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Learning patterns/Enriching lists of monuments with coordinates

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Enriching lists of monuments with coordinates
problemWhen lists of moments don't have coordinates, they can't be projected onto a map
solutionWLM-geocoder
creator1Veertje
endorse
created on11:03, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
status:DRAFT

What problem does this solve?

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Lists of monuments, the basis for Wiki Loves Monuments, come from various governmental sources. Those institutions are not always in a position to provide a list that also includes coordinates for every object. Having coordinates makes it possible to do more with the data, like projecting them onto a map.

The list of municipal monuments of Katwijk could be broken up into its constituent parts because it had a complete set of coordinates

What is the solution?

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User:1Veertje has written a jQuery script that queries the Google Maps API which then returns coordinates based on an address. Not all objects have an address of their own, like bridges and sculptures, so this won't be a complete solution. Something is better than nothing.

See the script on GitHub

Things to consider

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The Google Maps API is a bit too eager to return a result. If it doesn't understand an address, it wants to return the center of town. To eliminate these inaccurate results there is an array of placenames in the jQuery that needs to be filled.

Don't forget to change region from "NL" to your country code.

When to use

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When no other source of coordinates has been provided for lists of listed buildings.

Endorsements

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See also

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  • WLM-table-gen, interface for generating Dutch lists of municipal monuments

References

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