Wikipedia talk:Geonotice

message: I've just filed a bug report suggesting that CentralNotice uses Geolocation: the bug report is at . Mike Peel (talk) 08:02, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks good.  You should also check out Proposal:Geonotice improvements on the Wikimedia Strategic Planning site.--Pharos (talk) 17:50, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Impressively, this has apparently been done! See  and :meta:Special:CentralNotice. Next step: figuring out how we can actually post messages to it... :-/ Mike Peel (talk) 22:54, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Huzzah!  Let me know if you do make any progress figuring it out :)--Pharos (talk) 00:54, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Should be easy to replace with the wikimedia geo locator. It produces the variable Geo = {"city":"Enschede","country":"NL","lat":"52.216702","lon":"6.900000","IP":"hidden","netmask":"16"}. Will also make it easier to target a specific country. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:59, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  User:TheDJ/Geonotice.js using Geo= requires importScriptURI() of http://geoiplookup.wikimedia.org —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:42, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

text: To post CentralNotices you need admin access on meta. Note that the Geo javascript variable is set on every pageload, however, so you can reuse it in local scripts. (The variable name may change at some point, however.) Also note that the current Geo lookup service is only reliable for country-level lookup. The city-level lookup is not reliable. Kaldari (talk) 19:13, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Geolocation and CentralNotice 

message: This is throwing Javascript errors due to the conflicting quotation marks:
  text: "You are invited to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/TCMI/BackstagePass">Children's Museum of Indianapolis Backstage Pass event</a> on Friday, November 5. Go behind the scenes in the largest children's museum in the world!"
Kaldari (talk) 19:15, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Should be fixed now. Thanks for pointing it out. Mike Peel (talk) 20:32, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  IndianaBackstagePass Geonotice is broken 

message: Is it possible to target particular domains or IPs using Geonotices or something similar? We discussed this as a possibility on Wednesday when doing outreach at Imperial College for their Wikipedia student society. It would be very useful to make something like a Geonotice but targetted just to people coming from a particular institution or type of institution, say universities in London (basically a filtered Geonotice for just those on .ac.uk domains).
While helping get the word out about the 2011 expert involvement survey, it seems equally useful to do domain targeting. For that, we are trying to get academics, scientists and other experts to tell us why they do or do not contribute to Wikipedia and how that can change. Specifically being able to target those on academic domains (.edu, .ac.uk etc.) would be useful for that. Is this possible? Is this something we should be able to do? —Tom Morris (talk) 16:27, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm. This might be possible. You might poke thedj directly about this. From what he says a few sections above, the code may be able to be tweaked to pull the IP from http://geoiplookup.wikimedia.org/. Killiondude (talk) 00:29, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Targeting particular domains or IPs 

message: My geoip (coming from http://toolserver.org/~para/geoip.fcgi map) is often being recorded as Amsterdam (52.5,5.75).  Other times it correctly pinpoints my location.(about 5kms off, which is pretty good since I am in the middle of nowhere)  Is anyone else experiencing this? John Vandenberg (chat) 00:25, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Happening for me too.  Typically it's only a couple of km off for me, now it's picked a point on the opposite side of the world.  Lankiveil (speak to me) 08:32, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I've notified the tool owner User_talk:Para#geoip_problems. --John Vandenberg (chat) 10:18, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The lookup is based on the free GeoLite City database from MaxMind. Their forums say that "GeoLite draws primarily from publicly available data" and "we will only be making resolution corrections to the [commercial] GeoIP databases. GeoLite data is provided as is." So there's nothing I can do I'm afraid. If the publicly available data they're referring to is WHOIS and DNS records, it might help to complain to your ISP(s). Changing or layering data sources might also improve the location information, compare your current info with that from http://geoiplookup.wikimedia.org/, http://geoiplookup.wikia.com/, and the geolocation API available at the top left of Google Maps. --Para (talk) 19:56, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Disregard that, this is actually not a data source problem. The introduction of a reverse http proxy at the toolserver has broken this tool. It no longer sees users' IPs at all, and thinks Amsterdam is where all the action is. There seems to be some discussion on the toolserver mailing list about that at the moment, related to other tools, so it will probably be fixed eventually. --Para (talk) 20:08, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks. anyone wanting to track this can follow TS-1063. --John Vandenberg (chat) 03:25, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

text: This is fixed now. I just changed the code so that it uses the CentralNotice GeoIP lookup instead of the one from the toolserver. Kaldari (talk) 23:48, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thank you!! John Vandenberg (chat) 00:01, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  wrong geoip 

message: Is there work happening on the Geonotice for the Phoenix Wiknic?  It was supposed to be dispositioned by June 11, and it is now June 15?--Jax 0677 (talk) 23:58, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is there work happening on the Geonotice for the Phoenix Wiknic? 

