TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Is Anybody on This List Using Wikimapia Yet?

Is Anybody on This List Using Wikimapia Yet?

Neal McLain (nmclain@annsgarden.com)
Tue, 12 Sep 2006 15:25:37 -0500

Wikimapia appears to be a cross between Google maps and Wikipedia. It
combines satellite images from Google with a database of Wikipedia-like
"places" created by volunteers. Although Wikimapia has only existed for
a few weeks, it already contains an enormous number of places scattered
all over the planet.

To see how Wikimapia works, go to http://www.wikimapia.org/ and click on
one of the little white boxes. This will take you a satellite image of a
city, where you'll see more white boxes. Each of these boxes highlights
a "place" that some volunteer has created and described. Click on any
white box to read the description. You can navigate around by dragging
the image with your mouse, and you can add your own comments to any
description by selecting MENU-->EDIT.

You can also create a new place by clicking WIKIMAPIA-->ADD NEW PLACE.
A white box will appear in the center of your screen; adjust its
location, then save it. The new place will appear as an "upcoming"
place, which means Wikimapia won't accept it as final until several
other volunteers have voted to approve it (you can't vote for your own
places). To view upcoming places, select VIEW-->UPCOMING PLACES.

For my part, I've been creating places all over the country. A few of
my favorites (some of which are still upcoming):

-- Brazoria County (Texas) Historical Museum, where I volunteer
cataloging old maps. http://tinyurl.com/p86q6

-- The Spiral Jetty, an earthwork sculpture in the Great Salt Lake.
http://tinyurl.com/gtpe7

-- A PCS antenna on a lighting structure at an athletic field. You
can't see the antenna, but you can see its shadow on the shadow of the
tower. http://tinyurl.com/nuth4

-- The former location of the mouth of the San Bernard River. When this
sat photo was taken, the river flowed into the Gulf of Mexico; however,
it's now completely blocked by a sandbar piled up recent windstorms.
http://tinyurl.com/ef4lh

-- The San Bernard Oak, the largest Live Oak in Texas. It stands in a
dense bottomland forest, so in the satellite view it looks just like its
surroundings. I located it by GPS coordinates. http://tinyurl.com/n4eux

-- The Kansas/Nebraska Point of Beginning, the starting point for every
land survey in Kansas, Nebraska, most of Colorado, most of Wyoming, and
a small part of South Dakota. http://tinyurl.com/egem5

-- Independence, Kansas, home of our moderator. The main intersection
in downtown Independence (Main and 10th streets) falls on a section
corner 96 miles east, and 191 miles south, of the aforementioned
Kansas/Nebraska POB (and more properly described as the southeast corner
of Section 25 T32S R15E). http://tinyurl.com/zj3r4

Neal McLain

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