Talk:WikiProject Cleanup

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See also Talk:Wiki maintenance tasks

Structure of WikiProjects and city pages

What about moving all places into a hierarchical structure? There are many city pages that clutter the namespace. I suggest a structure like:

  • Places
    • country
      • city, place etc. (big countries may add a layer more, but we should not go too deep)

An example: The result may look like this for Germany and Switzerland:

  • osm.org/wiki/Places/Germany/Berlin
  • osm.org/wiki/Places/Germany/Munich
  • osm.org/wiki/Places/Switzerland/Bern
  • ...

--Andy 00:24, 27 October 2007 (BST)

sounds good, what about using federal states? Hadhuey 12:57, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
I have started to organize Brazil as osm.org/wiki/WikiProject Brazil/{state}/{place} where {state} is the 2letter code of the state and {place} is the name of the city or munincipal. --Skippern 12:39, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with this. People instinctively think hierarchically when trying to organise information, but it's actually mistake to try to encode hierarchy into wiki page names. Wiki page names are always better kept short and simple. Simple page names make linking easier and generally allows a wiki to work better. Hierarchy can easily be reflected in the links appearing on the page.

I think we should follow wikitravel's page naming conventions. How to deal with page name clashes? They have a page called London but (as it became necessary) they also created London (Ohio) and London (Ontario) all linked from London (disambiguation).

In our case we might also deal with "cluttering" the namespace by qualifying (with brackets) any other place name which could cause confusion. I'll do an example right now actually. Someone created a place page about a place called "Lake" which I will move to Lake (Wight). Problem solved. No need for slashes in all the page names

We could leave people to decide about this on a country-by-country basis (as we have so far) because I know some countries have has slashes in all the place names for ages.

-- Harry Wood 13:27, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Page hierarchy generally

I also think we should avoid using sub-pages (or any form of prefix like 'WikiProject') for place pages. As Harry suggests, trying to impose a strict hierarchy can cause all sorts of difficulties, as there's often ambiguity (do you use political boundaries, or postal districts, or traditional areas, etc). Where hierarchies are useful, they can be added either using Categories, or via the infoboxes, or both. Frankie Roberto 11:50, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I have created this separate section to continue this discuss. Yes, I would support Frankie on discouraging the use of sub-pages or 'folder' hierarchy. I did wonder if I should flatten the Mapping/Features section of the wiki, for examplle Mapping/Features/Waterway and do now feel that possibly we should. I agree that we should used categories for this purpose. Some areas of the wiki seem to have developed hierarchy, for example the Open Data License, for example (Open Data License/Implementation Plan)and the Foundation has a three level hierarchy in places (Foundation/AGM09/Election to Board). The one place I would suggest we keep a one-level hierarchy is the Proposed features section to clearly keep proposals separate from the real think. This also has the benefit that the proposed feature can have the title that it would have in reality if approved. If we agree we should create a section on the Wiki guidelines page.PeterIto 08:28, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
I also like the idea of having proposals "attached" as such to the resultant feature. Maybe standardising how a feature progresses from proposal to feature by renaming as "Feature/proposal" and creating a new page in place of the original proposal. Martin Renvoize 12:26, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Page deletion procedure

Discussion moved to Template_talk:Delete

Resolved: Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 19:05, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Inter-wikis structure

What about changing this wiki structure to something like wikipedia, with an inter-wiki structure? Changing this will make ease to separate pieces of the wiki that are in different languages.

It would be great for users from non-english speaking countries to first select the language, like you do when the first access to wikipedia.

Another sugestion is to move tha language bar to the bottom-left corner, like wikipedia. I think the page will be more eye-friendly that way.

-- User:Vgeorge 16:57, 11 September 2008

Yeah. That's been suggested several times. See discussion over at Talk:Wiki#multilingual ability -- Harry Wood 22:31, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I stand strongly for one unified wiki, but wih a clear marking for the states and the languages they could share. It requires using ISO codes for both. It could be uneasy to have some couples unclearly defined as Fr (or Fre) for French and FR for the French Republic, but we 'll have and CAN Canada . Moreover, it could be decided to make language pages to have an entry named a Portal (this word translated in the specific language with a redirection from Portal:Rusian) . A portal for each state could be provided under the official language portal. So we could have :

  • Level 1 Category:Categories and world oriented and general stuff in English
  • Level 2 Category:Portal:EveryLanguageinUse
  • Level 3 Category:CategoriesforStuff for speakers in every used language + Category:Portals for the states under their official languages

Some difficulties may arise (pages in many languages and alphabets), but create separated wikies could be worse, as the map is worldwide. Each Portal could have these under-categories : General - Community - Technical - Legal - Press - Archives. --Ch. Rogel 17:35, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Sidebar tweak

Hi!

Could somebody change the first line of MediaWiki:Sidebar to read

recentchanges

instead of

recent changes

? The result should be that the caption gets localized automatically (using MediaWiki:recentchanges, just as the rest of the sidebar). Not that it would be that important, it would just be nice, and since it is so easy... Thanks, --Mormegil 20:46, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

OK done. Did that work? -- Harry Wood 21:21, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Yep, thanks! --Mormegil 15:26, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Resolved: Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 19:05, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons

Hi all (especially those that have administrative rights on this wiki), could it be possible to implement http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgForeignFileRepos#Using_files_from_Wikimedia_Commons_:_ForeignAPIRepo so that images from Commons are directly accessible? This would be of great value for e.g. German and Austrian road signs since they are free from copyright and there would be no need to duplicate them to this wiki. -- MapFlea 11:37, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

This is an idea for technical improvements to the wiki, so belongs over on Talk:Wiki. ...where in fact someone has already suggested it: Talk:Wiki#Allow use of images from wikimedia commons -- Harry Wood 12:31, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
Resolved: done! Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 19:05, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Suggested cleaning of content

Boundaries

boundary=* contains information only about boundary=administrative, this should be moved to the later, and boundary should contain general information about this key as well as links to where to find other information. Boundaries are more than administrative boundaries. --Skippern 18:24, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Possibly we need a 'Boundaries' article as an introduction to the subject that links to the Key:boundary and the Relation:boundary, can link to national projects and also cover details of different sorts of boundary. The page can also cover where the coastal boundary actually lies (high watermark, low watermark, 3 mile limit etc). If someone is keen to doing it then I suggest that they get on with it. PeterIto 08:39, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Unify article naming

In the wiki cleanup drive, I'd suggest moving to a coherent system of capitalization. We have Map Features, Database schema and Category:DataFormats. OSM Map On Garmin always gets me. My preference would be to go "Map features", "Database schema", "Data formats". Robx 12:01, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes good point. We could follow a policy similar to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(capitalization) which is saying mostly lowercase as you've said.
I'm tempted to put forward a 'Wiki page naming policy' which lay down capitalisation, and would also cover points about avoid overuse of subpage '/'s (see my comment on #Structure above)
-- Harry Wood 14:22, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
I have unified the naming of this section ;) (by capitalising the first letter). PeterIto 08:33, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Did you ever create a 'Wiki page naming policy' page Harry? I think it would be really useful to have some guidelines somewhere on how to name, and link your pages. For instance, I don't really understand when WikiProject prefix's should be used, in what context things should be named etc. I'de like to help with the clean-up, but I think the first job it to clarify some guidelines so we're all "cleaning" to the same standard and singing from the same hymn sheet.
Martin Renvoize 17:20, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Opinion on conventions. There seem to really only be three types of pages here;

  • MapProject - Used to Suffix all pages related to actually mapping! i.e Places, Types, Party's. A description of the task, status and persons involved should go here along with links to "Sub Projects" if necessary.
  • WikiProject - Used to Suffix all pages related to Wiki maintenance. i.e Wiki Clean Up, Wiki Suggestions, Wiki Notices, Template Suggestions. etc. The technical Wiki Stuff ONLY.
  • OSM - Used to suffix those pages relating directly to OSM, i.e an introduction page, the beginners guides, tagging information, tag proposals, api's and developer links, press initiative. Anything directly tied to the actual OSM concept and technology, NOT just loosely tied by the actual data.