message: It would be really awesome to get a Geonotice code tool that could whip up something from a couple of textboxes and a rectangle drawn on a googlemap, and/or a radius from a central city or a dropdown of pre-defined locations.  Anyone up for this?--Pharos (talk) 17:49, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Geonotice code tool 

message: * The deadline is this coming Monday, which means that the notice needs to run today for people to see it in time. User:Seddon posted this notice initially; User:Ironholds reverted that saying "utterly ridiculous. Geonotice templates are not for bloody job offers". For the reasons set out above, I don't think that this is at all ridiculous; nor do I see the harm in this notice running for the next few days. As such, I will revert to the original notice in the next few minutes. If consensus develops here that making people aware of high-level chapter positions being advertised is not an appropriate use of the geonotices, then I won't object to it being taken down. Mike Peel (talk) 06:52, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Ummm, Fae ...... over 100 info packs requested a few days ago; how long ago was the geonotice posted?  How many of those requests came as a result of the geonotice?  Do you have any data on that? (If so, is there any link to it - this kind of data would be very interesting)  Pesky (talk …stalk!) 11:46, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The information about how many packs were requested was reported at the beginning of the week on the UK members mail list (if I recall correctly). The requests were not caused by the geonotice but if the reasoning for rejecting this geonotice is due to a lack of interest by our Wikipedia community, then this figure is relevant to quote. If geonotices can only be allowed once we have figures for impact, then we would have no geonotices. If evidence of likely numbers were to become a requirement, then the majority of non-London UK wikimeets would fail to meet the inclusion criteria. As for possible impact of this particular geonotice (the only notice that would have been on display in the UK this weekend), disappointingly it seems moot as it will be too late by the time this discussion reaches a conclusion to have impact. It should have been visible yesterday and today to encourage last minute requests for information from our Wikipedian community (I would have thought most people in our community would like to see a UK Chapter Manager being selected who has experience as a Wikipedia contributor). I see this discussion now as clarifying our consensus on geonotices and whether they ought to be used for anything other than wikimeets and how often they ought to be used. Fæ (talk) 12:08, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The figure is not relevant to quote unless you can show that those requests came from the Wikimedia community. My point is that since the advertisement via geonotice and on-wiki only started 12 hours ago, and was quickly halted, this is unlikely. So..how many of these requests came from Wikimedians? Ironholds (talk) 12:11, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I have no idea, Andrew Turvey could probably produce a percentage figure. My educated guess would be that those claiming to have Wikimedian experience would be an extremely high percentage, particularly as the job advert states "A commitment to the ethos of Wikimedia UK and the centrality of volunteers is essential" and any candidate who had never, or rarely, edited on Wikipedia would be at a disadvantage when it came to explaining their understanding of the ethos of Wikimedia UK. Perhaps you should have asked this question before deleting this geonotice? It seems academic at this point. Fæ (talk) 12:23, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps the people making a controversial and reverted action should have the onus on them to explain it, rather than reinstating it? In fact, last time I checked, that was precisely how Wikipedia worked. The person who needs to justify a controversial action is the person making it. I agree that it is academic, given the spectrum of opposition to this notice. Ironholds (talk) 12:34, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

text: You're using the geonotices system to advertise something of incredibly limited interest. You also used the CentralNotice system to do the same thing. On both occasions you got an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation to make the change. On both occasions you completely failed to consult with people on-wiki beforehand. When I reverted the change, the board chose to ignore WP:BRD and instead simply blindly revert. That, combined, is utterly ridiculous. Ironholds (talk) 12:50, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: To be clear, my comments and opinion in this discussion is as an established Wikipedian and admin. The WM-UK board has not chosen to revert anything or take any action here. There was no board decision to raise this geonotice. Please do not make claims and assumptions about the WM-UK board that have no basis in fact. Fæ (talk) 13:01, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

