Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mountains/Archive 3

message: Hello,
Some time ago I was inspired by Wikipedia and a few other hiking sites
to create Hikipedia - a wiki entirely focused
on hiking trails.  I need your help in making it the best place for
sharing information about hiking trails.  Could you please visit 
the site and then give me some feedback about it?
 
I am especially looking for actionable feedback that I could use
to improve site's engine and site's content.  
Would you consider submitting a trail to Hikipedia?
Why?  Why not?  Can I do something that would change your mind?
Would you contribute by submitting a photo?  A trail report?
Voting for trail's difficulty?
Do you think that putting the content into public domain is a good idea?
Do you think that I should add or improve handling of some trail-specific metadata?
Please post your feedback either here, on Wikipedia 
or use the feedback page
on Hikipedia.
Your feedback will help me greatly in building the site.
Let me tell you in a few words, why I think there is a place
for Hikipedia and why it might be better suited than Wikipedia for building
a free database of hiking trails.  If you disagree with some
of my opinions, then please by all means reply with your
contrarguments.  
First of all, Hikipedia is built around trail
metadata - it can use that metadata to automatically embed
weather report (via accuweather.com), 
to provide driving directions to the trailhead (via google.com),
to search for trails using the metadata (i.e. one can search
for easy to moderate trails within 100 miles from Seattle, WA).
There are links to topo maps of the trail, to nearby
geocaches and to nearby trails.
In a separate section I can list guidebooks that include
the trail together with a picture of frontpages (via amazon.com).
Additionally Hikipedia puts all its content in public domain,
which makes it easy to legally republish the content 
in short publications like guesthouse handouts or hiking club posters - something that cannot be said about
Wikipedia (as discussed on 
WikiTravel
)
Currently Wikipedia has advantage over Hikipedia in
an ownership structure.  Wikipedia is sponsored by a non-profit foundation,
where Hikipedia (at least its engine) is owned by me.
Nevertheless Wikipedia also started as a one-man project
and I hope that putting Hikipedia content into public domain
will ensure everyone that I am not here to steal your work,
but to share trail information with the rest of the hiking community.
I plan to put google adsense textual advertisments on the site
at one point, but it won't happen anytime soon - I am in the US
on a H1b visa and currently it would be illegal for me to earn
money from any other source than my primary employee
(and with the current low trafic the hosting costs are still affordable for me).
Please share your thoughts and comments, so I can improve Hikipedia.
Thank you for your time,
Regards,
Lukasz Anforowicz
PS. Disclaimer and apologies for readers that are not in the USA:
Hikipedia uses US-specific information for weather reports and finding nearest town,
so it cannot be used for storing hiking information about trails outside the US.
Anforowicz 03:00, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hikipedia 

message: It would be nice if the fields in  were made optional, as they are in , so that information such as translation or pronunciation doesn't have to be included if it's irrelevant. Is anyone able to do the necessary work? I'm afraid that kind of thing is a bit of a mystery to me. I'd ask Locke Cole but he seems to be on an extended wikibreak at the moment. -- Blisco 19:21, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox british hills double 

message: I've begun adding articles for the various huts maintained by the Alpine Club of Canada, along with links to near-by mountains and features.  The most recent addition, the Elizabeth Parker hut, has been nominated for deletion, with a suggestion to merge into the main ACC page.  If we do this with all 24 huts, it'll make for a very long single article; I'd prefer to keep one article per hut but I can only do one or two articles a day.  If anyone's interested in expressing some support for inclusionism, now would be a good time to speak up. Oh, and check :Category:Mountain huts in Canada for what I've added so-far.  Thanks!  :-)     --ghoti 03:06, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alpine huts in Canada 