Although having just read that back, I'm not so sure about actually suffixing, more just correctly categorising pages to aid in easy navigation. I think the easiest way to do this would be to impliment some basic template for each type of suffix/page listed above.

What does anybody think? Martin Renvoize 17:23, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Just found this page! Seem to be a good start on some naming guideline as well as a few other bits and bobs. Martin Renvoize 10:39, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

As an overdue update to this discussion...

Wiki guidelines#Titles - Page naming convention is where this has been documented as a guideline.

It's a good idea to link to that in edit comments as you move a page to follow this, but also you should not go on moving frenzy. Do this gradually, fix the redirected links as you go, and for some pages you should discuss the move first. The "Map Features" page should not be moved without extensive discussion and forewarning everyone. In fact it's best to leave that one until much later (when this guideline will be more accepted and followed)

-- Harry Wood 11:29, 1 April 2012 (BST)

Cz or Cs

We seem to have the start of a Czech translation which at the time of checking has 33 pages listed here and one of those seems to be a mistake (Cz:Ja: when a Cz: version also exists).

However, Czech seems to be the only language listed on the translation page where the "wiki namespace" differs from the ISO code which is Cs.

Someone has modified the languages template to handle this exception, but would it not be easier for translation in the long term if the pages were moved to Cs so that they are all the same? --EdLoach 09:07, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I handle the Cz as a exception, because they has Cz:Potlatch/Translation. It would be read by Potlatch. I thought that if I moved it to Cs without any notices, Czech language users and Potlatch developers would meet some troubles. I think that the exception is just a temporary case. Before moving it, we need to ask Potlatch developers. --Nazotoko 05:57, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
Potlatch is now translates elsewhere, so the change can be done. --Lulu-Ann 19:05, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

This has since been resolved. Although Special:PrefixIndex/Cz: still lists some pages, they are now all redirects to "CS:" prefixed pages. See also Wiki Translation#Language prefixes and namespaces -- Harry Wood 11:45, 1 April 2012 (BST)

Resolved: done! Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 19:06, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Sinebot

Would there be interest in getting SineBot over here? Tristan Thomas 22:38, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

suggest it over at Talk:Wiki -- Harry Wood 14:42, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Split out the 'guidelines' and 'labels' sections?

Should we split out the 'Guidelines' section into a page of that name and also the 'Labels' section into its own page (not sure about the title for that one) ? PeterIto 10:18, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I have now done this. PeterIto 08:34, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Pages in German

Some pages are entirely in German, I think that we should categorize them and translate. I have implemented new template for this {{translate from german}} see Template:Translate from german, i hope it is not against anything and if yes, please refactor my effort to the guidlines ... --Jakubt 21:33, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Marine mapping

A bunch of pages related to mapping of marine features exists without a clear structure. On Talk:Marine_Mapping#Cleanup I have made a suggestion which may act as a discussion starter. --HeikoE 11:02, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Added issues to main cleanup page. PeterIto 12:23, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Accessibility

I think pages shall also be accessible! That includes avoiding huge tables. See OSM_for_the_blind --Lulu-Ann 07:09, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Put all non-English pages into language namespaces?

Many project pages are written in the language of the country they are about but have names outside language namespaces. If they were moved to the relevant language namespace (RU: in Russia as is currently being discussed at RU talk:Main Page, DE: in Austria, FR: or NL: in Belgium and so on) we could make templates like {{Place}} display text in the appropriate language. With a bit more work it may also be possible to internationalise the Mediawiki tabs and sidebar. --Wynndale 16:42, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Just now I am moving all pages in russian into RU: namespace. But is it realy possible to internationalise sidebar? I thought that it is common for all users. - Zkir 16:54, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
Another question is whether it is possible to have different subdomains for different language-specific namespaces, as is the case with Wikipedia. GranD 18:57, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
P.S. Yes, I did read Talk:Wiki#multilingual ability. Nothing's changed since. GranD 19:10, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
{{Fi:KeyDescription}} - going to Template:Fi:KeyDescription - And it is good, but {{RU:KeyDescription}} - going to RU:KeyDescription - it is BAD. Anybody can FIX it? Finland programmers, (or anybody else) help us please! --Calibrator 13:55, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
{{Template:RU:KeyDescription}} is the answer. Does it make scene for you? --Nazotoko 20:28, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
That's why I think translated templates should be subpage of English template, eg. {{KeyDescription/ru}}. There will be no problems with namespaces. Yarl 16:43, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Pages with local content should be in the local language, without prefix, don't is this better? If a english translation exists, this page can have a EN: prefix. I have a problem with complexity of links that don't will end, like this here : http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/France:Pyrénées-Orientales:fr (a region page), I find, it's not logical. France is automaticly FR. I mean, the two pages can be inversed, the french page is the main page, and the english page a translation. I don't now, how I can do this, since the history go lost. --CepVingraunais (talk) 15:03, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
And how would it then be possible for the various parsers, templates and so on to to determine what language the page is written in? In my opinion, pages that exist in more than language should definitely use the standard prefixes for non-English content for consistency and to make automation possible/easier. (By the way, I'm surprised that this page is not simply named FR:Pyrénées-Orientales, why the France: prefix?)--Tordanik 15:24, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I to. It's complicated, so. The FR:region_name form can be better, yes (but actualy all the region pages are with France: prefix, I don't know, why - I'm relativly new). Here, it's actualy easy to know, that the page is french (and the most local pages are in the local language, no ?), but the system is not very clear... --CepVingraunais (talk) 09:46, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
In Brazil we have organized local/regional/Brazil related pages in a tree structure under WikiProject Brazil, the adventage of tree structure over the namespace structure is that it allows you to browse to parrent pages without the need to create links. Also the tree structure allows for pages to be created in other namespaces without messing up the structure. One could than if interesting create DE:WikiProject Brazil and still keep the tree structure. Also if a concensus rises that regional pages written in the local language should be put in the language namespace, one could simply move WikiProject Brazil/* to Pt-br:WikiProject Brazil/* creating room for English translations --Skippern (talk) 18:29, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Non-english page titles and indexing terms

I would support the transition from English to non-English titles for pages in non-English languages. I think that the categorization system should remain English-bound, but I would also support the use of non-English indexing terms for non-English pages sorted in English categories. For instance, see Category:Approved features where I've added the Japanese term for 'wheelchair' (車椅子) as the indexing term for the Japanese-language article. Thoughts? --Ceyockey 00:14, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Printing problem

This wiki is not right configured to print document! One side is alway missing! User:Janovski 17:30, 16 November 2009

Really? Nobody's reported problems before. Which page you trying print? Are you using the 'Printable version' link? (link on the bottom left) -- Harry Wood 17:43, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
I tested it right now and I have the same problem with the printable version in landscape, too. --Uboot 22:42, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
A few months have gone. Has the problem been resolved? --Kslotte 14:07, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Somebody reported the problem over here: Talk:Wiki#Printing not possible (the correct place to report it actually) and Firefishy says it should be fixed now. -- Harry Wood 14:21, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Resolved: described as done decade ago, noone claimed otherwise Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 19:07, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Progress Report

I've unified all the obvious Wiki labels to use a similar theme. This both make the entire Wiki look a bit more organised, and has given me a chance to further my Wiki Editing Knowledge to help with the real tasks at hand here.

I'm also trying to clean up the categories in a bid to make the Wiki easier to navigate for those that don't just rely on search, while going through pages sorting out categories, I'm listing which templates I feel need work or unification into a singular version and adding clean up labels as I go along.

Any further thoughts on this Wiki Cleanup Drive. I feel with clearer labelling (now done) we should encourage contributors to help with the labelling of pages needed work. Maybe a link on the main page saying, " If you find something wrong/out of date/plain messy, in our Wiki, please mark it for attention. Use Wiki labels"

Martin Renvoize 16:21, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, been going round adding labels to the obviose. I think we should get down to going through the list. I think a fiar amount could be done pretty painlessly. A number of Deletes etc that could quickly be settled upon, cleaning up the search. I think someone needs to go through unlinked and unused pages and templates and be a bit ruthless. Merging good info back into current pages and deleting the rest. Anyone agree?