text: I don't see how Seddon being employed by the Foundation makes any difference. He is, I assume, not editing this page as a staff member. I am also not sure what "consultation" you would have expected - any admin can post any geonotice anywhere in the world. In general, I really don't understand why you are responding to this by shouting at people. Why the drama? The Land (talk) 13:18, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Your email this morning telling us we were idiots was not exactly drama-free itself, to be frank. Nor was the "this is bloody stupid" edit summary you used to revert it in the first place. But I don't intend to spill any more ink over it. The Land (talk) 13:48, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

text: Seddon can comment here, if he feels like it, as to why you might misunderstand the background. As The Land has pointed out, it seems irrelevant as Seddon acts independently of the WM-UK board and would have made his own choice as an admin as to whether to raise the notice or not. My statement stands. As for drama I see you creating plenty of it, on-wiki and off. It is no surprise that WM-UK board members might take a look at this discussion today considering you have emailed us all about it. Perhaps you should take a break and consider what has been clearly stated here and how claims of COI against busy and unpaid volunteer WM-UK board members or an employee of the WMF acting in good faith and the best interests of the WM-UK community might appear unhelpful. Fæ (talk) 13:55, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussion from project page 

message: I don't have any ponies in this race: I would not have received this geonotice, I'm not a member of WMUK (or its board), I have no interest in applying for positions with WMF or any Wikimedia chapters. What I do have an interest in is the project as a whole, and notices in general. In this particular case, a request for an "event" that was known about weeks in advance (i.e., the closing date for applications for a job) was suddenly added without community discussion only 48 hours before the application period closes. This was a significant error in judgment: first that a very different type of geonotice was being added without any attempt at community input, and secondly that it was being posted with such poor timing.  Proposing this geonotice at or before the time the position application period opened would have allowed the community to consider whether or not this was appropriate use of the geonotice tool. It's not a simple question, as such use of centralnotice has met with very significant community opposition in the past, to the point that it is not used for announcing position openings anymore. As well, I think it was an error in judgment on Seddon's part to have activated this posting; he is well known to be an active member of WMUK, and it is clear from the discussion above that he did so at the request of the executive of that chapter rather than as an independent administrator assessing community response. 
In summary:
*Notices should be proposed far enough in advance to permit community discussion of their appropriateness, particularly when it is a significantly different use of the geonotice feature, or where the (broader) community has rejected similar notices using other broadbased internal communication methods.  
*Geonotices should only be activated by administrators who are independent of any relationships to the requesting editors, normally after assessment of any community discussion about the proposed geonotice.
As noted, this is my independent and uninvolved opinion. Risker (talk) 00:07, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Completely independent opinion

message: I was aware of this discussion at its very early stages but did not have time to respnd. It has grown more quickly than I anticipated and I apologize for not commenting here sooner. I also apologize if this is a little ;tldr but please take the time to read this.
Firstly I want to talk about my involvement in this. I conceed that there was a COI here with me starting the geonotice, similarly the creation of the banners on central notice was also a bad decision on my part particularly involving the my use of the staff account to create the banners. I genuinely thought that what I was doing was for the benefit to the community. The community has played a huge roll amoungst staff at the foundation and chapters and I felt that this was in the spirit of that. 
There are many lessons to be learned, and I'm learning mine. But another important lesson might be that current processes are somewhat broken in the use of geonotice. WP:GEONOTICE used to only have one significant reviewer, the situation is mildly better but its still very small in terms of those that participate and in fact Risker is pretty much the only person not tied to a chapter or regular meet up to be involved in it. There many requests that dont get seen to there and this is a big problem. Geonotices are an important part of getting the word out for chapter and local community related things. This is why those folks are the most active there. If that page isn't well patrolled then that is a let down for the movement and those who regularly or would like to regularly participate in things that are publicised via the geonotice. Based on that I saw no problem with chapters independently applying geonotices. To be honest I would attribute the success of many events to this usage and have no regrets with previous decisions I have taken to apply geonotices without posting them first.
However being bold here is going to lead to more problems. We need to fix the process and agree on the situations these geonotices can be used. Prehaps cross posting requests at WP:AN is the way forward in the short term to encourage participation in discussion but in terms of the general usage and process I think that this is a community wide issue that affects all geographies and the wider community so we should probably list such a topic at centralised discussion. 
As I said I am very sorry for this misjudgement, I just hope that something can be learnt and we can move forward.
Many Thanks
Seddon talk|WikimediaUK 22:37, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Comment by Seddon