message: I'm interested in creating a proposal for a WikiProject devoted to volcanoes, which can be a descendant to your WikiProject. I'm not sure if I can propose it, though because I'm what you Wikipedians call anons. Also, I might need someone from this WikiProject to create the initial page for my proposed WikiProject, since I might be restricted from creating a WikiProject, so can I propose a Volcano WikiProject even though I'm an anonymous user?74.225.117.237 17:13, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just a question: why not register a username? It would be hard to contribute significantly to a new project as an anonymous user, and your credibility would be low. It's relatively painless to sign up ;) -- Spireguy 03:55, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Wikipedia:WikiProject Volcanoes was launched on March 17, 2007.  Cheers.  --Seattle Skier (talk) 10:06, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Descendant WikiProject Proposal 

message: The Jim Haberl hut has been nominated for deletion.  It's one of the 25-odd mountain huts in Canada for which I'm gradually writing articles.  I believe this particular hut has sufficient notability to warrant an article, but deletions here are based on democratic process, not verifiable objective criteria.  The hut is one of a collection, and *has* been written about in external references.  Do folks here think we should have articles on huts?  Also, should articles be deleted simply because they're about new things?  If you have an opinion, PLEASE express it on the hut's AfD page.  ◉ ghoti 18:52, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opinions wanted on an AfD 

message: For some reason (which I don't understand),  now points exclusively at Google Maps. This doesn't have much value for mountains: you usually can't see a mountain peak on the Satellite view, and never on the Street Map view.
So, now Geolinks are really vital: if we want to link to topo maps, we have to use our own Geolinks templates.
I urge all project participants to now use , and as ghoti says above, we should extend it to other countries, too.
Does anyone know what happened to coor dms? Later: apparently, the web host that coor dms points to is broken, see Template talk:coor dms
hike395 08:22, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A replacement web site has been created, so the urgency on using the geolinks template is reduced. However, now I believe that coor dms is fragile, so I see the utility in the geolinks template. hike395 20:35, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Geolinks template now urgently needed 

message: I have a question about categories.  I noticed that "Category:Volcanoes of Oregon" is a subcategory of "Category:Mountains of Oregon". It is my understanding that it is undesirable to use both of these categories in the same article since one is a subset of the other. What I did was remove the category "Category:Mountains of Oregon" from most of the articles about volcanoes.  Was I right in doing this.  If not I'll go back and fix things. --Droll 08:24, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Keeping volcanoes and mountains separate is correct, I think, but then I thought this 2 years ago, also hike395 03:17, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categories 

message: I have noticed that when using Template:geolinks-US-mountain the link resulting for TopoZone.com yields a result which interprets the input coordinates as being NAD27. I have been entering coordinates based on NAD83/WGS84 for North America based on Wikipedia:WikiProject Geographical coordinates#Geodetic system which says that "All coordinates should be referenced to WGS84, or an equivalent datum". I could easily modifying the template if there is no objection. I think this is the proper place to discuss this since the template relates to mountains. --Droll 10:27, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, this sounds like the right thing to do. hike395 01:54, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  TopoZone.com map coordinates? 

message: I recently created an article, Pinkham Notch, about a mountain pass in New Hampshire. Is there an infobox I can use? If not, can someone help me make or find one? Its an FA candidate, and could use one. Feel free to fix it up while you're there. -- Sturgeonman 16:23, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Mountain Pass infobox

message: I am curious if anyone knows why the Template:Coor dms is posted at the upper right, on the title line of every Mountain article...seems silly when we already have the coordinates in the infobox...if anyone knows how to fix this or can tell me how, let me know. Thanks.--MONGO 15:57, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I just reverted Template:Infobox Mountain Pass to the previous version before the redundant coordinates were added. Nationalparks 18:38, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

text: And now they are out of Template:Infobox Mountain as well. Nationalparks 18:40, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Coordinates in two places

