Template talk:Locate me

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Category

I can't figure out how to get this to put the article, rather than the article's talk page, on which it sits, into the category. Andy Mabbett 15:58, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Was this, in fact, the reason you decided to put the tag on the article? --Tagishsimon (talk)
No. Andy Mabbett 14:32, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Link to Coordinates

This template sends people off to an abstract mathematical article on coordinates, which doesn't really help with the LocateMe task. I suggest it would be better to refer people to the article on geographic coordinates or perhaps just to refer people to the WikiProject page. --RichardVeryard 17:15, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Templates gone mad

Do we really need a template for the article page that alerts us to the fact it doesn't have coordinates specified? What next? "This article appears to refer to a person but doesn't specify their height"? "This article mentions elephants but doesn't specify Indian or African"? Talk page would be fine and adding a category on the article page is no problem, but cluttering the articles up with templates asking for tiny bits of information doesn't seem like a good plan to me. Yomanganitalk 15:19, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Coordinates are a vital part of a location, putting the object in crucial context. It would be akin to a book without an author, or a website without an address. A location is its coordinates. (Although I wouldn't be opposed to simply adding a category, but the template brings the issue to forefront more readily.) --YbborTalkSurvey! 00:30, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
But an article on a place is more than a just a pointer to its location. Other less extreme examples of templates we could add to articles would be asking for the architect, decorator, or client for a building (yes, they are important aspects for an article on a building, but we wouldn't put a template on the article page asking for them). In addition, an address, even a vague address, for example, "near Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park, at the western end of Oxford Street in London, England, near the tube station of the same name" is a way (perhaps a more accessible way) of specifying a location for an object, so while coordinates might be nice, the lack of them does not automatically mean the article is left in geographical limbo. Yomanganitalk 00:50, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Absence of coordinates leaves the article in limbo, so far as projects such as the Google Earth tie-in are concerned. Andy Mabbett 12:36, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

For what it is worth, I agree with User:Yomangani - this is a message for editors, not readers. Like {{reqphoto}}, this should appear on the talk page. Unlike cleanup templates, such as {{copyedit}}, there is not much chance that a run-of-the-mill reader is going to be able to add proper coordinates, as this template requests. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:26, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I, too, think that the template should be restricted to the talk page. I see no consensus its inclusion in the article space.The need to serve projects such as google earth do not provide a good enough reason for putting the template on the article. --Tagishsimon (talk)
An article is still a valid article (complying with policies) if it doesn't contain coordinates - but it could be improved. However, an article is not a valid article if it is unreferenced. Hence {{unreferenced}} should belong on the article page whereas {{LocateMe}} should belong on the talk page. AndrewRT(Talk) 21:21, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree with AndrewRT, the article needs something on it to grab the attention of editors but the specificity of the "Locate Me" template should be restricted to talk pages. Plm209 (talk • contribs • count) 18:37, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Coordinates are very useful for many things, but can we not put this on the talk page for editors? Regan123 13:56, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I also agree: this template should be on the talk page, not the article itself. The notices on an article should only serve to warn the reader if the article dodgy in some way - e.g., unreferenced and the like. Lacking coordinates does mean readers have to be warned, because they can see for themselves it lacks coordinates.--A bit iffy 14:36, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
I concur. Witty Lama 13:41, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More templates about to go mad

This issue was concluded with the consensus that the template doesn't belong in article space, and all the uses of {{LocateMe}} were moved to article talk pages with a warning added not to use it in articles. Shouldn't the same apply to its less conspicuous version {{LocateMeText}}, which is currently also used in articles? I added the same warning to it, but was reverted by the creator of both of these templates, User:Pigsonthewing. Articles shouldn't be filled with maintenance cruft unless absolutely necessary for the quality of the article. Coordinates are not. --Para 13:44, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed this is not in the same category as a lack of references, pov so should be on the talk page like the photo request. Regan123 17:29, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Could someone help explain this to User:Pigsonthewing please? Since the above talk here and elsewhere, I have moved dozens of his coordinate request templates to article talk pages, but he keeps on adding them, and is apparantely incapable of cooperation. My attempts to communicate with him fail. Can someone else try? --Para 22:16, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Refusal to abide by your instructions does not equate to an inability to cooperate; I fully understand the above discussion - unlike you, apparently. Andy Mabbett 12:49, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Then why do you keep on adding coordinate requests to article space? Is it because the discussion here says that such requests don't belong in article space, but only mentions {{LocateMe}} and not the other templates? Are {{LocateMeText}}, {{LocateMeLong}} and {{LocateMeBot}} in your opinion outside the scope of the above discussion, and can therefore be used? --Para 13:10, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Andy keeps on adding coordinate requests to article space using {{LocateMeText}} [1], obviously because he hasn't been told by enough people not to do so with that template in particular. Just to refresh consensus, could we establish here that geographical coordinate requests regardless of wording or formatting do not belong in article space, but on talk pages only? --Para 20:30, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that all such locate-me templates do not belong in article space. -- roundhouse0 17:32, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Practical solution to templates madness