message: Could someone clarify the official position of the WMF interfering in community decisions for geonotices? This diff where Philippe has chosen to veto a new geonotice appears to run counter to the previous official position explained to me when I raised the question on the Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List. I daresay that I might have agreed with the removal if the WMF had bothered to explain the issue here first. Fæ (talk) 07:21, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I certainly don't have a problem with WMF staff removing geonotices on the grounds that they duplicate CentralNotice. Seems uncontroversial enough to me...  The Land (talk) 18:54, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well a lot of people kill off CNs because 99% they don't display any relevant content for most users, where as a a Geonotice is specificity targeted towards a group of people based on location (so they might actually care about it), and the fact that someone did raise comment here does prove its not uncontroversial. Peachey88 (T ·  C) 01:17, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think anyone actually has a big problem about removing a GN that's a duplicate of a CN. The only controversial thing is that Philippe used his official account to make the edit, when GN and CN have always been community-governed. Deryck C. 21:34, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I certainly agree it's reasonable in this case not to double-up on these.--Pharos (talk) 21:23, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  WMF veto of geonotices 

message: The archives page is getting very long. Should we break it up into several pages? One page per each past year seems to be about the right length. Deryck C. 21:32, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archives page 

message: How does a person perminently opt out of recieving Geonotices Gnangarra
:This is not a standard preference, but if you edit your vector.css (see your preferences, appearance tab for a link to your current .css file) you can add this line to switch off all geonotices:
/* Geonotices toggle */
div.geonotice { display: none; }
:--Fæ (talk) 09:15, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thats not really a good solution, but at a bare minimum this be on the project page so people can opt out. The thing is there really should be something alot simplier say a link on the banners to disable future notices or at the very least an option in my preference.. Gnangarra 09:59, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm all for user choice, a section at the top of this Geonotice page saying how to opt out, would be useful for those that are annoyed by these notices and may not want to benefit from local events. This could be suggested as an extra standard preference, the Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) would probably be a good place to start though it may take a long time or never get in if considered a bit fringe. Cheers --Fæ (talk) 11:03, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: My personal opinion would be that it should be an option on Preferences under Appearance as a checkbox, but I don't know who one would contact to get it on the (probably quite long) feature wishlist. Orderinchaos 05:01, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

text: Yes, ideally it should be a Preference-style option, however Geonotice isn't an inherent part of MediaWiki, so it's probably quite low down the wishlist. On the other hand, there is a quick-fix: currently each geonotice has a "hide" button, which uses Cookies. After you press it, you won't ever be shown the same geonotice again unless you clear your Cookies. It is possible to implement a hide button for all geonotices, and I think User:Kaldari is the person to ask. Deryck C. 20:57, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  opt out 

message: On March 19 I posted a request for a geonotice to begin on March 26. I have yet received no acknowledgement. Is my request properly formatted? Could I do anything else which would make my request more easy to receive or process? I was hoping to have this and would appreciate quick help. How does this work? What class of users manages this process?  Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:56, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. We are a bit slow sometimes. Deryck C. 06:43, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I made another request 24 April. As of today it has not been acknowledged on the project page. Is the notice active? Thanks. Would it make things easier if I formatted the text for someone? I plan to post a notice at least monthly so it may be useful for me to learn if there is a tutorial somewhere.  Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:28, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I am nothing to do with this project (I only came here to give them a hard time about not having proper guidelines) but you can find the list of current notices at MediaWiki:Geonotice.js.  The page is in javascript and instructions for formatting entries are embedded in the page (right after the end of the current notices). SpinningSpark 10:51, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for this.  Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:35, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: No acknowledgment of my request

message: I think the page is organized oddly. Do we have to split it into "Currently running"? We have the Toolserver tool that shows the map with current notices. Killiondude (talk) 21:14, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes I think it should be better named "Answered requests"... or alternatively just remove the entire section because that just increases manpower. Deryck C. 10:52, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Isn't there a way to set up a bot to automatically archive requests after they've been marked  for a given length of time? Dominic·t 08:55, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page organization 