message: I added a description to Virginia State Route 16, and it appears there are two mountains named Brushy Mountain that it crosses. But only the second one is in the USGS database. Can someone help me determine if the one between Sugar Grove and Marion, along which the Appalachian Trail runs, has another name? This can be seen here, including the name. Thank you. --NE2 20:14, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Topozone.com shows a Brushy Mountain there, in the middle of that clump of mountains between Marion and Sugar Grove.  It appears to be the mountain over which the Appalachian Trail runs.  But yea, the USGS GNIS database doesn't seem to list it.  Odd since the maps in topozone.com are USGS maps.  I'd go with the maps over the GNIS database.  GNIS seems to have more gaps.  Also, the DeLorme topo-atlas of Virginia, while it doesn't name Brushy Mountain there (has no name at all for the main ridge with the Appalachian Trail on it), it does name "Brushy Mountain Road" right there.  There are so many Brushy Mountains in the central/southern Appalachians, I wouldn't be surprised if GNIS missed a few.  I can't keep track of them all myself, that's for sure! Pfly 20:39, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How would you disambiguate this? The one further north (just north of SR 42) is longer and more major, being shown on road maps like the VDOT transportation map. --NE2 20:50, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Are they in different counties? We've done things like XXX Mountain (YYY County, Virginia) and XXX Mountain (ZZZ County, Virginia). hike395 00:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Both of them enter Smyth County. --NE2 00:47, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The larger Brushy Mountain is the largest Brushy Mountain in Virginia, isn't it?  It crosses a bunch of counties, I think.  Perhaps it could be called "Brushy Mountain (Virginia)", if it really is the largest and most important.  Then others could be given county names.  Or the large one could be given the full list of counties it is part of, although that might get unwieldy.  Also, there is the question of whether smaller Brushy Mountains, like the one in southern Smyth County, will ever get a page on wikipedia.  Isn't it relatively small and not very notable?  Maybe it doesn't need a link to a page that isn't there anyway.  Just some thoughts. Pfly 01:15, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Figuring out the name of a mountain

message: Mount St. Helens is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality.  Sandy (Talk) 03:17, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Mount St. Helens]]

message: Template: has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. RedWolf 06:52, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  TfD nomination of Template:{{ucfirst:Infobox US mountain }} 

message: I've set up a WikiProject British hills for all the hills and mountains of Great Britain (with scope for it to be renamed "British and Irish hills" if there's enough interest in that direction). There's plenty of work going on in these articles at the moment with very little collaboration or coordination, and I think a new project with a relatively narrow scope should help focus efforts. Please consider signing up if you have any interest or involvement in the area! --Blisco 00:01, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Descedant project: [[Wikipedia:WikiProject British hills|WikiProject British hills]] 

message: Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory.  This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you.  B2T2 14:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Project directory 

message: See the discussion at Template talk:Infobox Mountain. Thanks! hike395 10:32, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add Google maps to {{tl|Infobox Mountain}}? 

message: Yes, wikiproject Climbing is back up! We're going to be working with you guys on mountain related articles, and we'd appreciate your help on climbing related articles as well! Check it out at WP:CLIMB.⇒ SWATJester Ready  Aim  Fire! 06:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  WP:Climbing is back 

message: Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 19:54, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia Day Awards 

