Category talk:Split cities

Check out Adelaide, Australia, it has a pretty solid layout that I blatantly stole for Twin Cities, Minnesota. Redsai 21:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

PROPOSAL: Split the split city graticule pages.

I would like to propose the following:

To transform the aggregated split city graticule pages into separate graticule pages.
To create separate pages for communities or cities which wish to do a joint planning or have a joint activity report.

Cross-graticule communities may then decide to include the content of the joint planning/activity report page on all graticule pages in question (you can do this with regular pages just as you can do with templates), or alternatively to just set up a link to their community and a note which points interested people in the right direction. Content from active split city pages can be moved to the joint page.

I propose this mainly for the following reasons:

Split city pages are not automatically maintained in the case of (formally or factually) inactive graticules.
The split city approach stems from a time when there were few active graticules which usually were hosting a single community. I think it is time to separate these concepts.

Votes

support, oppose, needs work, and a short comment please.

support (ftr) -- relet 11:55, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
support --Ekorren 12:11, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
support - Danatar 13:01, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Somewhere between support and DNO --aperfectring 13:13, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Needs work -Srs0 14:24, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Comments

your ideas, rants and questions here

I never saw much sense in combining several graticule pages into one only because there was a city which has parts in both. There usually are lots of towns which get "incorporated" into those combined pages although they are not part of the split city. E.g. there is totally no sense in combining Lübeck and Rotenburg/Wümme into one page, is there? Geohashing is about coordinates and graticules, and not about cities, anyway. So, it might be convenient for a city community to have one combined page, but it's totally against the systematics and, IMHO, also slightly against the spirit of geohashing, and it's totally dumb for the parts of the graticules which are not even close to the city in question. --Ekorren 12:11, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Same here. I live near a graticule border and my city has a part in the graticule east of it, but the graticules have different names and it works fine that way. When I plan to visit a hashpoint e.g. in the eastern graticule, I note it on that graticule's page. If somebody is interested in visiting a certain graticule, he/she can watch that graticule's page and will find the note that way. People from the graticule border on the western side of my graticule will probably not be interested in hashpoints to the east and won't watch that page. That way they won't be bothered by any "graticule page has been changed" emails; If there was only one common page for both graticules, every second expedition would be too far away (= more than 1°) for them to go. - Danatar 13:01, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

First off, I agree with you two. However, there are some cities which are particularly badly affected by being split, e.g. Denver, Colorado. Personally, I could see them splitting it into 2 and I think 4 is overkill in that case, but with the southern 2 graticules of the Denver split, the city is quite evenly cut into two parts. I can definitely see why people in Denver would want to have a single page for planning purposes, but the northern two graticules don't seem to me like they belong in that joint city. I wouldn't go so far as to say that having a split-city page is against the spirit of geohashing in and of itself, but how they are currently used does seem a little against the spirit, in that they tend to be used solely to get the closest point, which will usually end up in the city itself. Having only split-city pages definitely does alienate the far reaches of the graticules involved when a point is always chosen because of its proximity to the city center. My opinion is that split-city geohashers should have normal graticule pages, with the list of residents, and list of expeditions in that graticule. They can combine planning for a set of graticules on another page (I don't think this really solves the problem), or on one of the graticule pages (my preference), and provide a link to where planning goes on. Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, British Columbia are good examples of how to do the latter. I think a split-city approach to planning only would be fine if it wasn't primarily used to go to the easiest/nearest point. --aperfectring 13:13, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

To make this discussion more public, it should be placed in Template:New on the wiki --aperfectring 13:34, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I put in some dividers since my response is quite long...

I agree that a large number of "split cities", such as Würzburg (for Danatar and I) are best dealt with as two individual graticules, but I don't think that applies everywhere. I also agree that Vancouver should remain as "Vancouver" and "Surrey". However, there are some graticules where it doesn't make sense. Calgary is one example. In fact, we recently had a vote on the naming of the four graticules, but it was decided to leave them as Calgary NW, NE, SE, and SW.

The downtown portion of the city is in all four graticules, and there has been recent expansion (especially NE) that's not fully shown on google maps. I'd estimate that the divisions are:

NW: 40% of Calgary
NE: 15% of Calgary
SE: 15% of Calgary
SW: 30% of Calgary

The idea of switching to any of the other towns in the area was decided against as there are no other large towns. The largest one is in the NW graticule, which is the largest chunk of Calgary.