Martin Renvoize 11:56, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Completed cleaning of Mapping/Features/ heir-ache! That was one heck of a job! Martin Renvoize

Proposals

I think the whole proposal system needs a good cleanup. I know I'm pretty confused with how it's meant to be done, where the pages should be placed. The use of the template and it's varying categories? It does however seem pretty well developed, but allot of the pages within it's heir-aches seem outdated and forgotten about? Martin Renvoize 10:27, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I fully agree with you. I have started to process and coordination of some of the map features that seems to be stuck. --Kslotte 14:05, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Take care with renovating the proposals system. Many people feel that the process of proposing/voting/and documenting tags on the wiki is out of control, because it tends to be dominated by people who are keen on fiddling with the wiki, rather than people who are experienced mappers and developers, leading to bad tag proposals being "approved" while well-established mapping practice gets ignored. This is a serious community cohesion problem which I gave a talk about at SOTM last year: http://www.harrywood.co.uk/blog/2009/10/04/community-smoothness/
There's lots of wiki improvement work to do, but if you're thinking of actually rewording the process itself, basically you should be aware that there's a few touchy subjects in relation to tagging proposals. You'll find evidence of this in places like Talk:Proposed features#Drifting from reality but a thing to realise is that the process requires wider discussion outside of the wiki (other Contact channels), because that's where it really needs to gain acceptance. -- Harry Wood 14:42, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Soft-redirected categories

What is the point of Category:Soft-redirected categories? Can these be removed? some limit how old the re-direct is? for example older then 6 months can be removed? --Kslotte 21:28, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

  • It depends. If it's a soft redirect due to a mistake in creating the category in the first place or something that's incorrect, sure, delete it in a couple of months. If it is a potentially common search term but redirects to a less obvious or equally valid category name, I'd suggest keeping it for the long term. ((looking at the category contents)) For instance, I would suggest keeping Category:Best of OSM as a logical alternative category name for Category:Best of OpenStreetMap. On the other hand, Category:Buses routes is bad grammar alternative to Category:Bus routes and could be deleted pretty quickly. Another comment -- I would not go and create a bunch of categories which would follow the first 'keep them' test above; rather, deal with them if they are created through the natural course of editing. --Ceyockey 23:50, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
Search don't cover categories. So your reasoning in my opinion fail. Other reasons? --Kslotte 01:53, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Correcting myself. Categories is not covered in search by default. Categories are also covered when explicitly selecting it at the search page. --Kslotte 15:37, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
The only reason I see to keep a soft-redirected categories is for inbound links (from outside the wiki). IMO, there should read somewhere (for example as comment or on the redirect page) why the soft-redirect exist. At wikipedia it reads "The technique is particularly likely to be used when redirecting users across Wikimedia sister projects....". This translated into OSM perspective means links from OSM related applications/sites linking to OSM wiki. --Kslotte 23:21, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Image categorizing

I have done some image categorizing lately. There are many images that have no category and not used. So, I decided to make up some categories for the images to get them better organized. The category structure can easily be improved and changed.

But, I did run into one issue at Wanderzeichen. I assumed the trial markings on the page was Germany (since it was written in German). All images on the page was placed in Category:Trail_markings_in_Germany, because I found Category:Trail_markings being overfull, totally about 700 images. Someone didn't like my categorizing; see User_talk:Kslotte. The problem is that I don't understand German good enough to understand what he/she wants. Can someone that understand German help us out to resolve the issue? --Kslotte 11:01, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

This was "resolved" by putting all pictures back to Category:Trail_markings. --Kslotte 20:33, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
Resolved: as stale and it is unclear anyway why either categorization would be better Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 14:26, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Tag description standard

I thought it will be nice to make a standard of tag's description. Please take a look at tag:landuse=allotments, that's my proposal. There will be only five permanent headers:

  • section "Description" - short derc., link to Wikipedia
  • section "Tagging" - tagging scheme with notes
  • section "Rendering" - rendering examples (I chose IMO three most popular)
  • section "Notes" - additional notes
  • section "See also" - link to voting, external sites, etc.

What do you think about this? I think it will be easier to find informations when you have them in the same place. Yarl 16:29, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I like that setup, tagging and rendering looks good. I think "tag description" is more suitable then "tag notes" (target edited). --Kslotte 01:46, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
I noted that slippymap has been used for marking how it is rendered. I propose using static pictures to make page loading faster. --Kslotte 17:47, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
I like the idea of standardising on heading names, but it doesn't need to enforced strictly. Also I have some feedback on your section headings.
There are philosophical arguments against including a rendering section. It creates the wrong impression, that tagging is always about what gets rendered on the main map(s). In practice I think it's kind of helpful, but just so you're aware of that line of thinking. I think it should include a link to the map where the example is from. I dislike use of the <slippymap> there. I created the slippy map extension, but I'm starting to regret it. It slows down browsing experience on the wiki. Having it on every tag page would be irritating.
The headings I have been adding to/changing pages to have are:
"How to map" - Do you put the tag on area or a node? and how to position the node etc.
"Tags to use in combination" - Ideas for additional properties tags to add alongside the main tag. Could try to order the list by how useful the combo tag is. More quirky ideas go towards the bottom. Note that talking about "required" and "optional" is nonsense. All combo tags are just useful to a greater or lesser extent.
"Similar tags" - very important and hasn't been done enough. Links to tags for similar kinds of map features, in each case explaining how to make a distinction, hopefully in a verifiable manner. Also links to similar tag proposals alerting people to new tags which may narrow the interpretation of this tag.
"Photos" - If possible we'd have a gallery of photos. We don't need more than three or four, but we'd aim to illustrate a classic example of this tag, which could be a repeat of the photo used in the top-right, plus photos showing different types and edge cases.
Some of the tag docs have these sections already.
-- Harry Wood 13:28, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
Well, using slippymap eqtention isn't best idea, but it's fastest method to show tag's rendering. Mabye this extention provides generating static image...
"How to map"/"Similar tags"/etc.: take a look at Tag:highway=motorway and put corrections you think they're necessary. I put similar tags to "See also" section, maybe it should be renamed. Yarl 16:27, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
When browsing randomly through the wiki I sometimes stumbles across Key: and Tag: pages without {{KeyDescription}} or {{ValueDescription}} set. Is there any way to search for such pages? IMO these templates adds much necessary information even to almost undocumented tags. --Skippern (talk) 16:49, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
You could search the complete lists of key pages at Special:PrefixIndex/Key: and so on or you could generate a report by searching a wiki dump offline. Andrew (talk) 17:02, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
I just did a lookthrough on SpecialPages:UncategorizedPages, and added the KeyDescription template, there where no Tag pages in the list, though there is no garanty that nobody have manually added categories to such page. At least no Key: or Tag: pages are uncategorized anymore --Skippern (talk) 18:02, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Pages with too many expensive parser function calls

Here something to-do: Category:Pages_with_too_many_expensive_parser_function_calls. I have started with this proposal. --Kslotte 20:36, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Split page Abandoned features, but we still have five pages in this annoying administrative category. Someone able to give the exact counts and pinpoint the logic that causing this? I assume the pages may not work as expected. --Kslotte 01:41, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Map features icons better way to organise

Hi,

many might recognize my project of the week for getting fresh icons. I noticed that there are other wiki pages that try to collect proposed icons. But this is how we get out of sync :( So my question is if we should extend the Map features list to show both, Mapnik and osmarender symbols and kee them up to date. So proposed icons could be visible with a yellow background. --!i! 10:25, 2 August 2010 (BST)