message: Hi; I saw User:Hike395's change on Rocky Mountains of the highest summit from metric to imperial; OK, OK, the range's highpoint is in the US, and so imperial is used there, but the standard on Canadian summits/articles is metric.  Is there an established Wikipedia or Mountains Project standard for this?  Always strange to see an American use the term "imperial", too (in Canada, the old imperial volume units were VERY different, as were the weights).Skookum1 01:39, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You can see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Units of measurements, which suggests using non-metric for USian topics. For mountains, ever since 2004, we've been using metric units first, imperial second for all non-USian mountains, and imperial first, metric units second for USian mountains, from a suggestion by Mav (see, e.g., Talk:Sierra Nevada (US)). I suppose we should put this explicitly into the WP Mountains page. hike395 03:51, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I generally support the current usage, as detailed by hike395 above. Of course this is a tricky situation, with a range that spans the US and Canada. I would be willing to go either way on this particular article. -- Spireguy 04:35, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see the point about usage the US, and of course Elbert or Columbia or whichever it is that's 14,400 is in the US; it's like us insisting on Canadian spelling in articles about Canadian topics (gets snarly when it's the Oregon boundary dispute or other cross-border matters, though...).  I was just surprised because of the existence of metric as the main world standard now (grudgingly accepted by yours truly years ago, even though certain elevations and other classic measurements I still think of in imperial, including miles per gallon - our old gallon, the imperial one, which was different than yours of course).  Anyway, so long as the Mount Robson article has metric first (as being the highest in the Canadian Rockies, that's fine.  Gonna get trickier with border-spanning units like the Border Ranges (Montana Ranges in the US) or the Selkirks); I guess it's whichever country the highpoint is in; so for the Cascades (Rainier) or even the North Cascades (Baker), they wind up in feet rather than metres.  Kinda trickier with the Pacific Coast Ranges, i.e. the larger version of that, not the Oregon-only definition...what's the deal with Fairweather, then? - because the peak itself is just inside BC/Canada.Skookum1 04:50, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I think we can mix and match -- if we refer to an elevation in the US, it's feet, outside, it's meters, even if its in the same article. Is that OK with particpants? hike395 05:08, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And don't forget - outside the US, it's "metres" ;-) Skookum1 05:10, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wiki standard on peakbox info? - metric or imperial? 

message: I have nominated Cat:Lists of terrestrial volcanoes for merger. Please vote or comment at WP:CFD. - Darwinek 18:33, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  CFD 

message: "Name status/source" - gazetted/official, local/traditional, climbers/guidebooks etc.  "Gazetted/official" would still apply when the common form is used for the article title and is only a variant of the official name, e.g. official Cheam Peak is usually Mount Cheam, etc.  But otherwise there will be no mention in the infobox, or potentially any ref in this encyclopedia, as to whether a name is official or not.Skookum1 21:43, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hm. Good point. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places) says we should use the official English name for articles. What we've done in cases where the common name is different from the official name (like Mount Katahdin), is mention the common usage in the lead paragraph, but use the official name everywhere else, including the infobox. hike395 17:27, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggested addition to infobox

message: Someone recently changed the coordinates of Sunset Crater to point to the center of the summit caldera, rather than the highest point of the volcano. This is a (mildly) interesting question: which should we use? Comments? hike395 17:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coordinates of volcanos 