message: Please see WP:Village pump (proposals)#Watchlist notice guideline. There is a proposal to create a guideline outlining acceptable watchlist notice practices. Equazcion (talk) 16:26, 15 Apr 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: So should the proposal be drafted here or there? Logically, I think that here's the most appropriate place. I'm making a start at #Draft guideline. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Trevj (talk • contribs) 08:40, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Watchlist notice guideline proposal at Village Pump 

message: Of interest here may be a discussion at MediaWiki_talk:Geonotice.js#Excessive_UK_notices.  Just pointing out for more full input.  Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 20:22, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pointer to discussion of interest 

message: Hi all,
This is a fairly low-traffic page, and not many people keep an eye on it. I've been trying to keep it maintained recently, but it's often the case that three or four days go by without my remembering to check it - which can be a problem if people put things up with quite short notice (we've had under a week in the past). To try and get around this, I've added a note to requests saying to chase me if it's urgent; hopefully this will mean requests don't languish there for days on end!
If anyone else who's comfortable with handling geonotice code would like to add their name there as well, please do :-) Andrew Gray (talk) 11:10, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I have not yet been able to spend time learning the code nor do I have admin userrights, but I watch the page otherwise. Thanks for helping with this.  Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:59, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Admins to chase 

message: I've been talking with the Berkeley Student Cooperative, and they'd like to host a Wikipedian in Residence.  The BSC is a ~1300 member housing cooperative, the largest housing cooperative in the United States.  All members of the BSC contribute five hours a week in 'workshift' to their houses as both a way to contribute to their communities and a way to keep costs down.  The BSC would like to have their Wikipedian in Residence be someone who currently lives in the BSC system, and the position would receive workshift credit.  I know there are at least a few experienced Wikipedians who live in the BSC currently, but am not sure who they are.  It occurred to me that one way for us to successfully locate Wikipedians who live in BSC houses would be a Geonotice, if one could be tailored narrowly enough.  Would it be technically possible to set up a geonotice-type notice that would only display to logged in users from particular IPs? It would probably be ~80 different IP's, almost all in the same range. (The BSC is using other channels to turn up candidates as well, but this seemed like an additional good one.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 19:20, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Somewhat counterintuitively, there isn't an easy way to target specific IP ranges through the geonotice setup - it's designed to go through an IP-to-coordinate resolver. We could try one narrowly targeted at the Berkeley area, though, which would also catch them when outside the domestic network. Andrew Gray (talk) 20:49, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Would a relatively short-running geonotice targeted at Berkeley be considered narrowly tailored enough to be acceptable?  If so, once we get some more stuff worked out about it, I'll put up a request for one. (With the turnover of BSC residents, the notice could be of potential interest to probably one in twenty Wikipedia editors in Berkeley.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 00:15, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The geolocation database is quite good with educational institutions, so a geonotice covering the entire campus plus a bit of surrounding area should suffice. (Note also: geonotices are written in a way such that your location isn't divulged to anyone.) Deryck C. 21:33, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

text: If you are on their network itself, you can find out its exact geocoordinates (according to the database that Geonotice uses) at https://bits.wikimedia.org/geoiplookup . Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:40, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  IP-based notices? 

message: Commons has recently deployed a very promising notice system which replaces their watchlist notices (see note here). Rather than display a long list it rotates between them in a banner-style box. Notices can be individually marked as read, and they are categorised under general headings - new features, elections, technical changes, etc - which allows users to select the topics they don't want to hear about in future.
I think this has real potential for finally unifying watchlist notices & targeted geonotices, and it might be worth thinking about what's needed to deploy it here. Andrew Gray (talk) 22:27, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: As a quick update, I have singularly failed to do anything about this for some months, but hope to pull together a proposal & RFC soon :-) Andrew Gray (talk) 19:28, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  New notice system on Commons 

