Talk:Wikimedia Engineering/Maps & Geo Team

Focusing discussion here

only productive members ...
IMO it would be a real benefit if WMF would only take in persons who proved that they deliver "billable contributions", i.e. something donors would click on and give money: for _all_ roles. we have too many examples recently where it is really painful to interact with persons detached from the community, and anyway getting 5 or 6 digit dollar numbers out of the movement funds donated for free contents. as this is engineering, my suggestion would be to only take open source developers, especially for the community liaison and product management. --ThurnerRupert (talk) 05:51, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
 * one who contributes to wikipedia, wikisource, wikiversity, ... not talk page or meta, real contents
 * one who contributes to openstreetmap, either code, or data, not talk pages, mailing lists.
 * one who contributes code to one of the open technologies used, mediawiki, linux kernel, git, gerrit, mailman, postgres, mysql. not talk pages, mailing lists, bugzillas.

Synergy of OpenSeaMap, Wikipedia, Wikidata, Commons
Since years there is a aim to build an integrative Water-Sport-Wiki, using OpenSeaMap as geo visualisation and Mediawiki together with content of Wikipedia, Wikidata and Commons. The challenge is to integrate all this branches into a synergetic toolchain and application. Untl now we did not find a volounteer with all tis skills.

What we have:
 * Wikipedia integration
 * Port Pilot Book
 * Diving spots
 * Canoeing

What we need:
 * a specialist who can build the tool chain and the interfaces

Then we will get an impressive Watersport-Wiki and a formidable prototype how to make synergy between the Wikimedia projects :-)

--Markus Bärlocher (talk) 08:23, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Great
This is good news. This is the kind of functionality where maps will benefit everyone. I was already so pleased with the (running) project where a grant was given to work on maps. When you analyse the need for maps within the WMF there are several distinct areas that deserve attention. There is:
 * serving the data from servers
 * internationalising maps
 * link into existing data and maps to overlay them in what will become our standard maps

Maps are used in many places. When Reasonator has a location, either through GPS data or throught the "is in the administrative entity" property, maps are shown. Three maps are shown with increasing detail. There are however many more maps that have their place. Maps of battle fields, historic maps for historic data.

If there is one thing I truly hope for is that the maps functionality will slowly but surely be rolled out. If there is one thing I truly believe it is that perfection will be the enemy of the good. Being able to serve maps is where it starts, supporting and extending the current project is the next most obvious one. Talking with GLAMS is also so very obvious.

In short, thank you for the suggestion to work on maps. I hope it will get its moment under the sun. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 09:21, 5 March 2014 (UTC)