No I think more icons on the Map Features page will slow down the page even more, and besides... It's useful to have little rendering examples on there, but not so useful (quite confusing in fact) to put "proposed" icons on there. If there are any proposed icons on there at the moment, I'd argue they should be removed. What is a "proposed" icon anyway? You're elevating it to something more important than it actually is. A "proposed" icon is actually just a bit of artwork sitting in a repository of potential artwork to be used, but which isn't being used at the moment. -- Harry Wood 11:37, 2 August 2010 (BST)
Interesting aspects Harry, well I don't like to throw the allready proposed icons away and still looking for an idea to keep this icon collections together with the features up to date. Another idea is to distinguish between mapnik and osmarender styles cause this would make it IMHO more clear why a icon/style does not appear on the user page. --!i! 20:30, 2 August 2010 (BST)

GPS Reviews table

I'm trying to improve the GPS Review table. Today I worked on a template for the table. See User:AndiPersti/Labor. Any comments or suggestions? -- AndiPersti 17:31, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, this will be a good job to the community Andi! As written in my PM I would recommend to split it up basing upon the devices categories (only receiver, datalogger, simple Navi, full Navi,...). So it might be wise to create dedicated templates? Or do you want to add all informations to this single template? But this might result in a lot of stuff the people have to enter :/. --!i! This user is member of the wiki team of OSM 16:37, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm also pro splitting. I just used the current table elements, so the people do already enter so much stuff :-). If we split the "type"-element will be removed. I also think that the "price"-element could be omitted because without updating it regularly (prices change very often and they are also dependent on where you are) it's pretty useless IMO.
At the moment there are the following "official" types (as written in the legend below the table): PDA, Data Logger, Reciever, Navigator, Mobile Phone, Professional, Military (L1/L2). Most devices belong to the first categories (I've found 2 professional and no military devices). If also found the mention of 6 Personal Trainers (all Garmin), 3 Outdoor GPS (all Garmin), 1 MP3-Player, 1 Camera and 1 Module.
Therefore I think we could split the table into the following categories: Reciever/Mouse - Data Logger - PDA/Mobile Phone - Navigator - Other (all the rest)
I think the current table elements are good for recievers and loggers. What elements do you think are useful for example for navigators (display size? voice output?) -- AndiPersti 20:54, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes price isn't important per device. A general price can be written at the article presenting the different device genres. Your splitting sounds good.
For navigators you might get an idea if you have a look at the software attributes describing navigation tools (Template:Software2). There are additional hardware details like interface (touchsreen, buttons, joggdial,...), ruggedized (real outdoor for hiking), vital functions monitoring (heartrate). --!i! This user is member of the wiki team of OSM 09:22, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the list. I'll propose an attribute list for the categories until end of the week. -- AndiPersti 14:52, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I've posted my suggestions on Talk:GPS_Reviews#Cleaning. That's imho the better place for discussing (and hopefully more people comment on it there). -- AndiPersti 11:01, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Übersetzung ins Deutsche

In Workshops erlebe ich immer wieder, wie Neue an fehlenden Wiki-Seiten scheitern. Sie können englische Texte nicht verstehen.
Gibt es eine priorisierte Liste von zu übersetzenden Artikeln?
Wie kann man nicht übersetzte Artikel mit einer Vorlage/Kategorie kennzeichnen und die Dringlichkeit angeben?
Habe hier nichts gefunden: de:Wiki Übersetzung Gruss, --Markus 08:47, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Es gibt bereits die Kategorie Category:Translate to German bzw. Category:Translation needed wobei erstere wahrscheinlich besser ist. Ein eigenes Template wäre wahrscheinlich zu aufdringlich. -- AndiPersti 09:37, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
Hi, ein entsprechendes Template habe ich vor kurzem wieder ausgegraben Template:Translation_out_of_sync. Ich finde das eigentlich garnicht schlecht, denn Newbies können ja nicht einschätzen, wie weit eine Seite veraltet ist. Ich fände es aber nicht gut dort solche Stubs "übersetzt mal" anzulegen. Zum einen kann man nun mal keinen zwingen, zum anderen erscheint es dann nicht mehr als roter Link und die Leute denken der Artikel ist schon eingedeutscht. Ich denke die lokale Sprache ist schon wichtig, zur Zeit haben wir aber definitiv zu wenig Wiki Leute um das im großen Stil umnzusetzen und vor allem auch zu pflegen. --!i! This user is member of the wiki team of OSM 15:30, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
Hab die zu übersetzende Artikelkategorie mal verlinkt. Hadhuey 17:50, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Wiki purposes - asking for clarification

I am not trying to be intentionally dense. I've a very basic question which might have been addressed somewhere and am merely asking to be pointed at it if it exists. I'm wondering what the strategic purpose(s) of the Wiki are with respect to the OpenStreetMap project. Now, one is very obvious — to provide a user & contributors guide to all aspects of the map resource; that one is essentially and a major focus of this WikiProject. Where it gets somewhat blurry is in the place-page content, such as city pages. I recently started a page at United States natural disasters and find that all of the place-names noted as impacted by Tropical Storm Lee lack individual Wiki pages here. It would seem, in looking at some of the existing City pages, that the role of the Wiki is in providing an organizing area for mapping progression and mapping-related events and that information about the city per se shouldn't be included except in the form of "contained places". I just want to confirm with folks that this is the scoped role of place pages in general ... and see if this is / should be stated clearly in some of the assistant documentation related to editing in the Wiki. Thanks for your patience. --Ceyockey 18:20, 10 September 2011 (BST)

For "strategic purpose(s) of the Wiki" you can find my thoughts over at Talk:Wiki organisation#The various wiki purposes
"Place" pages (e.g. "City pages") are meeting a few purposes, the main one being mapping coordination. There aren't many place pages for U.S. cities, but this should change as the mapping community picks up. We can create pages to help the mapping community pick up, but sometimes it's better avoid information overload, and just create coordination pages which are going to be used and maintained. So that impetus needs to come from the local community. More description of this on Creating city pages#Introduction.
A point on wiki page naming conventions. My recommendation (also described on Talk:Wiki organisation) would be to call a page 'Bloomsburg' rather than 'Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania' unless there is a need to disambiguate other places or other uses of the word Bloomsburg. Always go for shorter simpler wiki page titles. That's just my recommendation, but there are other naming approaches in use.
-- Harry Wood 21:52, 10 September 2011 (BST)
+1 --seav 02:17, 11 September 2011 (BST)
+1 --!i! This user is member of the wiki team of OSM 12:39, 13 September 2011 (BST)
+1 --Ceyockey 03:09, 14 September 2011 (BST)

Merge

The Template does not work like expected: Tag:sport=diving. There are a lot of pages to merge: Talk:Tag:sport=scuba_diving. Thanks, --Markus 08:07, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The solution is to add a "1=…" if the parameter of a template contains a "=". See also Help:Template#Usage hints and workarounds on Wikipedia or Hilfe:Vorlagen#Problem: Gleichheitszeichen in Parameterwerten on Wikipedia --KTim 17:23, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
Resolved: Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 19:08, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Translation

I miss the category Category:Translate to English. There are a lot of essential pages written only in German... --Markus 08:18, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

These pages can be added to Category:Translate from German. That category makes it clear what language skills are needed for translation, whereas Category:Translate to English wouldn't tell you what other language you'd need to know in addition to English. --Tordanik 08:26, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Recent cleanup activity

I have had a bit of a mad-dash session on the wiki doing much more than I originally intended. I am aware that I didn't talk about what I was going to do before hand, so... better late than never. This is what I have been up to:

  • created a subcategory in category:features associated with every features pages.
  • created some new features articles where these were needed.
  • renamed 'feature pages' to be 'features' to fit better with the features category and tweeked the template for feature pages to match.
  • renamed the 'Water feature' article to water, which covers tags for everything that is wet and create a category for it. This has the following subcategories, each with their own feature page:
  • Marine (anything to do with the sea. except...)
  • Waterways (anything to do with rivers, lakes etc)
  • moved all pages about individual projects from category:projects into subcategories for the relevant topic or into countries/territories (see next entry).
  • moved all the country wikiprojects into a new category called Category:Countries/territories which has subcategories for 'countries in xxx' etc. Using 'country/territories' stops people getting cross about us including Palestine and other disputed places.
  • moved projects that are specific to a country (for example 'roads in Germany' or 'towns in Sweden') from 'projects' into the category for the country and also for the subject. 'Roads in Germany ends up in the category for Germany and for Highways.
  • Worked up the Highways feature page to try to cover all the main tags associated with highways as an introduction and overview to all road mapping. Still more to do but getting there and hopefully a model for other features pages.
  • created a new category:OSM Community for projects/events that bring contributors together
  • retained category:Society and culture for tags that relate to society and culture (it was a muddle of that and Osm community stuff)
  • renamed 'mtb' to Mountain biking so that everyone could understand what it was about
  • moved some confusing categories out of category:categories to better places.
  • cleared out a category called 'lists' which seemed to be rather random and wasn't useful

All in all it was about 500 edits, but I think the wiki is a better and more logical place as a result. Please don't ask me to out it all back where it was though!