Now you may say that's just naming, and fine, leave the four graticules as NW/NE/SE/SW, but split them all to their own pages. Again, due to the location, this doesn't make much sense. Calgary is the only major population center in a large area, and all the other notable-sized towns are outskirts of Calgary itself, and are thus located nearby. Calgary isn't even that large land-wise, and the large majority of the four graticules is farmland. Anyone geohashing in Calgary is likely to look at all four graticules already. As such it makes more sense for any expeditions in the area to be displayed at one location for all four quadrants.

I do believe that most split cities should become multiple pages, but I also believe that there are exceptions. Calgary being one, and the one I'm most familiar with, hence why I'm using it as an example. Addressing the previous comments:

Ekorren:
- Yes, it's about coordinates. It's also about meeting people though, and you're a lot more likely to meet people in Calgary if you announce an expedition to the city instead of a small portion of it.
- Even in Würzburg I'll go to the neighbouring graticule (Bamberg) if it makes more sense. Maybe the Würzburg one is farther, but it might also be in an area that appears to be inaccesible, or no-tresspassing, or the like. There are many reasons, but the fact remains that I'm going to coordinates in a different graticule. Is that against the spirit of geohashing too? Yes, some people will undoubtedly use it to just go to the shortest geohash every time, but that's their choice. Again, using my example, it's still uncommon to have a hashpoint inside Calgary, even if you include all four graticules.
Danatar:
- A good point, and it makes a lot of sense somewhere like in Germany where there are lots of towns. However, in Alberta, most of the area is farmland or unused or the like, and the population centers, like Calgary, are where you'll find people. Anyone interested in geohashes in any of the four graticules is almost assuredly (though not necessarily) either from Calgary, its suburbs, or another city in a neighbouring graticule. The closest neighbouring city would be Red Deer, Banff, or Lethbridge, all three of which are approximately 0.5° from the border of any of the four Calgary graticules. As such, the large, large majority of people conducting geohashes in any of those four graticules will be from Calgary (assuming normal statistics). As such, watching one page for all four graticules is easier than all four individually.
APR:
- As I mentioned at some point above, it's still unlikely to get a point in Calgary even with all four graticules. The four graticules are more likely to be used for finding a hashpoint that's not in the middle of a gigantic field (good luck, the graticules are mostly farms), or in the case of the SW graticule, remotely accessible (as the Rocky Mountains take up around 50% of the graticule).
- I do agree that most people will use it to simply get the closest point or get points only in the city, but the same people will do that regardless of if the four graticules have on page or not. Splitting the city into separate pages isn't going to remove that result.

I know that I probably sound like a jerk right now, but I just want to point out that some cities, in my opinion, should be left as split cities. I do agree that most should probably be split, but I think that what's proposed is overkill. There are some cities, like my now overused example of Calgary, that will function much better as a split city.

Before anyone points it out, I know Calgary is inactive. In fact, I hope to take some virgin graticules over the winter break there. However, just because it's currently inactive doesn't mean it will stay that way (Edmonton has got a few people recently), and there's no need to make it confusing for new people too. If I was new to geohashing, I'd look for my city by searching for "Calgary". I'd also expect all four to be displayed, as there's a substantial chunk of the city in each of the four graticules.

All that said, I'm open to other suggestions. I just don't think the current proposal would work in every case. Wow, I think I wrote too much. -Srs0 14:24, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. No, it's not too much. :) I'm just not sure that my proposal has been clear. The idea would be to have the graticule pages named Calgary NW/NE/SE/SW as the graticules are named now. But to split off the whole planning part to a community page (containing categories like "Active geohashers", "Official Meetup" etc. - possibly another category "Planned expeditions") to a joint page (possibly named Calgary, Alberta as you have it now - which may then be included (as in a template) into the others, or just linked to, as you prefer).

I don't mind leaving a few pages as split cities if we should reach that conclusion. I am just hoping we can find a solution that's viable for all graticules and the people that live therein. -- relet 14:41, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Category talk:Split cities

Contents

Split Cities Templates

PROPOSAL: Split the split city graticule pages.

Votes

Comments