Getting OSM Wiki United Kingdom up-to-date
Jez Nicholson
Public
Seen by 42
I'm sure that this must get brought up at regular intervals....what are your opinions on taming the 'United Kingdom' part of the OSM Wiki? There are lots of hidden gems in there, many under 'UK Project' which could be revisited as a Quarterly Project.
I don't understand the category structure enough to be able to apply it consistently to pages. Is there an overall plan somewhere?
User Verdy_p appears to have done a lot of Category structuring throughout OSM Wiki and would probably be good to talk to https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Verdy_p
Paul Berry Tue 10 Jul 2018 12:41PM
I concur. While his enthusiasm and drive are without question, it's his way or the highway. Someone with 28 current topics on his Talk page (let alone the archived stuff) should ring alarm bells: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User_talk:Verdy_p
Paul Berry Tue 10 Jul 2018 1:05PM
But back to your point, I agree it's high time for a fresh look at the content on the UK part of the Wiki: what needs updating, what needs binning, and what still needs to be written.
I am assuming we want to start here as the UK "front page" and work inwards from there?https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_United_Kingdom
Jez Nicholson Tue 10 Jul 2018 1:20PM
Yes, I believe WikiProject_United_Kingdom to be the main page, and it is well-formed. I see a lot of Harry Wood and RobJN edits on there..... I know that Harry has made particular efforts to reform the wiki and must have the scars to show for it. Like trying to stop the words "WikiProject" proliferating.
Perhaps an audit would be a safe way to start?
RobJN Tue 10 Jul 2018 1:25PM
I'm willing to do more but always scared of being accused of "wiki fiddling"/"edit war".
Perhaps we can form a small taskforce...?
Paul Berry Tue 10 Jul 2018 3:35PM
An Audit Taskforce would be a good start I think. Happy to be a part of this.
RobJN Tue 10 Jul 2018 4:31PM
Ok. Let's do it! How would you like to start? Should we both make notes and then compare? Should we just find a time for a call and go through it together? What do you prefer?
Jez Nicholson Tue 10 Jul 2018 5:45PM
Is there any software available for extracting category structures from the wiki? Then perhaps a Google Sheet with a row for every page in groups?
Adam Hoyle Tue 10 Jul 2018 8:30PM
I think this is a great idea.
MediaWiki (the software behind the OSM wiki) provides a table of contents page for each category, and looks like there are 2 main UK ones (I might have missed others): https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Category:United_Kingdom and https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Category:Project_in_UK
Adam Hoyle Tue 10 Jul 2018 8:43PM
Ok, for that to work either [[Category:Project_in_UK]] and/or [[Category:United Kingdom]] needs to be added to each relevant page.
I experimented with https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/English_Environment_Agency_LIDAR and that's now in both categories.
So maybe adding the categories to relevant pages is a possible first step?
Andrew Hain · Tue 10 Jul 2018 12:19PM
The person you named is massively overconfident of his foreign language ability including English. His wiki edits are often badly written as a result. It is also very difficult to correct him when he makes a mistake.