message: This I made up tonight as a stab at trying to show a sample regional map that had named ranges shown with boundaries; no room for names so I gave it a number key; I can do the same easily enough for other areas as I'm famliar with the boundaries; posting this for feedback.  This project spun off a discussion with Spireguy earlier about the North Cascades, which I just made a new map for to get the boundaries right (still not link-fixed but will do so in the morning; it's 2:52am...); but I can see at different scales and different frames it might be good to have a map like this for range-locator maps, instead of stand-alone ones; not in all cases but definitely when covering a large area like Interior Mountains or Columbia Mountains, in order to show their major breakdowns.  Anyway, here's the key
*1.  Tantalus Range (subrange of Pacific Ranges)
*2.  Garibaldi Ranges (subrange of Pacific Ranges)
*3.  North Shore Mountains (unofficial but in common use)
*4.  Douglas Ranges (subrange of Pacific Ranges)
*5.  Lillooet Ranges
**5a.Cayoosh Range
**5b.Cantilever Range
*6.  Cadwallader Range
*7.  Bendor Range (subrange of Pacific Ranges)
*8.  Chilcotin Ranges (subrange of Pacific Ranges)
**8a.Dickson Range
**8b.Shulaps Range
*9.  Pacific Ranges
*10. Chilcotin Plateau
*11. Camelsfoot Range
*12. Mission Ridge (unclassified, but in Pacific Ranges
*13. Clear Range (subrange of Cariboo Plateau)
**13a.Scarped Range
*14. Cascade Range
*14a.North Cascades
*14b.Cascade Mountains (non-North Cascades Canadian Cascades]]
*14c.Okanagan Range
*15. Thonpson Plateau (in some reckonings a subrange of Fraser Plateau)
*15a. Nicola Plateau (not there yet, unless I fix the map by the time you see this)
*15b. Trepanege Plateau
*16. Marble Range (subrange of Cariboo Plateau)
*17. Cariboo Plateau
*17a.Trachyte Hills (subrange of Cariboo Plateau)
*17b.Cornwall Hills (subrange of Cariboo Plateau)
*17c.Arrowstone Hills (subrange of Cariboo Plateau)
*17d.Silwhoaikun Plateau ((subrange of Cariboo Plateau; includes Kukwaus Plateau)
*174.Tranqille Plateau (subrange of Cariboo Plateau)
*18. Monashee Mountains
*18a.Shuswap Highland
*18b.Okanagan Highland
*18c.either Shuswap or Okanagan Highland (varies)
[Aaargh on adding comments to the list I left off Bonaparte Plateau...which is basically the Silwhoiakun Plateau and Arrowstone Hills, plus that southern bulge of 17. adjoining them...; back to the drawing board in the morning...so I'll fix the Nicola Plateau too I guess...grrr the work I make for myself.....]
For space/clutter reasons avoided putting in any tiny rangtes within bigger ones, say in the Garibaldi Ranges (Fortress Range I think it is, really a ridge, over by Lillooet Lake; and the Spearhead Range, which runs for 5-10km back from Whistler) or North Shore Mountains (Fannin Range, Brittannia Range); or the Cheam Range (Four Sisters) in the North Cascades (Cdn side) - all just ridges (though the Four Sisters is a very impressive ridge!!); although I did squeeze in the Scarped Range, which is a tiny chunk of the small Clear Range.  The group that someone here dubbed the Coquihalla Range isn't officially called that; climber jargon up here calls it the Anderson River Group and it's right underneath the 14b, but it has no formal boundary from what's north or southeast of it; I put in the usual (though unofficial) division between the regular Canadian Cascades - "Cascade Mountains" - and the North Cascades as they protrude into Canada (14a).
There's a few tiny officially-named plateaus within the bigger plateaus shown, but my source maps and definitions don't have precision boundaries and while the Nicola Plateau might be included (a part of the Thompson Plateau), I'd already put one of those "15" marks right on top of where its boundary should be....but this is a draft anyway, and there's some vaguenesses built into it that I can tidy up later easy enough (always save a blank basemap at the same scale/frame as the one you're building on!!!....thing is in the software I'm using I have to paste over the mistake from the original, then close the new one and reopen it or the drawing/alphabet tool won't work, even when I jump around the layers.  Sigh.  Anyway, this is a trial balloon, and I don't even know what article it would be for yet; Landforms of British Columbia maybe, to ape the title of Holland's book for the BC Govt on the same theme; these are geography regions, also - NOT geological regions, or biogeoregional whatchamacallits; just the formal geographers' defintions.  
Anyway, it's just a sample; is the yellow line too bright?  Should I try and include unofficially-named areas - this map in the Pacific Ranges would also have the Clendenning Range, the Pemberton Icecap, the Lillooet Icecap, the Overseer Group a little bit of the Chilcotin Ranges called the Dil-Dil Plateau, there'd be the breakup of the different named bits of the Cascade Range (Anderson River Group/Coquihalla Range really only; the others don't have specific names), and so on; the point here in coming up with this wasn't to show prominence zones or climbers' names, but rather to illustrate officially-named areas; which other than the North Shore Mountains and the separation in the Cascades, is pretty well all that's here.  It's a bit easier in the Columbia Mountains because the there's a tier system, particularly in the Selkirks....might have to use more than one colour line, though....here it was just 2-point of 4-point.  Feedback?Skookum1 10:49, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Trial range map for southwestern BC