Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates

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bot to add the coordinates from wikidata to enwiki article

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A few weeks ago, there was a request at WP:BOTREQ for a bot to go through Category:Articles missing coordinates with coordinates on Wikidata, add the coordinates from wikidata to enwiki article, and remove the {{coord missing}} template permalink. I had created a program to do that but I was notified that there was no clear consensus for the automation of the task. So here I am, trying the gauge the waters: would it be okay to automate the process? If yes, then what should be avoided, be careful of, and what format of the coordinates should be used? I believe if planned properly, this task could be safely automated. Courtesy ping @Deor, Dawnseeker2000, and Suntooooth: —usernamekiran (talk) 02:59, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've previously expressed an opposition to the indiscriminate importation of coordinates from Wikidata, and my opinion has not changed. A bot's doing it is by definition indiscriminate. Deor (talk) 16:07, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Pinging @The Anome:, who I believe has proposed bot importation of coords before. Deor (talk) 16:11, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Deor I am neutral about the bot run. But I think we should discuss what should be, and shouldn't be done by the bot, and what are the risks. Maybe we can find solution for problematic cases, or skip such cases. I am currently running a very simpler similar task, of removing wikidata QID from enwiki infobox, if it matches with wikidata, in case any doubt, the bot skips the removal and adds such doubtful cases to User:KiranBOT/List of mismatched QID. Maybe we can approach the coords task similarly? —usernamekiran (talk) 12:40, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We now have more than 19,000 articles missing coordinates on enwiki that have coordinates on Wikidata. It would seem silly not to do something with that data. But what? Should we manually review all of them and add them bit by bit by hand? Or is there some way to automate the process - for example by comparison with OSM data, where available, to check if the two coordinates are close? — The Anome (talk) 16:49, 16 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am under the impression that the usual way to get Wikidata coord data into a Wikipedia article is by infobox template in the article, pulling the data from the item. This suggests to me an infobox bot putting a location map into the article, thus attracting the attention of any reader who happens to know where the object is, and leading to a WD correction. Incidentally yes, adding WikiShootMe dots to an OpenStreetMaps display would also help. Jim.henderson (talk) 13:48, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comparing with OSM sounds workable, as I've found OSM to be generally reliable. One problem is that OSM may not have locations for individual buildings and such, and its coordinates are frequently overprecise (as are Wikidata coords). A problem with indiscriminately pulling coords from Wikidata is that they will lack type and region parameters. For that reason and others, my opinion is that coordinates almost always benefit from human review. Maybe I just don't trust bots as much as other folk seem to. Deor (talk) 16:12, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Draft:Kitenui Knob

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Any suggestions fo what to do with this subject? FloridaArmy (talk) 19:10, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Maximum"

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@Abductive: I disagree with your addition of "maximum" - it is a significant change to the meaning of that section. Your behavior today has been inappropriate, including this rude edit summary and stalking my contributions. Please restore the previous wording until you have consensus for your change. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:41, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree on all counts, and I have already restored status quo ante. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 20:45, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As you may know, there are a number of good reasons to avoid false precision in every field of endeavor. In coordinates, we have to be aware that GPS and online mapping services have an inherent error rate of about 0.1". I just randomly chose Statue of John Carroll and the coordinates were off by 0.1", probably due to a new aerial photo. One can compare Google Maps, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, and Yandex and find many instances where they are off by that much or more. Additionally, some of those mapping services display the best zoom level when D°M′S″ is the input. At present, the vast majority of articles use D°M′S″ or D.dddd°, with rare exceptions such as D°M" and D.dd° for entities such as large islands or counties. The most common error is D.dddddd°, usually because users copy-and-paste. Worse yet is D°M′S.ss″ which comes from converting those six digits of false precision. Any improvement to the guidance here should be embraced. Abductive (reasoning) 20:58, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Any improvement to the guidance here should be embraced. We can agree on that. Give me a day or two to contemplate. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 21:02, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The purpose of coordinates on Wikipedia and its sister sites is to allow users to go from articles to mapping services, and vice versa, in various forms (geohack, mapframes, etc). The purpose is not to act as scientific/numerical data. To best serve the user, the coordinates should be within (and ideally close to the center of) the object. If they're within the object, excessively precise coordinates are essentially invisible to the user. For an object spanning 45.12341° to 45.12349°, the difference between a marked point at 45.123456789° and one at 45.12345° will not be perceptible on a mapping service. (Conversely, it will be obvious when a marked point at 45.1235° misses the object entirely.)
The result is that false precision is not actually an inherent problem for the purpose that coordinates are used for. Yes, it's mildly misleading/confusing if there are significantly more digits than needed, but five decimal digits versus four is not the issue you make it out to be. Even with the inherent error rate of about 0.1" or 0.00003°, coords with precision of d°m's.s" or d.ddddd° will still end up closer on average to the exact location than d°m's" or d.dddd° will. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 05:49, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like Pi has a better grasp of this than I do, and I created WP:COORDPREC. All I did was convert the tables at WP:OPCOORD to a format accessible to/usable by the average editor. I don't think it needs to get more complicated than that. And I've been out of the coordinates business for years. I'll probably sit out the rest of this unless one of the parties says something to convince me to take a firmer position (or someone addresses me directly). ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 11:58, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinates in articles with no infobox so will show on mobile

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Is there a preferred way to put coordinates in an article which has no infobox? Putting the template at the bottom of the article with just display=title doesn’t allow them to appear on mobile, but adding display=title,inline just puts a bare coordinates string, unexplained at the bottom of the article. Should the template be preceded with “Coordinates:” in those cases or is there a convention? Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 20:04, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is an issue with mobile rendering, rather than article content. Presumably the template needs to be marked in some way that will let it display on mobile pages. This might also be a CSS issue.
I really don't understand any of the mobile rendering pipeline, but Wikipedia:TemplateStyles might be a place to start. — The Anome (talk) 09:34, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Warham railway station

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A puzzle for anyone who might be interested: when inspecting over-precise coordinates in the Warham railway station article, I saw that they do not actually point to a place on the railway line, nor is the immediately adjacent point on the line a plausible place for a stop, as no pathway leads away from it. Would anyone be interested in tracking down the station's exact position? — The Anome (talk) 09:31, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I tweaked the coordinates a bit to the point where OpenStreetMap shows the stop (it's labeled Warham St Mary Halt on the OS map). At least there's a dirt road leading to the place. Deor (talk) 14:01, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's great! It's amazing how often over-precise coordinates are signs of inaccurate geocoding - your correction is exactly what was needed. — The Anome (talk) 11:18, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion of default rendering of shapes/lines in Template:Infobox mapframe

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We're discussing how to handle the rendering of shapes/lines in Template:Infobox mapframe, given that OSM data is unreliable. This will likely affect a number of geographical infoboxes. You're welcome to join in the discussion. — hike395 (talk) 09:49, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Anomebot2

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The Anomebot2 is on a temporary hiatus while I adjust it to deal with a recent database schema change. If anyone wants it back urgently, ping me and I'll push it up my priority list. — The Anome (talk) 12:23, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@The Anome: I pretty much rely on the bot's (roughly monthly) runs to identify articles needing coords, so any interruption usually results in a backlog so large that when it finally makes a run, the number of new articles tagged is too great for me (and others) to deal with effectively. Because it's last full run was on Sept. 18 (it apparently made only a partial run in October), I expect a huge number of articles to be tagged when it's finally active again. That doesn't, however, mean that you should rush; it's just something I thought worth pointing out. Deor (talk) 13:06, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I will work on it some time this week. — The Anome (talk) 14:04, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]