message: Hi all,
I'm trying to figure out if the UK lookup has actually improved at all since our discussions a year or two ago, or if it's still abysmal. (And - more usefully - how it's abysmal - does it work in some areas and not others? Do people at least geolocate to roughly the right end of the country?). It'd be a great help if UK users could fill out the short test form here - it doesn't record IPs, personal information or usernames, just where Wikimedia thinks you are & where you (roughly) are. 
I'll post back in a bit with the summarised results. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:27, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I've got a nice sample for you. There's a vandal who I've been watching since June 2013 (see WT:UKRAIL#Why isn't IP 86.158.105.73 blocked yet?. The IPs used by this person are dynamic, changing every few days, so I've been able to build up a sample consisting of 28 items of data. Occasionally the IP geolocation is simply United Kingdom (which has come up 5 times), but is normally geolocatable to a specific town. So far, I have noted (in alphabetic order): Andover (Hampshire), Cambridge (Cambridgeshire), Egham (Surrey), Maidenhead (Buckinghamshire), Market Harborough (Leicestershire), Newmarket (Suffolk), Northampton (Northamptonshire), Silverstone (Northamptonshire), Slough (Buckinghamshire), Towcester (Northamptonshire), Wellingborough (Northamptonshire), Wokingham (Berkshire). Of these, Towcester has come up three times, and Wellingborough five; other towns in Northamptonshire or close by (Market Harborough is two miles outside Northants) have come up six times in total. Thus, even though there is a good proportion (14 out of 28) where it gets it within 20 miles or so of Northampton, there are still 50% misses. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:59, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting - thanks! So either "UK" or within the same general quadrant of "the south-east" if in error. Andrew Gray (talk) 12:56, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  UK targeting 

message: I would like feedback on WP:Village pump (technical)#Migrating Geonotice to a gadget. Helder.wiki 00:21, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Migration is complete. The script now only loads on your Watchhlist. -- User:Edokter  08:53, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Migrating Geonotice to a gadget 

message: Please add a space between the full stop of each notice and the [Hide] link. I'm sure there used to be one. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:20, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Pinging  ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:56, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

text: @MSGJ: This was removed by Aude on 28 May 2013. This change should restore the previous appearance. Helder 12:51, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:52, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  It doesn't restore the previous appearance though, because the font used to be somewhat larger, as seen at m:User:Redrose64 - the bit beginning "Interested in having a chat with fellow Wikipedians?". --Redrose64 (talk) 13:44, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  it seems the CSS was in the wrong page. I moved it to MediaWiki:Gadget-geonotice-core.css. Helder 14:15, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks much better, thanks. I wonder if the smaller font is the reason that at the last Oxford, we only had three people; and that only four signed up for the last Portsmouth. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:31, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

text: That would be my fault... Sorry for the screw-up. -- User:Edokter  15:22, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Space 

message: It appears that links to http://maps.google.com/ - such as the one just above the TOC at Wikipedia:Geonotice - will stop working soon. I've started a thread at Template talk:GeoGroup#Viewing KML data in Google Maps. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:01, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Redrose64, looks like it was replaced by a working Bing maps link https://www.bing.com/maps/?mapurl=https:%2F%2Ftools.wmflabs.org%2Fpara%2Fgeo%2Fgeonotices . I'd love to see this replaced by Openstreetmap/wmflabs : https://tools.wmflabs.org/lp-tools/misc/bbox.html?sw=55.2,10.8&ne=69.1,24.4 "BBox visualiser" by user:Lokal_Profil (Visualises a bounding box on a Leaflet.js map. Useful for getting the valued to enter into MediaWiki:Geonotice.js.) --Atlasowa (talk) 15:25, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Viewing KML data in Google Maps 

message: Is it possible to do a geonotice that also targets by number of edits? ϢereSpielChequers 09:42, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Not AFAIK. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:21, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

text: In general, geonotices are much more likely to be read by high-edit people anyway (it only appears on the watchlist, after all).  And anytime a new editor magically notices it, I consider that a gift.--Pharos (talk) 19:23, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: In general I agree. But I was thinking of promoting Arbcom voting where you wouldn't want to show the invite to someone who hadn't yet met the voting criteria. ϢereSpielChequers 08:13, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Why would you want to target users by geographic location for that? Are you thinking of a generic watchlist announcement? Killiondude (talk) 21:11, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: GeoNotices for experienced editors