-- PeterIto 00:56, 19 June 2012 (BST)

Translations

Hello, I think that translation on this wiki would use some improvement and I've proposed a new system at Talk:Wiki Translation#Translate extension. This would allow a big cleanup of the currently very messy translations. Thanks, Nemo 10:33, 16 August 2012 (BST)

Pages in different languages not using the language template

I found the Template:User_box in different languages. Only the english page refers to other languages - but not using the language-template. So I wanted to add the language template to all 4 pages. But I am not sure whether this will work as the pages are named:

Template:User_box, Template:User_box:de, Template:User_box:fr and Template:User_box:ru

instead of (in case of normal translations)

Template:User_box, DE:Template:User_box, FR:Template:User_box and RU:Template:User_box

What would you advise in order to get a clearly structured OSM WIKI? Create the pages in the second line with the contents of those in the first line? What then to do with the pages in the first line? Empty them and redirect to the new pages? Other/better ideas?

But there is a chapter in the english version, which says that

You can create a template in your own language (let's say : lg) that call this one.

    Create the template : Template:User_box:lg 

For me this could mean that the template itself must or should be named in the described way (...:lg), but the documentation page could be in the normal way (lg:...). But I am not so familiar with templates.

--Rennhenn 18:12, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Categories added by Template:Place

Merging of Categories for cities, towns and villages

At the moment, {{Place}} populates categories called Cities in, Towns in of Villages in depending on the description of the place so there can be more than one category for places in the same area. Surely it makes more sense to have a single category for cities, towns and villages in each area? Andrew 19:58, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

As I understand it, you are suggesting to merge Category:Cities in Bavaria, Category:Towns in Bavaria and Category:Villages in Bavaria into a single category Category:Places in Bavaria? I don't feel strongly either way, but would like to point out that Wikipedia has similar separate categories: wikipedia:Category:Cities in Bavaria, wikipedia:Category:Towns in Bavaria, wikipedia:Category:Villages in Bavaria. What would the advantages of a merge be in your opinion? --Tordanik 07:31, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
The advantages are:
  1. Having separate categories means anyone using the categories to find project pages needs to look in more than one category if there is any doubt which word was used on the page.
  2. Our categories are generally smaller because only subjects of project pages are listed and not everywhere with a Wikipedia article.
  3. The English-language Wikipedia is targeted at English speakers who use all three distinct words in daily use. The OSM wiki is an international resource often used people whose first language may not have three everyday words.
Andrew 13:55, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
I can live with different categories as well as with a single category. The last could have the advantage to eliminate inconsistencies in the use of the different categories for cities, towns and villages (e.g. town of about 12'000 inhabitants in the Category of cities (defined as "more than 100'000 inhabitants" or "the largest urban settlements in the territory"); for more examples see table in subchapter Keys and Categories for places in Germany).
But I am not quite sure whether the wording "place" is the right one for that merging-categoriy as districts, states ... are also places for which the template is being used.
--Rennhenn 12:16, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Harmonizing Categories of Template:Place with Admin Levels

It is interesting that the Place template does not have provision for an admin level value. Certainly, admin level is an attribute of a boundary, but where a boundary and a place label are both available, I think they would properly be placed together into a boundary relation with the boundary with the 'outer' role and the place marker with the 'label' role. In other words, for all places like towns, villages and cities, there is a boundary even if we do not represent it here due to limitations on data availability; therefore, there would be an associated admin level. What I'm thinking about is the utility of place categorization in the OSM wiki and that the distinction between the three example place types is largely size, but size is not a parameter which is not intrinsically an OSM datum; however, admin level _is_ intrinsically of OSM and has a definition for each country (at Tag:boundary=administrative). It seems that the 'type' variable of the template restricts the use of the template to those entities which are subject to admin-level assignment. In the US, admin-level 8 combines cities, villages and towns in the definition. Thus, I would suggest realignment of the place template to categorize based on the admin-level instead of a surrogate for size. Regards --Ceyockey 18:19, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Are you suggesting hierarchical categories with, for example, Los Angeles in the category of level 8 (cities and towns) in Los Angeles County and San Francisco as level 6 (counties) in California? Andrew 13:46, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
Yes. That would be the result of implementing my suggestion. It occurs to me that there might be a way to feed Nominatim place information into the template data content (likely via bot or by a lookup function at time of template authoring) so that one need not to manually put the admin-level data into the template, but that is beyond my technical ability to contribute to (or so I think). --Ceyockey 16:03, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Categories regarding Places and Similar

Coming from the German translation of Creating city pages which was outdated regarding the syntax for including slippy maps I wondered how to find and verify all respective pages in order to change wording from "osmarender" to "mapnik". I thought that the categories pages should be helpful. But the I became a bit confused and wonder whether those categories-pages should be cleaned up in order to be helpful.

My first idea was to have consistency between the keys used in the map and the categories in the OSM-WIKI (see below). While engaging in that item I additionally thought that consistency between the categories for places-pages and the categories for user-pages (see below). Then I found out that using the template for city pages (which is commonly used for cities as well as for districts) automatically creates links to 2 category-pages (one for places, 1 for "users in", see below) whereas the template for user-pages creates links to 1-6 category-pages, depending on how detailed the user filles in the template (all for "users in", see below).

As I was not quite sure what I would propose for better consistency and where to adress these points I started collecting information and trying to understand the different views and dependencies. Now seeing this discussion I think my collection would fit in there.

--Rennhenn 12:16, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Keys and Categories for places in Germany

(Population is not the only criteria for the distinction between cities, towns, villages or hamlets but rather helpful in the most cases)

In the following table I listed the existing keys which are used in the map and the categories in the OSM-Wikis which summarise the OSM-WIKI-pages of the respective category as well as a proposal regarding future categories and clean-up-categories. The number of pages/subpages was evaluated in september 2012.

