Re: [Slashcode-general] GeoRSS and Google Maps API Plugins for Slash

[Larson, T. E. <TEL...@we...>]

shane wrote:
> On Aug 25, 2006, at 4:59 PM, Larson, Timothy E. wrote:
>> I'd've been happy with a even a list of regions/countries to choose
>> from when submitting stories.  How hard is it to reliably map any
>> given coordinate pair to a city/country/state/area?  I can certainly
>> see the utility in finding local postings (i.e. "within 200 km of
>> <coord>") but more likely (for my needs) I'd want to focus on
>> "Canada" or "Manhattan" or "Middle East".  It certainly would be
>> easier (for non-geography buffs) to submit something like this (i.e.
>> picking from a list, clicking a map region) with stories rather than
>> coordinate pairs.=20
>=20
> Where would one obtain such data?

It would have to be defined somewhere on the site, but that would be
done by the admins during setup, and only once.  If this GeoRSS thing is
that big already, I imagine someone somewhere has already done some of
the work: defining the boundaries of countries, states, cities,
landmasses, etc.  You'd just have to pick the ones that work for you,
and fill in the gaps.

>> So this only applies to RSS, and you won't notice anything when
>> visiting the site otherwise?
>=20
> No. If a story has geo-data associated with it, it'll show a map.
> Example:
>=20
> http://industry.slashgeo.org/article.pl?sid=3D06/07/27/1337233
>=20
> It will also add tags into the html such as
>=20
> <meta name=3D"geo.position" content=3D"51.5;-0.1">
>=20
> For more info on the tags: http://www.lottadot.com/projman.pl?
> op=3Dviewissue&id=3D5

Very very very cool.  Especially if the map view is customizable.  As
I've alluded to, a non-geog site would probably want a must less
detailed map.  Perhaps something more icon-sized, merely to give an
indicator where the story is from.  Essentially, highlight the "area"
the location is in, surrounded by enough context for people to know what
they're looking at.

>> If the story has location info, I'd want to see it in the story
>> somewhere.
>=20
> Where? And what? That's been the big question.

That depends on the nature of the site.  A "hard news" site would prefix
"Dateline: New York" to the story submission, perhaps.

>> I think it would be a huge value-add, and very useful, especially
were
>> it given the ability to use "general" location as well as "specific"
>> location.
>=20
> In what way? To search the stories? To filter them on an index view
> (as you could filter by author, or by topic?)=20

Precisely!  That was my original vision for how it would work in that
low-pri request.  It would be a fourth piece of data along with topic,
section, and author.  One would be able to filter the homepage on
location just as with those three. =20

In fact, 699047 describes an enhancement to home page customization that
would make use of this field.  Since that request, a different
enhancement has been done, but the idea of using locale is still cool.
On slashdot, for example, sure it's interesting that some big business
10 timezones away is switching operations to Linux, but I'm also
interested in the much less earthshaking news of an Open Software
Festival sponsored by a high school club in the next county.  By adding
support for location, big sites can still cover local news without
"spamming" the non-locals.

Tim
--=20
Tim Larson
West Corporation, Interactive TeleServices
Eschew obfuscation!