message: I had requested one for Winnipeg. OhanaUnitedsaid it was set up. I don't see a msg for Winnipeg, I only see the global Wikipedia15 message. But then, maybe a geonotice is not what I think it is? Main page says "notice similar to a sitenotice, anonnotice or watchlist notice" but the links just go to empty pages. What should I actually be looking for? Tenbergen (talk) 16:30, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Make sure that you have not disabled "" at . If that is enabled, they are only shown at the top of watchlists, above the other watchlist messages like "The 2016 WikiCup is now underway. All editors can sign up until February 1." Geonotices are in large text: if you go to m:User:Redrose64#Geonotices, and look for the phrase "which displays as", the large text after that looks very much like a geonotice. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:59, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks RedRose64, so it only hits the watchlists, not the top of the screen like the Wikipedia15 banner. That's too bad, I bet only a small fraction of people use those, but I can see where you don't want all sorts of petty things on that banner. An entry at the top of the watch list would still be OK, but I don't even get that. Tenbergen (talk) 20:02, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:   should fix it. The Winnipeg message should now displayed to people whose IP address geolocates to any point within a rectangle whose opposite corners are  and , which should catch the whole of Manitoba, a fair chunk of Ontario plus bits of Saskatchewan and Nunavut - also the Northwest Angle. You can check where your IP address geolocates to by visiting http://geoiplookup.wikimedia.org/ and checking the figures after "lat" and "lon". They're not always accurate, but that's the fault of the web service provider, not us. If your coords do not fall within that box, you won't get the geonotice. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:34, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Redrose64, that did the trick, the notice is now on my watchlist! Now I am curious, I suppose if I used a service like Blockless to get US Netflix (Lots of Canadians do...) that would probably fool this as well, right?  Tenbergen (talk) 23:09, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't know, never heard of it. Try WP:RD/C. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:12, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  so what does a geonotice actually look like?

message: I've replaced "corners:" line of the long-standing UK meetups geonotice with the newer "country:" line. The current format of UK-wode meetup geonotice was invented because ISPs don't (didn't?) resolve geolocation accurately within the UK, so we just have one notice for the whole UK. With this switch we will also (theoretically) stop telling people geolocated in Dublin (just about inside the rectangle because it needed to cover western Scotland) about meetups in Great Britain. Deryck C. 16:31, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Where do you live? Is it in the UK? If so, are you seeing that geonotice? Because I live in the UK, and I'm not seeing it any more. We tried the country code thing before, and it simply didn't work - UK was apparently being interpreted as Ukraine, and I suspect that is what is happening here. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:55, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  Just did some testing. 'UK' doesn't work but 'GB' seems to work. Ukraine is 'UA'. Deryck C. 23:28, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  UK batch geonotice 

message: Clicking "view" or "edit" on a geonotice seems to redirect to MediaWiki:Watchlist-details, which doesn't reflect the current geonotice. That's not the expected behaviour... Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 22:28, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't redirect, since the navbar concerned is in MediaWiki:Watchlist-details - it's in the very first line, as  This placement is intentional, since the links are there to facilitate editing of the watchlist notices. Geonotices are merely a subtopic of the watchlist notices, and are coded at MediaWiki:Gadget-geonotice-list.js. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:12, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit link doesn't work 

message: I have processed a number of requests here, and I'd like to suggest that we try to make the process a little easier. At least from my perspective, the process for an administrator is fairly cumbersome, and the perpetual backlog suggests to me I might not be the only one.
I'm thinking we could do either of the following, or perhaps a combination:
* Create a template or form, such that the person making the request can take care of more of the formatting; the administrator would still want to review for things like apostrophes to escape, but would have less to do in finalizing the text to include on the Geonotice page.
* Create a bot and/or userscript that can translate more human-readable input from the requester into the more machine-readable output.
* Create a "preview" functionality that can show (a) what the output text will look like, (b) show on a map where it will be displayed, and overall (c) provide some reassurance to the requester and the administrator implementing it that it's actually all set
Does this seem like a good idea? If so, does anybody (like maybe  or ) want to help me refine the specifications a bit so we can redesign the instructions and/or make a more specific request of developers? -Pete Forsyth (talk) 02:28, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I wonder if one section of the form should simply become "fill in your own code". That will reduce the amount of admin work. Deryck C. 16:28, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improving this process 

