Talk:Main Page

Topics on this page which have clearly been handled or resolved can be found in the archives. When archiving a section of this Talk page, please say so in the edit summary here.

Due to repeated spam attacks on this wiki page, this page is editable by registered users only. Please log in and join us!

• Use Template:Graticule to generate a map of the graticule for graticule pages.
• Use Template:Meetup graticule to generate a map of a day's location for meetup/expedition pages.
• All scripts and implementations written for the Geohashing algorithm should be posted at Implementations. Any discussion on an implementation's bugs should be directed to Talk:Implementations.

Organization / automation questions

So, we now have date pages (2008-06-07), date-bound templates for the day's expedition images ({{Expedition Images/2008-06-07}}), categories for the day's meetups (Category:Meetup on 2008-06-07 -- not all of which have been 'created', even though most if not all are in use). We also have the "Recent and Upcoming Coordinates" and "Gallery of Recent Expeditions" sections on the front page. There are likely other daily-maintenance-type things I'm not aware of (archiving? Creation of the supercategories like Category:Meetup in 2008-06?).

I'd be more than willing to work on automating some/all of the above, if people are interested -- I know tjtrumpet2323 mentioned that he doesn't mind doing the manual update of the front-page coordinates, and that it would likely be handled by a template eventually (once the mediawiki daily coords implementation was done) anyway. I've been playing with api.php a bit recently, and most of the automation is reasonably simple. But I don't want to step on any toes (explicitly including rpm's, since I'm not sure how kindly he'll take to people running bots against the wiki).

Additionally: It would be trivial, once images are categorized by meetup date (very few are currently) to randomly swap out the pictures that have been picked for the day's Expedition Images. But this introduces the question of whether a second (editorial, not automatic) category should be created for "best of the day" to use as the pool (assuming the consensus is "automation is good", rather than "keep it editorial, like it already is"), instead of pictures like Image:2008-06-01_37_-121-Tapin-2.JPG.

Thoughts?

--Tapin 20:59, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to see a lot more automation done, and was considering writing my own bots to do some of it. But considering my other workload, I'm not sure when that will happen. One thing I'd be worried about is creating pages just to fill in the dates, without actually having content for them. Your comment about editorial content also stands - any bots should be willing to accept imposed content. Zigdon 21:57, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

The main reason pages such as Template:Expeditions/2008-06-12 exist is to allow inclusion on pages such as 2008-06. Now that the date pages pretty much only contained templated-in content, they're practically unnecessary. However, from a template-coding standpoint, Template:Date nav is easier to code when the page titles are simple, like 2008-06-12. Does anyone know if there's a way of transcluding (templating) pages in the Main namespace? (I have more thoughts on this section's topic as a whole, but have to leave for now.) --Tim P 15:40, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

You can transclude anything, not just templates. Use {{:Main Page}} to transclude the main page, for example. Mike.lifeguard 00:26, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Mike.lifeguard. I didn't realise the colon notation extended to transclusion. I think when I create the date pages for the weekend in a few hours' time, I'll just create YYYY-MM-DD pages and not bother with Template:Expeditions/YYYY-MM-DD. I'd be willing to go back through the three weeks of pages and move data around... as well as to clean up the includes... seeing how I did 90% of them to begin with. Any thoughts? --Tim P 06:00, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

This is a year-old question but I've never seen this answer given, and I think it might be a good compromise between automatic selection of unsuitable images and frequent adventurers hogging the front page. When uploading pictures, add something like a Nominated for front page category to your showpiece picture, and the automation randomly displays no more than one such nominated picture from each expedition for any given date. -Robyn 15:57, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Automated Transclusion Implemented