It seems to me as if we use different names for the German "Landkreis". According to the discription of the keys to be used in the map (DE:Key:place) we use "county" whereas in the WIKI-documentation of the "Landkreise" the wording "district" is widely used (both in OSM-WIKI (e.g. Rems-Murr-Kreis) and in Wikipedia ([1]) itsself)

Key-Value Population Description Proposal Category/WikiProject Description Number of sub-Categories Number of pages
place=continent Kontinent. Ein der sieben Kontinente: Afrika, Antarktis, Asien, Australien/Ozeanien, Europa, Nordamerika, Südamerika
place=country Land. Siehe boundary=administrative fits - leave it Category:Germany 24

(2 of them: districts)

353

(districts, towns, villages, and others)

delete it Category:State of Germany no information, no page is linked to this page (created in 2008 by user:HoH) 0 0
place=state state, "Bundesland", "Kanton". fits -> leave it

TODO: make pages for the rest of the states

Category:States in Germany 18

(all: (German) states - some with their German, some with their English name)

10

(all: (German) states - most of them with their English names)

place=county Verwaltungsbezirk. WikiProject_Germany_Landkreise sorted by "Bundesland"/"state"
rename it to Category:Districts in Germany

TODO

  • create sub-categories for districts in the several states
  • create sub-sub-categories for places in the several districts
all places in one category or 3 different categories for cities, towns, villages?
  • add the right categories to the respective pages
Category:District in Germany no information, no page linked with this page (created 2009 by user:Claas Augner) 0 0
see Category:District in Germany Category:Districts in Baden-Württemberg 3 subcategories of districts, 33 pages of districts
WikiProject_Germany/Places Places sorted by "Bundesland"/"state" about 450 (not all of them really having own pages)
Proposed features/Municipality Status: Abandoned (inactive) delete it (first idea of Rennhenn, but: see next table row),

reason: if a proposal for that feature already has been abandoned then a category for sth wich is not wished does not make sense

TODO:

  • before deletion: clarify wording/categorisation of the respective city pages
  • make sure in Creating_city_pages that "type=municipality" is not used for new city pages.
Category:Municipalities in Germany 4

(3x municipalities in districts with 13 + 5 + 13 pages,

1x cities in Germany)

Municipality - Cities/Tows/Villages see discussion opened by Andrew
place=city more than 100'000 The largest urban settlements in the territory fits mostly - leave it

TODO:

  • take out category "Municipalities in Germany"
  • add category "Germany"
  • verify categories of "cities" in order to have consistent lists
Category:Cities in Germany German cities according to their state in a manual table + automatical "Categories" lists 16

(cities in the different states - mostly more cities in those subcategories than in the manual table)

4

(2 cities, 1 street list of a city, 1 Mapper-page of a town of about 12'000 inhabitants)

place=town more than 10'000 A second tier urban settlement of local importance. In areas of low population towns may have significantly lower populations. fits mostly - leave it

TODO:

  • take out incorrect category (district in the pages),
  • create sub-categories for the towns of the other states
  • verify categories of towns with < 5'000 inhabitants
  • add category/subcategory to the towns pages
Category:Towns in Germany 13

(towns in the different states),

35

(1 district, rest: towns (some with < 10'000 inhabitants some with < 5'000 only)

place=village less than 10'000 A smaller distinct settlement, smaller than a town. fits - leave it

TODO:

  • create sub-categories for the villages of the other states
  • verify categories of villages
  • add category/subcategory to the villages pages
Category:Villages in Germany 1

(villages in a special state),

3

(2 villages of 5'000 inhabitants, 1 village with almost no information)

place=hamlet some hundreds of inhabitants or less A smaller rural community
place=isolated_dwelling only a few households named settlement consisting in a rural setting
other places
place=region Region. Siehe boundary=administrative
Category:Eifel 17 pages (11 towns ..., 1 district, rest: special information regarding area Eifel

--Rennhenn 12:16, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

User Box
admin_level
0 Planet type=planet
1 Kontinent type=continent
2 Land type=nation
4 Stadtstaaten Bundesland
5 Regierungsbezirk
.
6 kreisfreie Stadt (Stadtkreis) Landkreis
8 Gemeinde, Stadt / Stadtbezirk
10 Teil einer Gemeinde / Stadtviertel
Teil eines Teils / z.B. Wohngebiet
Straße
Hausnummer
Userbox
-
-
country : Land (admin_level_2)
state : Bundesland
region : Region
department : Regierungsbezirk (admin_level_6)
county : Landkreis
city : Stadt (admin_level_8)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-


Admin Level (Germany):

The structures "Bundesland", "Kreis" and "Gemeinde" exist in each of the 16 "Bundesländer". "Regierungsbezirke" only exist here and there. In urban districts ("Stadtkreise", German towns directly subordinate to a region as opposed to districts) respective community/municipality levels ("Gemeindeebenen") are being carried along principally, even if they seem to be unnecessary. Equally virtual "Kreise" are being used in "Stadtstaaten" (federal city states, belonging to the "Bundesländer").

userbox: -> for the user automatically respective categories "user in ..." are being set up;

for state = Baden-Württemberg
- link is set to Baden-Württemberg
- automatically the category "Users in Baden-Württemberg" is being set up
for department = Stuttgart
- link is not set to Stuttgart but to the not existing page Deutschland:Stuttgart
- automatically the category "Users in Stuttgart" is being set up
- User:USmith probably has entered "Regierungspräsidium Düsseldorf" in analogy and therefore also has created a page Deutschland:Regierungsbezirk Düsseldorf with redirection to Regierungsbezirk Düsseldorf
for city = Schorndorf
- link is set to Schorndorf
- automatically the category "Users in Schorndorf" is being set up
It is becoming interessting e.g. for users in Hamburg like User:Josias; there 2x link is set to Hamburg (1x from Bundesland, 1x from Stadt), and 1x to the not existing page Deutschland:Hamburg.

--Rennhenn 12:16, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Comparison of the two Correlations:

the description of the "admin-Levels" is not consistent in case of department:Regierungsbezirk:

in the userbox it is mentioned at admin-Level 6 instead of 5
in the userbox in France "Departement (frz)" (what would probably fit to the german "Bundesland") is mentioned at admin-Level 6 - fitting to the definitions of admin-level for France (admin-Level 5 is not being used there)
so this may be german problem only as there are being used partly different admin-lvels (1-11 instead of 1-10), see admin_level values for specific countries

--Rennhenn 12:16, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Categories for places and for users in Germany

For easier understanding it could be helpful to have consistency between the "Categories for places" and the "Categories for users".

Category:Users_in_Germany

  • 19 subcategories (16 for states, 1 for a district, 1 for a village, 1 for a town)
  • subcategories for districts contain subcategories (for districts and for cities/towns/villages) and pages (all: users)
  • exceptions (1): Categories Users_in_Nordrhein-Westfalen, Users_in_Saarland, Users_in_Hamburg: no subcategories for districts
  • exceptions (2): Categories Users_in_Bremen, Users_in_Berlin: no subcategories at all
  • 1'600 pages (all: users)

Category:Users_in_germany

  • 1 page (all: users)

--Rennhenn 12:16, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Template for city pages used for cities/towns/villages as well as for "Landkreise"

As far as I understand, a page automatically creates a category in the footline if the template in Creating_city_pages#Using a template to create the page text is used.

  • {{Template:Place ...| name = placename (eg. Landkreis Schwäbisch Hall)| type = typename (eg. district)| subarea = | area = areaname (eg. Germany) ...
results in "Category: typename in areaname" (eg: Category:Districts in Germany)
  • {{Template:Place ... | name = placename (eg. Landkreis Schwäbisch Hall) | type = typename (eg. district) | subarea = subareaname (eg. Baden-Württemberg) | area = areaname (eg. Germany) ...
results in "Category: typename in subareaname" (eg: Category:Districts in Baden-Württemberg)

Additionally in the automatically created box there is a link to a category "users in placename" (eg. Category:Users in Landkreis Schwäbisch Hall)

--Rennhenn 12:16, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Other Diskussions Fitting to the Topic as well (german)

Captchas are annoying - please switch off

German: (Ist das hier die Admin-Talk-Seite?!)

Mir scheint, dass ich seit ein paar Tagen bei jedem Edit, in dem ich eine externe URL hinzufüge oder editiere ein Captcha abtippen muss. Das nervt. Von mir aus für neue User, aber doch nicht für alte User mit zig Bearbeitungen über viele Tage. Nebenbei: google, google, google ... --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 16:03, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

English: (Isthat the admin talk page?)

