example: In the graticule (43, -97) in South Dakota, You'll see a tiny bit of Madison, SD (pop ~6,600) lands inside the graticule. The next largest town in the area is a tossup, but I believe Parkston is the next largest at ~1600. (Incidentally, Madison would not be the graticule name for (44, -97); that honor would fall to Watertown.)

Which should we use? Do we need an arbitration committee, or should I just pick Parkston and we refine the definition to be "urban center COMPLETELY contained within it"?

Full Disclosure: I do not live in this graticule. Anopheles 21:55, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I had some similar conflicts in Norway. For an example, see Kongsvinger East, Norway. (Yes, the name does mean "King's finger") You may have to use the Map locator, instead of the graticule, because when you're as far north as we are, the map doesn't fit in the box provided! I decided to name it after the larger "urban" centre (Statistics Norway defines any group above 200 people who live closely enough to be "urban"), because a) that's more likely to show up on Google Maps if you zoom out and b) people are more likely to be searching for the larger centre. However, I think there are perfectly good arguments for the other choice. In fact, there are places that have simply thrown it out the window, and named places after valleys, regions, or pairs of cities. I would suggest you either a) work it out with anyone else who cares (I arbitrarily decided that no one cared about Kongsvinger East yet), or do whatever you think sounds best. Have fun!AshleyMorton 22:20, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

There is another conflict I have been having with naming. Some large urban centers (for example, Tampa, Florida) fall about equally between two graticules. This is giving me a hell of a time trying to decide what to name each graticule (as one also contains another, slightly smaller if I'm correct, urban center of St. Petersburg and the other contains a number of smaller communities). Is there a convention established for this that I've overlooked or is this a new phenomenon? --Vocor 19:47, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I would go with "Tampa North, Florida" and "Tampa South, Florida", personally, but I could see arguments for something like "Tampa North / Spring Hill, Florida" and "Tampa South / St. Petersburg, Florida" (I don't know Florida geography at all - I just got those from the map.) AshleyMorton 10:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Number of active users

Regarding the link to the interactive map, the wiki states: "This map also tried to judge how many users are active in each graticule." However, I can't find any description of how this judgment is made. Can anyone tell me how this is calculated and/or add this info to the page? TheyCallHimB 04:41, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Currently, it just counts the number of User: links on the graticule page. That said, I'll probably change how that works sometime soon. Zigdon 14:54, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

One thing that might be valuable would be to distinguish between graticules that have only been named (redlinks) and ones that at least have a basic page. I know that creates three categories, but still... AshleyMorton 23:01, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I just am not seeing the value of naming graticules if they don't have actual pages... Zigdon 21:26, 8 June 2008 (UTC)