I did some automating/optimising stuff over the weekend. The Template:Expeditions/YYYY-MM-DD pages are to be completely discontinued from 17 June, as meetups are now included on the date pages themselves (YYYY-MM-DD, e.g., 2008-06-16). I even went back and copied stuff over for continuity's sake. As far as the image gallery templates go, I automated a template/script to show the current (UTC) day and the three prior for use on Main Page. It uses the new syntax {{Expedition Images|YYYY-MM-DD}} which includes Template:Expedition Images/YYYY-MM-DD (note the slash), along with the appropriate header (based on page context) if the template exists, or a "start this gallery"-type message if it doesn't. It also provides a "direct edit" link to the template from the date pages. --Tim P 05:53, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Thoughts? You may note that I opted not to provide a "direct edit" link in instances where {{Expedition Images|YYYY-MM-DD}} are transcluded on Main Page, more so out of fear of the page's visibility than anything. I suppose that most potential spambots would give up on the write-protected page and not follow any "direct edit" link we'd put right on that page, but you never know. I would be perfectly willing to put such a link back into the template if consensus deems wise (i.e., people agree here) or if convention deems necessary (i.e., people get fed up with hunting for an edit link). My initial fears could be totally ridiculous, and I'm totally willing to admit that. --Tim P 05:53, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I like it very much, awesome effort sir. The 'add your own photo' is pretty clearly findable on the YYYY-MM-DD pages. If that is not enough, then a comment in the source on the Main_Page directing people appropriately should be the next step IMHO. See how it fares? :) --Nemo 11:12, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Only current thought now... the automatic 'start the gallery' link means the previous days gallery (with the heklpful comments) don't get copied over... I wonder if people are just more likely to blindly start a gallery now rather than copy the comment hints too? I don't think think content can be automated into there though can it? May not be a problem anyway, wait and see? --Nemo 11:17, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

This isn't a show stopper, but I just discovered a timing point. We here in the east side of the 30W rule have pics for today already uploaded (8:20am local time, 17th June), but it's still 40minutes before UTC rolls over to the 17th and the frontpage gets the 'create a gallery for the 17th' type link. No biggie, it just limits our bragging rights! ;P --Nemo 22:30, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Because of the limited number of morning-time meetups, I figured that 00:00 UTC was still a reasonable time to switch over because, as Template:Recent Images says, it's "reasonably mid-day for the easternmost time zones," i.e., 12:00 or 13:00 in New Zealand depending on DST. Not to mention, it's immensely easier to program a switch at 00:00 UTC than at any other time on this wiki. Photos uploaded to the designated gallery before 00:00 UTC still get to be at the top of the images section for a full 24 hours, so yeah, it really isn't a big deal. --Tim P 18:33, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

yup. I was just being needlessly pedantic. ;) However, I do have a thought - thuogh don't know if it's possible. At the moment it displays the last 4 days, but in fact it seems more often than not, when I see it the currentday gallery is still waiting for the first image - so we only see three days. Can you check for the existance of the CURRENTDAY gallery - and if it doesn't exist, then also include CURRENTDAY -4 days. That way we get 4 days of actual pictures at all times (which I think works best, imho 3 is a little too small a showcase through the week). The -4days gallery automatically rolls off then not at 00:00UTC, but when the currentday gallery is created... :) --Nemo 00:15, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

DONE and IMPLEMENTED. See Template:Recent Images for specifics. Great idea, Nemo. --Tim P 03:54, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

There is a problem with the pages that show links to the expeditions by month: 2008-08 --Hermann 20:41, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

re-organise the frontpage

I'd like to propose that now that geohashing is a few months mature in the wider internet, that the need to explain what it is in detail on the top of the front page of the wiki is diminished.

My humble opinion is that most people hitting the front wiki now are familiar with geohashing, or if new (less likely after that post-announcement rush), are more likely to be able to find detailed info after an initial introduction.

So how about a frontpage reorganise with this all in mind? Currently, the front page TOC looks like

1. What is this?
2. How it works
   1. Official xkcd meetups
   2. Unofficial invitations
3. Active Graticules
4. Implementations
5. Recent and Upcoming Coordinates
6. Gallery of Recent Expeditions
7. Known Issues
8. FAQ
9. Related Projects

I propose that it be reformatted to something closer to these lines...

1. What is this?
2. Who, Where, When and How?
3. Recent and Upcoming Coordinates
4. Gallery of Recent Expeditions
5. FAQ

In this layout, 'how it works', 'official' and 'unofficial', 'active graticules' and 'implementations' would all be summarised to one smaller section of 'who, where, when and how'. Known issues should be linked merely as a FAQ question (maybe the first one). Finally, 'Related Projects' would be a link to, rather than inclusion of, the community portal.

It'd probably be worth mocking up an actual example, but not for me at 1am... :)

Further thoughts? (obviously what I'm proposing is a rather major change to the wiki navigation, so please, nobody make any such changes till there has been a chance for fair objections to be discussed. --Nemo 15:15, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I do think that much of the boilerplate can be cut down and/or farmed out to links, e.g., the FAQ (though I haven't done that in my prototype, it could certainly be added). Quite frankly, I think that just about everything static on Main Page should be transcluded anyway, if it's not going to change much. That way, people wouldn't have to deal with the formatting code on any new Main Page.