message: Pinging all recent contributors to MediaWiki:Gadget-geonotice-list.js: .
Starting in the near future (perhaps this week), we will be using a new bot-assisted system for managing geonotices. You can see the BRFA at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MusikBot II 2 and Special:PermaLink/862124571#Geonotices for the original discussion. The reason we're doing this is to allow any admin to manage geonotices, and not just interface admins.
Under the new system, you'll use Wikipedia:Geonotice/list.json (currently outdated) to configure the notices. A bot will sync this to MediaWiki:Gadget-geonotice-list.js every five minutes. This is JSON format, not JavaScript. As such, the rules have changed:
* Single quotations (') are no longer escaped, but double quotations are (as with \"). This should be a welcomed change, since you're much more likely to want to use single quotes than double quotes. If you attempt to escape single quotes, or forget to escape double quotes, the JSON editor will show an error and will not let you save.
* All keys have double quotes around them. Before your notice key (e.g. HongKongNov18) would be entered like HongKongNov18: { ... }. Now you should write it like "HongKongNov18": { ... }. The same is true for the individual options, like "begin", "end", etc. If you attempt to save without adding such quotations, the JSON editor will show an error.
* Only use wikitext, no HTML. Not that HTML is anything hard to grasp, but under the new system, you should use the same ole wikitext that you're all familiar with. E.g. use example.org instead of <a href="https://example.org">example.org</a>. The MediaWiki parser API is used, so any valid wikitext should work. The other nice advantage here is you can easily test what your notice will look like, using your sandbox, for example.
* Comments are added as a key/value. I see some maintainers add comments in their code. Since comments are not valid JSON, you instead will need to enter in comments as a key/value pair. To do this add "comments": "..." to your notice configuration, such as in this example. This will only be shown on the JSON page, and will not be copied to MediaWiki:Gadget-geonotice-list.js.
A bot report reflecting the current status will be written to User:MusikBot II/GeonoticeSync/Report, which will be transcluded at the top of this page and somewhere on Wikipedia:Geonotice. The report will include timestamp of the last successful sync, along with either "No errors!" or a list the detected errors. Here are the things the bot will check:
* Validates the format of dates
* Validating the country code (going off of this list)
* Ensures only valid keys are used ("begin", "end", "country", and either "corners", "text" or "comments")
* The wikitext itself
If there are any concerns, please let me know. When this goes live, I'll be sure to update all documentation, including the comment block at MediaWiki:Gadget-geonotice-list.js. Regards, — MusikAnimal talk 17:06, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you so much! Ping us again when the bot goes live. Deryck C. 17:40, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  The bot is now live! Make sure to edit Wikipedia:Geonotice/list.json until further notice, and monitor User:MusikBot II/GeonoticeSync/Report for errors (will be transcluded in various places). If the bot messes up, please first disable the task by setting the value to anything other than "true", then rollback the problematic edits. Hopefully that won't happen, though :) — MusikAnimal talk 17:32, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: All working well, thank you! Deryck C. 20:46, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

text: I already have a port of the gadget to the new system, which allows us to use .json files directly in MediaWiki namespace. If I forget to post this copy of the gadget within the next 2-3 days, please remind me ;) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:34, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  New bot-assisted system 

message: Geonotice appears to be broken, is it working for anyone?--Pharos (talk) 04:09, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Broken in what way? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:56, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's not displaying my local notice on the watchlist and it didn't last time either, is it working for you or others?--Pharos (talk) 20:29, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Which one? The Oxford one was certainly working for me until 17:00 yesterday, when it came down automatically. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:46, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: My mistake, was using bad coordinates for the NYC one.--Pharos (talk) 13:42, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Appears to be broken 

message: Hi! I am running a survey of Wikipedians/Wikimedians in Ireland and would like to place a geonotice with a link to the Qualtrics survey from mid-April to mid-May. I could have sworn I requested one for a survey I conducted in 2016, but I can't find any trace of it. Is this the best place to go about this? Thanks! Smirkybec (talk) 15:44, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Never mind, just realised it was a Central Banner requested through Meta! Smirkybec (talk) 15:48, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Geonotice for a survey 

message: There is new Basshunter tour soon and I though it may be good occasion to take a photo of live performance by someone who live in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Finland or Norway. List of locations: Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Basshunter performed for few million people already but there are no new images in Wikimedia Commons available since 2009. Eurohunter (talk) 17:50, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image request 

message: Based on a request/discussion from @Pharos and @OhanaUnited, I created Wikipedia:Geonotice/Map, which uses a Lua module (Module:Geonotice map) to parse the JSON and render a map showing the details of each geonotice and the area it covers. Legoktm (talk) 01:58, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map to visualize geonotices 

message: A discussion about changing the size of Wikipedia:Geonotices is open at MediaWiki talk:Gadget-geonotice-core.css. Any feedback about this is welcome there. — xaosflux Talk 13:30, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  font size of notice