Perhaps we could just do an end-run around Andy by getting a friendly bot to use category lists of articles that have geo attributes, to flag talk pages with locate me. Active Wiki Fixup Project has geo-tagging on its todo list, and has shown that it can fairly rapidly demolish outstanding lists of articles needing geo-tagging. This might make thoughts of tagging articles redundant. --Tagishsimon (talk)

Any lists have already been made redundant by the Maybechecker mentioned below. Anyone who is interested in adding coordinates to articles will find it more useful than a category list, as it allows category intersection of articles without coordinates and some category of interest. Coordinates are such a tiny and easily obtainable detail that autotagging articles with maintenance requests creates much more work for people to later remove them, than just asking a tool which articles are yet to be geotagged. --Para 13:04, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
If I had a clue how maybechecker works, I might agree. I find it delphic. Has anyone written any explanation of its purpose & user interface? Meanwhile I'm happy to geo-tag UK articles, but know little of and am not very interested in tagging, for instance, german or Indian articles. I just tried Maybechecker. I presented me with a German railway station. I'm not likely to use it if it presents me with article after article that I have no interest in / knowledge of. So I must disagree with your contention that "Anyone who is interested in adding coordinates to articles will find it more useful than a category list", since I am interested in and active on geotagging, but unimpressed by maybechecker. --Tagishsimon (talk)
I gave it a second and third chance. It gave me a page which had been deleted, and then a redirect page. Flawless. --Tagishsimon (talk)
Its description can be found at de:Wikipedia:WikiProjekt Georeferenzierung/Wikipedia-World/en#Maybe-Checker. The feature you missed is the category input form where you can enter the Wikipedia category you're interested of, in this case one of the subcategories of Category:United Kingdom. If there are any problems with its usability, instructions or anything else, I'm sure the creator de:User:Kolossos will be happy to improve it. I understand it's not connected to current data, so it may propose articles that have been changed, just as talk page maintenance requests may not reflect the article's current situation. --Para 13:22, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. That makes much more sense. Objections withdrawn. --Tagishsimon (talk)
"talk page maintenance requests may not reflect the article's current situation" which is one reason why {{listdev}}, {{ISBN}} and {{LocateMeText}} all belong on articles, not talk pages. Andy Mabbett 13:59, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
FWIW, whilst I was not happy that {{LocateMe}} was placed in article space, I don't actually have much of a problem with {{LocateMeText}} in article space (though I'd be as happy to lose the "Please don't be overly precise" element of the sentence). --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:03, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
The discussions here, at WP:GEO and at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive81#LocateMe_bot conclude not only that the LocateMe template did not belong in article space, but also that such minor cleanup requests do not belong in article space. ISBN is the only unique way to identify a book and can thus be requested from everyone who sees the article, while geographical locations can be and are given in many other ways than just coordinates. Coordinates in articles are very useful in my opinion and all location related articles should have them, but this is just one project that tries to fill all articles with a minor detail, and the absence of the information doesn't make the article incomplete, unlike a missing book identifier or an incomplete list. --Para 09:39, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Some of the Satyrbot bot discussion is here - User talk:SatyrBot/Archive 3; it seems to have been based on an initial assertion of consensus. FWIW I agree with those who consider that all forms of locateme should be in talk space (at most); and I agree with those here who think that the addition of coords to the Proms would be bizarre. -- roundhouse0 14:37, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Para, please stop making things up. Thank you. Andy Mabbett 15:05, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Maybechecker

Use the maybechecker and forget about this template. The ratio of serverload for adding this template vs. actual work needed to geocode the article is ridiculous. --Dschwen 13:52, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

That makes sense. The template certainly shouldn't be in articlespace. TewfikTalk 19:14, 5 April 2007 (UTC)