I'd been thinking of this for a while, and have a Wikipedia-like prototype (with a tad bit of out-of-date content) at User:Tjtrumpet2323/sandbox/Main Page (actually most of the code is taken straight from their Main Page). Please leave comments on my prototype at its talk page, while leaving comments on the general idea of reorganisation here. Thanks! --Tim P 15:49, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Having only heard positive feedback thusfar, if I hear no further discussion, I intend to replace Main Page with an up-to-date User:Tjtrumpet2323/sandbox/Main Page on Friday 11 July at some time between 13:00 and 16:00 UTC. If you have any suggestions for improvements to the layout of the prototype, please let me know on its talk page. --Tim P 03:27, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

What stopped this happening? Your proposed front page looks awesome, I hope you implement it soon. --Kieran 10:48, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I think there were problems with the server being slow at the time. I might go back through and try to merge the information from the current Main Page with my sandbox version, and re-propose the change. But I don't think that's really quite necessary anymore. --Tim P 02:42, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

problem with iPhone version

Here in Lisbon, Portugal, the iPhone version always gives the same coordinates in the midle of the ocean:

LAT: 38.557176 LONG: -9.228286

Does this happens to someone else, in some other place?

Yes, this also happens on my iPhone - Scottkuma 14:18, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I have been using the iPhone app to attempt to geohash over the past week whilst away on holidays with no internet access, but have just discovered that this app almost always yields a completely different set of co-ordinates to the Peeron version online. Can anyone shed any light on this? --CJ 22:32, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Degrees of Separation

I meet geohashers from my graticule and nearby ones, and they meet geohashers from ones near them in the other direction, and so on. It would be cool if there were a tool to see how many degrees of separation existed between any two geohashers. Just an idea. -Robyn 19:05, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

It would probably be pretty close to actual physical "degrees" of separation between graticules, unless you have a lot of people travelling! --Tim P 04:09, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I know of geohashers from two North American graticules heading to Germany, a German one gong to Chile and another German one who regularly goes to Finland. Maybe it's about your physical separation from Germany. :-). -Robyn 04:33, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

And one who went to Germany recently :) Go intercontinental geohashers! --Thomcat 13:59, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Geohashing around the world

I am about to go backpacking in Europe for a couple of months and I have been pondering as to how best Geohash around the world.

My first thought is that I will be flying half way around the world and I figure that there must be some chance of flying over a hash point! Can anyone think of a way I could log my journey and check it against the graticules? Or is there another way of doing it?

If you have a GPS that's only a GPS - so, no phone or other device with a sender - the airline will probably allow you to operate it on the plane. You could then check the tracklog against the actual coordinate fractions. But do ask, because the stewards may mistake it for a phone and cause trouble on the way. And don't forget the fractions will change when crossing the 30W line.

Of course, if you don't tell anybody, you might just log the whole flight. It works best with an external antenna (so that you can turn it right face up) sticking out of your front seat pocket, close to the window. see -> http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=44569 -- relet 13:12, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Also, I was wondering if anyone knows if my GPS will work in Europe or if I need to download something else to make it work? It is a Garmin 60.

The only technical differences between an american version and an european version of a Garmin GPS are the maps included (if any) and, with some models, the language support. Your GPS will need some time to recalibrate when first switched on after the flight but that's all of it. There are plenty of people in Germany who use american versions, as until a few months ago Garmin sold them much cheaper in the US than here.

Thank you, and I am look forward to finding random spots overseas! Kate 12:04, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

If you know your plans long enough in advance, don't forget to announce them - there might be a chance for a real meetup :) --Ekorren 12:33, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Seconded. -- relet 13:12, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

When I fly, I get the coordinates of the day and then just keep updating the number before the decimal point to see if I'm going to hit the next one. You won't be allowed to use your electronic GPS receiver for takeoff and landing, but in cruise, you can see if it will work. It may or may not. (I sit in the front and have a wider view of the sky). If it has a mode to record tracks you could painstakingly go through the data afterwards, but the chance of getting right on a point is pretty small. Unless, that is, you meet the flight crew before hand and manage to sell them on the geohashing concept. Just make sure you're not misinterpreted as trying to hijack the plane. "Take this plane to N23°03'59.29", W82°15'20.45"!" -Robyn 12:42, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Wow, Cuba! I think I'll be in serious trouble if the flight from Sydney to London ends up there!! Kate 13:24, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Your GPS will receive satellite signals and calculate position anywhere in the world (it will take a while to figure it out after travelling so far, though) but if it shows roads and points of interest on the screen, and you use those, you may need to download local maps for it.