It seems that I need to enter a captcha code everytime I add/edit some URL since some days. That is annoying. Switch the captcha on for new users - but not for old users with masses of edits on several days. By the way: google, google, google ... --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 16:05, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

We have an insane spam problem at the moment. I am happy to whitelist any domains which are used regularly. -- Firefishy (talk) 16:26, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for your answer! :-) Ah, therefore... so that was a config change, right? Is there no option to captcha-target only new accounts? Whitelisting is not really the solution. You need to get to know the URLs (only a fraction of users will know that there IS a whitelisting and how to get an URL to the whitelist) and the whitelisting actions is also work. Anyway, those: http://resultmaps.neis-one.org/oooc?layers=B00FTFFFFT&zoom=11&lat=50.04524&lon=8.83443 http://zverik.osm.rambler.ru/whodidit/
Don't the spammers need to solve a captcha already at sign-up? If they can solve that, they also will solve the edit captchas?! --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 19:54, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
https:// github.com/systemed/iD/blob/master/README.md --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 13:09, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
http://creativecommons.org/* please --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 18:49, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
github.com/qgis/ --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 22:49, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
hxxp://mc.bbbike.org --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 16:04, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

even this is blocked: [/REMOVEME/www.openstreetmap.org/copyright www.openstreetmap.org/copyright] --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 12:54, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Are you sure? It's on the MediaWiki:Captcha-addurl-whitelist whitelist. I guess maybe you hit a temporary glitch of some kind, but I did a couple of tests with a normal wiki user just now, and could link to that page no problem: [2] (with both http and https) -- Harry Wood (talk) 13:33, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
yes, I am. Try to remove the REMOVEME at testedit and try to save. --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 14:34, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
Aha hmm. I've never noticed that style of link syntax without the 'http'. Freaky. Is it new? I've put the question here. Seems like the whitelist mecanism doesn't work for that. Goodness knows what else doesn't work -- Harry Wood (talk) 16:11, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
No that is not new, and it is nothing MediaWiki-specific. It is just protocol-relative links. --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 16:57, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
Oh wow ok. Well it looks like you've found a MediaWiki bug there. It seems protocol relative URLs are not matched against the captcha whitelist. Do you want to report it to MediaWiki devs? -- Harry Wood (talk) 17:57, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for your help. Bug: And another stupid registration ;-) Here we are: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=61556 --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 20:57, 19 February 2014 (UTC)


typed in about ten of those hard to read captchas today... Please find another solution. --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 17:04, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Finding some other anti-spam method would be very good. TODO ;-) --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 17:04, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

"$wgCaptchaTrustedThreshold = 150; // default 100" at http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ConfirmEdit#Patch_for_even_more_spam_protection looks like what we should set. So captchas never annoy real wiki contributors. Spammers are blocked after some edits, right? --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 10:50, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

That would certainly solve the problem for users like you, who are doing lots of good wiki contribution. Unfortunately it's a patch, which is a slightly ugly thing to deploy. We'll have to see what User:Firefishy thinks of that. I'll ask him. Right now I'm more keen to nag him about this. :-) but I'll talk to him about it -- Harry Wood (talk) 13:04, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Out of of a random event I need to use the web today without images. And I tried to add a external link. Captcha - oh! Well, "nice", recaptcha offers a audio captcha. Well, so far so good. But: try to understand this. This is fucking impossible. The visual captchas are hard (often needs two or more tries), but the audiocaptchas are impossible. :-( --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 22:00, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Featured Images/Jul-Sep 2013 is broken (included in Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded)

Featured Images/Jul-Sep 2013 is broken (included in Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded). Can someone fix that? I inserted a workaround. --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 00:05, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

The templates that drive the page support a large number of languages and no one has ever written any captions in many of them. Try commenting some of them out.Andrew (talk) 11:16, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. However, disabling some languages does not sound like a solution to me. Why should those languages not be allowed to have captions? Hmmm ..--Aseerel4c26 (talk) 11:55, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
That was why I added so many extra languages. At the moment the template in every language is compared with the template text in English to check whether or not it is just dropping through. Because the descriptions this quarter have been unusually wordy this means a lot of text. Andrew (talk) 06:23, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
Fixed without removing any languages. Andrew (talk) 06:58, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
ahhh, okay. Thank you! one closing curly brace too much, isn't it? --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 22:12, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
Resolved: Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 19:09, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi,

I think the "This page has been cleaned up" logo should contain a date. You cleanups today will be worthless and wrong information in 2 years. This should be identifiable.

--Lulu-Ann (talk) 08:59, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes. Although in my opinion the green Template:Cleaned label is a bit ugly, and the page won't truly be cleaned up it has been removed. Not sure if everyone would agree, but I reckon we could say if that label has sat there being ugly for more than say 3 weeks, anyone should feel free to remove it. -- Harry Wood (talk) 11:07, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
I agree, the cleanup template is really not nice to look at. The English Wikipedia deals with a similar problem by moving a lot of the banners and logos onto the talk page. But I'm not convinced that the template is helpful at all, so maybe we can just stop using it? --Tordanik 13:02, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
What about a small logo like the Wikipedia logo or the CC-BY-SA-Logo at the bottom? --Lulu-Ann (talk) 13:24, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
Can we program templates to put logos down there? If yes, I don't know how to do it. But before we talk about the implementation, perhaps we should find a reason for the template to exist at all. So what is the purpose of the template? --Tordanik 12:35, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Navigation by use cases

I proposed a reorganisation of the wiki navigation, which is also somehow a clean up. I would be happy to get your opinions about it. --Cantho (talk) 05:15, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Switch the interwiki list to protocol-relative URLs

We were talking about protocol-relative URLs above. They are not used for links to e.g. Wikipedia despite they support both http and https access. Our Special:Interwiki should use those (similar to wikipedia:Special:Interwiki) for all sites where we know that https works too. At least for Wikipedia this should be done. It would be a great gain (we have many links to Wikipedia) of security (of the users who surf via https) by just a small change. Those users will stay on https then. Apparently they need to be inserted into a SQL table named "interwiki". --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 17:54, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

messy template edits related to translation - needs reverting or fixing

for example (parameter name edit apparently even without replacing in the current template uses). Breaks Düsseldorf on bottom. I have fixed this now. More discussion about this at Template talk:Navigation bar/doc.

Please someone take care of all the edits (probably reverting...). More on the user's talk page. Too much for me now. --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 13:57, 19 March 2014 (UTC) Update: 14:50, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

You didn't fix it. Do not mess up English space with fake English template. We don't understand German. Now, the current template, blocking the creation of an identical template in English. Please remove it or revert to English and make a separate version in German language for your needs. --Władysław Komorek (talk) 17:51, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
LOL... Revert it, you will see the result. As said, you are misunderstanding. I have no more time to spend. Other people seem not to care. Do what you like. Revert my changes, whatever. Note that I have unwatched this page and your talk page now. This is breaking my head otherwise. Please also do not contact me about this. I will get back to it in some weeks if really no one cared about. --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 20:42, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, and more such edits - related to categorization of templates. Władysław inserted newlines sometimes which cause additional newlines on the template-using pages and even break wiki syntax on some (e.g. in headings or lists). He apparently does not understand my explanations and does not fix his stuff. I do not want to and cannot blindly revert all of this (and his would not like it) but I also do not want to play his cleanup-donkey (causing him not to change his edit behaviour). I hope somebody else could try to talk to Władysław. --Aseerel4c26 (talk) 12:31, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Aseerel4c26 - Well, I think you should revert the changes you do not like. Wladyslaw does cause a lot of troubles because sometimes he does not know what he is doing. I was trying to fix some of his bad changes as well. IMO if you have time fix it and if you don't then revert it with a comment explaining which page he broke, then he can fix it by himslef. Chrabros (talk) 03:28, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

I fixed the template to support both naming conventions. If we want to transition to English that is pretty trivial, ask me and I'll do it. Rich Farmbrough (talk)

"Deprecated" label

IMHO a "this feature is deprecated" label is needed. We have the "deprated" tag in the infobox but no good way to draw attention to the deprecation. See examples:

