Talk:Wikimapia/Archive 1

message: I created this article because I found the tool interesting, and not knowing anything about it, and finding the "about" box slim, my first instinct was to head here. There wasn't any info here, there is now some. Hopefully this is expanded.
Personally I don't give two hoots about "notability", but for the more awkward of you, I think it's reasonable for something with over 1.2 million Google hits to have an article here.
zoney  ♣ talk 23:42, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Created

message: About WikiMapia
WikiMapia is a project to describe the whole planet Earth. 
How to use
Just move the map to find interesting places, click on rectangles. To add an interesting place or object use Add New link. Note: Please only add places interesting to everyone. 
Who We Are
Wikimapia was created by Alexandre Koriakine and Evgeniy Saveliev, inspired by Google maps and Wikipedia. 
Contact us
Your suggestions, ideas and bug reports are welcome. You may contact us using email: wikimapia@gmail.com
(It is inside somewhere of web page without a direct URL link.)
For reference only.
AirBa 01:57, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "About WikiMapia"

message: Map & photo templates on Wikipedia, such as  used to include a WikiMapia linkas the first one. What happened to these? Did WM change somehow so that they didn't think it was good to link to anymore? --Howdybob 18:31, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I found my answer here at Template talk:Geolinks-US-streetscale. --Howdybob 19:08, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What happened to the WikiMapia links? 

message: Wikipedia is not a guide to using WikiMapia: I suggest we remove parts of the "Using WikiMapia" section. Sum0 20:20, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  User's guide 

message: The "tags" need to be comma-delimited: at the moment entering,
Tags: Lyon, La Croix Rousse, Canuts, Labor History
-- results in,
Tags: Lyon La Croix Rousse Canuts Labor History
-- which makes no sense. Without the limitation, searches -- machine or other -- are going to be made on "Lyon La" and "Rousse Canuts" and "Canuts Labor", which may or may not help retrievals. Much better semantic / syntactic sense if comma-delimiters are retained. Project for the in-basket...
--Kessler 09:07, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "tags" suggest comma-delimited 

message: Doing some in-depth comparisons of these two, right now, and here's what I am discovering:
* <U>Far</U> easier copying & pasting WikiMapia URLs, from the interface into my online HTML texts, than entering GoogleEarth coordinates / doing the calculations / formulating a different http address for each -- kudos here to WikiMapia, then, and I was thinking of replacing my GoogleEarth URLs with WikiMapia...
But... there's always a "but"...
* GoogleEarth is way ahead, for now, on low eye elevation map resolution in some geographic areas: over Avignon France, for example, WikiMapia right now zooms down to about only 14,000 ft. eye altitude, then blanks out, while GoogleEarth's image of Avignon gets all the way down to 3,000 ft. eye altitude before the image gets ridiculous / useless -- i.e. at 3,000 ft. eye altitude the GoogleEarth image still is very useful, with overlay street shapes and names at least even if the buildings are kinda fuzzy -- while WikiMapia's current 14,000 ft. eye altitude is too high to do anything useful at all with the Avignon city center image, everything down there being kinda fuzzy, buildings and streets included. 
So the race, in this, is going to be to the swift: first-to-market -- just like Mr. Gates and his "DOS", in the legend -- if WikiMapia can get those hi-res images of Avignon installed faster / earlier than GoogleEarth can, it will win, but not otherwise I think. Any bets? :-)
The WikiMapia images come from maps.google.com, don't they? Yep, there's that 14,000 ft. eye altitude "fuzzy" image of Avignon, currently, there too: looks like the GoogleEarth team is way ahead of the GoogleMaps team, down in Mountain View, in terms of offering something readable at low eye elevations, then -- even if they may in fact be sharing space satellite images. By showing the street shapes and names, at least, the fuzzy GoogleEarth 3,000 ft. eye altitude image still is useful, while the one from GoogleMaps isn't.
Can't think of a WikiMapia workaround for this myself. But it does mean I'll have to keep my GoogleEarth links, for now, at least until the WikiMapia / GoogleMaps get more clear at low eye elevations over French cities: until they don't just blank out but focus in -- with street overlays etc. -- on the fuzzy underlying image, the way GoogleEarth does. Maybe WikiMapia & others can get GoogleMaps to do that: loosen up and let the fuzzy focus at low eye elevations show through -- they have the images, or at least their GoogleEarth team does.
--Kessler 22:36, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiMapia vs. GoogleEarth, compared 

message: Alexandre, this may not the be the best place to discuss it, so you can communicate with my on my talk page if you wish.  Basically, I would like you to integrate Wikimapia with Wikipedia. How it would work: When contributors draw their rectangles around places, landmarks, etc., the info. box that comes up inviting them to write a note about the landmark should feature a Wikipedia article about it, if there is one.  If there isn't one, writing a note for a place on Wikimapia would automatically create such an article on Wikipedia. You could talk to User:Fred Bauder, who runs the Wikinfo project, which uses special software to incorporate Wikipedia articles into its own structure. David Cannon 22:09, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to integrate Wikimapia with Wikipedia