Edit conflict -- someone else has already answered while I was typing, but I'll add this anyway. -Robyn 12:42, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

The chance of getting a hashpoint in random flight is not that small for Kate. The 10 arc seconds rule for an air geohash leads to a 1:360 chance for every graticule crossed. From Sydney to e.g. London it is 150° longitude and 85° latitude, i.e. the chance of reaching a hashpoint is more than 50% on the flight. (It could be >95% if enough people would support my proposal here, because I've been having the GPS-logger-on-a-plane-idea for a long time. /end advertising). - Danatar 13:17, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm back from over seas, but I found that my GPS did not work at all. I tried it in the UK, in France, Germany, all over Europe, in cities and in the country and it couldn't find any satellites. Perhaps there was an international button I needed to press? It has worked perfectly back in Australia again--Kate 20:10, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh noes! I am quite curious about possible explanations. -- relet 20:15, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The only explanation I could think of is that it failed to do a cold restart. When travelling for more than a few hundred km with a switched-off GPS, it needs to reinitialize from start like when first switched on. There's a technical reason for that based in the kind of signal the satellites send. In such a case, my old GPS (a first generation Garmin Etrex) first seems to find no satellites (it actually tries to get rid of some supposed measuring error), then, after several minutes of no fix, notices that something doesn't sum up from the saved values and asks whether I moved for a longer distance. If I reply with "yes", it forgets everything and starts reinitialization. Maybe you just didn't wait long enough and switched it off again before it could adapt itself to Europe? --Ekorren 20:44, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

No, good try, but that can't be it- I left it turned on for 2 hours in the outskirts of London one day (and it was 'searching' the whole time. --Kate 21:43, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Map links

Lately, the map links always seem to come up showing Massachusetts, no matter what place the links were intended to go to. Dtobias 06:03, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

IIRC I heard something about Google changing their API, and no one has fixed the calculator yet. --The ru 08:12, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Main page restructure

Right now (January 2009) we're rearranging some of the "static" pages, including the main page. It might seem a bit confusing at first, but we think the end result will be an improvement for both new users and regulars. If you disagree with anything we've done, post here, join #geohashing or just change it for the better! --The ru 15:24, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the main page rearrange, but I don't think the quotes (except maybe the one about enjoying it pointlessly) and the hall of amazingness belong in How it Works. Maybe a highlights page off the main page? -Robyn 08:47, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I'd like to see the quotes (randomly rotating,either auto or manually) on the front page, in the very top section under "welcome to the geohashing wiki" as they really give a feel for the game. Any thoughts? -- UnwiseOwl 01:18, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Auto doesn't look like it's going to happen (discussion is on my talk page). It'll at least make people laugh at how insane we all are. --joannac 02:22, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

That's enough for me. Implemented. -- UnwiseOwl 02:44, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

My Vision of the Future

I'm poking around today, putting categories on photos, linking expeditions to their proper graticule and user pages, and creating expedition pages from rough notes on graticule pages. Some people don't want to do all this post expedition, and I don't really blame them. I envision an expedition upload form that does all this automatically. You tell it the date and graticule of the expedition and the names of the participants, you give it a list of pictures to upload and fill in the text of the report, then boom, everything is linked and categorized. You could enter all your expedition text on the upload form, or you could go back and edit the graticule, user or expedition pages the normal way. As you uploaded your photographs there could even be a checkbox to 'nominate this photo for the main page gallery'. If fewer than 4/8/12 photos were so nominated all would display, and if more, they could be chosen randomly, or weighted for users or graticules that hadn't had a photo in the gallery lately.

Is this possible? Is this an incredible amount of work? -Robyn 21:24, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

• I like your vision! It takes me forever to upload all the things and get all the links right. Then lovely people still have to come along behind me and clean up! --Kate 21:44, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I think a wiki is not set up for that kind of thing - the whole point of a wiki is that you can edit every little bit of it. Maybe someone can write a front-end page that will generate everything in proper wikicode format, which you can then cope and paste? I'm not sure if wiki code allows such interactivity.