Tag:power=station DE:Key:wood Tag:waterway=water_point

No need for it. We can change background from #ddffdd to red. |status= value in Template:Description is sufficient in most cases. Xxzme (talk) 08:55, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
I think this is too subtle. The box is for a summary of the article, so this information should also be in the free text.--Jojo4u (talk) 10:37, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
Sorry, saw the new background, it's not too subtle ;). Not sure if this will be accepted since deprecated only means "not recommended" in OSM since everybody can tag as you like - but we'll see.--Jojo4u (talk) 11:38, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
Now that the color change didn't last, I will create a label later.--Jojo4u (talk) 14:01, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
First version: User:Jojo4u/Template:Deprecated_feature, please comment. Question: I would like to automatically link to the correct namespace of [[Deprecated_features]]?--Jojo4u (talk) 11:46, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
The label is ready for use! The question about namespace linking remains. Template:Deprecated feature--Jojo4u (talk) 20:44, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
Resolved: Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 19:09, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Separating usage and proposal status

I started a discussion about separating usage and proposal status in Template:Description: https://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?id=56126

w:mw:Extension:Thanks

No idea if this is the right place to ask for that, but installing w:mw:Extension:Thanks here would be very nice in my eyes. What do you think? Who could do that? Thanks a lot, --Marsupium (talk) 17:59, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

A better place to ask for it might be Talk:Wiki or the bugtracker linked from that page, although the admins may well be too busy to install it. I would welcome this as an easy way to spread more positivity during day-to-day wiki editing. Currently, the only time people tend get feedback from other users is when someone objects to their edits. --Tordanik 16:56, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Cleanup of tags related to boundary and regions

Hi, I wrote recently in Talk:Boundaries (about boundary=region), Talk:Key:boundary type (about boundary_type=region), Talk:Tag:place=region and on Tagging about the mess of tags and uncertainty regarding the tagging of regions. I got into this by finding that nominatim for some reason failed to find the region Ladakh in India referenced in an Indian film i watched. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladakh).

Maybe a general cleanup project is warranted. What do you think?--PangoSE (talk) 14:21, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Reference to deletion process

I would like to put a reference to the Deletion process on this page. There is one currently, but it is not very well-placed. Additional section? --Tigerfell This user is member of the wiki team of OSM (Let's talk) 22:12, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Resolved: it is linked Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 19:16, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Pages that could probably be deleted

Moved from User talk:Tigerfell/Crafting#More pages that could probably be deleted and other complaints (a discussion about deletion rules), because it is off-topic there. --Tigerfell This user is member of the wiki team of OSM (Let's talk)


Some other random ones that could probably be deleted that I found while looking:

Proposed features/Checked by

Proposed features/Civil (someone said they where going to delete it in in 2008 and then never did. It's essentially useless)

Proposed features/Cliff surface (is essentially not a proposal for anything and can probably be deleted. Since the surface tag is already being used)

Proposed features/Closed roads (essentially useless)

Proposed features/Coffee Roasting (essentially empty and could probably just be a tagging error entry on the cafe or whatever article instead),

Proposed features/Condo (essentially worthless. Just defines what a condo is)

Proposed features/Railway Schematic Mapping (not clear why its abandoned since all the values I checked related to it where approved. Goes to show the shortcomings of a proposal page though)

Proposed features/Discourage tourism=gallery (its a proposal to discourage a tag?)

Proposed features/Downhill Terminal (could probably be deleted)

Proposed features/Edinburgh Festivals (Just mentions some tags to use. Could probably be deleted or moved to an article instead of a proposal. Since its not really one)

One of the things that bugs me about the proposals is that they don't use any kind of template for the sections so they are all over the place as far as organization and content. For instance some have long discussions on the main page or headings that aren't relevant to the content in them. Also, there is usually no rational given as to why the proposals were abandoned or canceled and often times the discussions are to vague to get the information from. Which essentially makes them worthless as references for what doesn't work or as potential proposals to revive. Both those issues really need to be dealt with. There's also a lot of "abandoned" proposals that are actually obsoleted. Which goes back to the maintainability issue (tags can be both abandoned and obsoleted also. So what then?).

See also, Proposed features/Copy Shop. Which is widely used and de facto but still has abandoned status. There should be a "de facto" category or something for proposals like it.

I'll leave it at for now. One of the reasons I added the list of proposals that could probably be deleted is the hope that maybe Mateusz Konieczny could look over them and comment about why he thinks they are worth saving or not so we can get a better idea where he is actually at on this. I'll probably add more later. --Adamant1 (talk) 08:01, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

I suggest we postpone this specific discussion until the rules are fixed. --Tigerfell This user is member of the wiki team of OSM (Let's talk) 11:41, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
@Tigerfell: How about now? It's been long enough of a wait IMO and I still want to do deletion requests for some of them. Also, I feel like opinions have softened some about deleting things in the last year. --Adamant1 (talk) 13:32, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
Why do you not propose deletion then? It does not look like there is a drive towards a new consensus... If I were interested in the deletion I would also cross-post this at tagging mailing list to avoid a surprise. --Tigerfell This user is member of the wiki team of OSM (Let's talk) 10:18, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
I would do deletion proposals, but they seem to just sit there for years without any comments and people throw a fit once they get turned into a deletion request. So, I don't think it would be productive. I wouldn't say there is a drive toward a new consensus either, just that there are plenty of deletion requests that have been sitting there for awhile without any push back. Which wasn't the case back in the day. If I do decide to do deletion proposals, what do you think is a fair amount of time to wait before turning them into deletion requests? --Adamant1 (talk) 10:54, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
Resolved: Wiki:Deletion policy was rejected, we ended on extreme archiving side. Marking as resolved as deleting this entries ended rejected Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 19:20, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Should db dump be moved to a full dump of the wiki?

Move this: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/dump/

To full site dump? https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Fullsitebackup

What is missing from the current dump? Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 07:37, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

The current dump only includes the db and not the full site. The FUllSiteBackup makes it easier to restore the full site rather than just the db.

@Cmapper: What is missing from database dump and is present in "FUllSiteBackup"? Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 14:23, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
Given "these scripts have some limitations, have some security risks, and are not tested thoroughly. (...) To do: Testing; handling of charsets; handling of innodb tables and lots more." it seems to not be production ready. Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 14:25, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Clearing up the Altitude/Key:ele issue

The Altitude page in its current form, and especially its German original, is a great source of confusion wrt the use of ele=*. Some of the problems, and things to be done, are:

Awful definition of altitude
What we do here has almost nothing to do with height above any sort of ground, because most things we tag are on the damn ground. Who wrote the sentence in German anyways? Just say we are using "altitude" to mean ellipsoidal height and "elevation" to mean MSL height due to historical reasons.
Unclear reference to WGS-84
WGS-84 can mean the WGS-84 with a EGM geoid (84/96/2008) or the raw ellipsoid height. The article should be changed to replace all references to WGS-84 with a clear statement of "WGS-84 ellipsoid height".
No rationale for ellipsoid height
There is no explanation for why ellipsoid height is used instead of a geoid elevation. A good explanation should be something like "it's less useful practically, but stable over geoid updates and better-defined."
Inappropriate reference to SRTM
SRTM gives EGM96 geoid-relative height, i.e. the stuff you put in ele=* instead of the article's ele:wgs84=*. It should be considered unusable and moved to ele=*. The stuff about refining SRTM is questionable for the same reason.
German Wikipedia links
Need to replace these with English wikipedia links.

After this is done, someone will need to port the changes over to the German version.

For ele=*, the page is mostly fine, but I think we need to have a discussion about allowing EGM2008 someday. Also, the reference to ele:local=* in the basics section should probably be killed off.

--Artoria2e5 (talk) 08:33, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Spaces in URLs get changed to underscores on page save

On San Francisco Address Import I provided a link to my OpenStreetMap user page at https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Charles%20Belov%20SFMTA. The link works fine when I preview my changes, but on save, the spaces in the href attribute get rendered as underscores, OpenStreetMap user page https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Charles_Belov_SFMTA, leading to a Not Found when people follow the link. This appears to be a bug. Charles Belov (talk), Acting Webmaster, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency 22:06, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

This was discussed in https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T2707. It looks like they found a solution. --Tigerfell This user is member of the wiki team of OSM (Let's talk) 15:41, 10 February 2023 (UTC)