It's a simple enough website to write - I could probably do it if I didn't have a report due soon. --joannac 21:58, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh I didn't want to limit anyone's ability to edit every little thing. It's just a front-end indeed that I wanted. Copy and paste would do one page. -Robyn 22:06, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

You want a template. Like perhaps {{expedition}}. Anthony 21:49, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Template:Expedition is definitely heading along the path towards that future. It replaces what generic cut and paste text, but the template still doesn't cross reference the expedition, and the template isn't the path of least resistance for the new geohasher who wants to show off his or her expedition without doing all that wiki stuff. Or the old geohasher who wants to upload the stuff and go to bed after a five hour expedition. I'm the one who harps on this and I forgot to link some of my expeditions into their respective graticule pages. It's a lot to do after biking or wading through swamps all day. Also while Template:Expedition is remarkably easy to use, at first glance it appears to be something complicated you have to know what to do with. I'm not sure a new geohasher would really start with it. I've not caught many using it (you can tell when people are using it, because the first save creates weird categories) who aren't experienced geowiki users. -Robyn 22:10, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I suppose it is technically possible, although I am already in my pyj... er... I mean, it could be done, yes. But getting it all to function reliably (have a remote website upload an image to the wiki, stuff like that) and wrap it in an HTML form that's simple enough not to scare off newbies, but also flexible enough so anyone other than newbies would want to use it... that's going to take a lot of work, and I guess it would still be used only very rarely. Also, graticule and user pages don't have a standardised layout, so the envisioned Geohash Expedition Report Wizard would have to guess where to put in the links. The template isn't very useful either, imo... I just reuse the wikicode from a previous expedition. If newbies can't be bothered to read and follow the excellent expedition writeup guidelines, I think I don't want to read their reports ;-) --dawidi 22:58, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I thought that it would hurl the links into a standardly named section. On graticule pages and userpages where no one cared they would just stay there, and where people cared they would rearrange them according to their preferences. I might not want to read their reports, but I'd like to have easily findable evidence that they went. -Robyn 23:11, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

It could even be implemented in some kind of {{auto expedition}} Template. What I am thinking of is to extend Template:Expedition with some pointers to the pages where you would like to cross-link your expedition. They would appear as dead red links, until you actually edit them. -- relet 23:19, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah! Or normal blue/purple links if they exist. That's in line with my vision. -Robyn 23:22, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm so confused...

This is a great idea, but I'm confused. How do people meet up when everyone's coords are different? Is there one specific location for each graticule that is used each time? Also, is there a calculator somewhere I can use?

The fractional part of everyone's coordinates are the same - that means that people in an area of 1 degree latitude x 1 degree longitude can meet up. That's what we call a graticule. There's a map which shows the graticules and the hash for any given date here. Just zoom to your area and click - a pink square should show up with the location for today. It's the same for everyone in this area. HTH, -- relet 09:20, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

New User Comments

Wade says he finds the wiki very confusing. He wants My Home Graticule to be a navigation box link, with the home graticule set in User preferences. It's actually incredibly diffiult for a new user to answer the question, "is anyone doing anything in my city on Saturday?" Try it, knowing nothing, and just clicking on links that look promising. Is there a way to have any expedition for today or a future date with the Expedition planning category to automatially be linked to the current events page? -Robyn 05:34, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

You could link to the Category:Expedition Planning on Current Events. Unfortunately, you can't include categories into the page text itself. -- relet 19:59, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately that category is often dominated by planned but never attended meetups, so would not give a good picture. It's not so bad now, as Joannac just did a cleanout, but definitely wasn't the clean "what's going on in my neighbourhood?" answer he wanted. -Robyn 04:29, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't clean out many planning expedition. They're all sitting there pending further discussion. Also, it's not ingrained for people to actually create a page before they go, yet. --joannac 06:39, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Coordinate History

Just curious if there's a page that lists every official Geohash coordinate since the start (2008-05-21)? If so, it'd be neat if that page could then be templated to a particular graticule, and going further, taking all those points and mapping them to see where every Geohash in your graticule has occurred. I'm pretty sure I could create the list of official coordinates as well as a templated version to add the graticule and corresponding map links, but I wouldn't know how to take all the coordinates and map them into one view of the graticule. Thoughts? --Wenslayer 05:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Argh, sorry, just found Talk:Main Page/Archive 3#Complete list of historical locations including link to Geohashing historical data [amipsychic.net]. --Wenslayer 06:13, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Check it out: User:Wenslayer/KMLGenerator. --Wenslayer 08:15, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

IRC Chat

Anyone think it would be a good idea to drop this link: Join Geohashing chat now in the main page? Mibbit is an irc chat over http, doesn't require a java applet to be installed etc.