[wp-hackers] Re: Place, Geotagging

[Mike Schinkel]

Steven Clift wrote:
>> One more link for the mix is the place name database that mySociety uses
for: http://gaze.mysociety.org/

Very interesting. Glad to know about this. OTOH I don't see it working for
this because of a few issues, in order of concern:  

1.) It's a query mechanism that doesn't provide identity for places, thus
"Atlanta, GA" returns 10 results instead of one (query UI at
http://highearthorbit.com/projects/geocode/geocode.html)
2.) It doesn't publish any kind of service guarantee nor does it appear
there is a good plan for for scability in place. 
3.) Not sure what their policy/plan is for update of this data
4.) It returns CVS instead of JSON or XML.
5.) It isn't really RESTful (a nit in this case, but something I notice.)

>> I can't find the link, but I was once told by the developers that they
adapted a public domain U.S. military database of 4 million place names
around the world. Perhaps they now do something different for various
countries. 

It's here: http://geonames.usgs.gov/

Interesting paper about it (I plan to read): 
http://geonames.usgs.gov/docs/pro_pol_pro.pdf

This database is very useful for other contexts, but it still doesn't get us
to a unique placename identity. There currently is only one source for a
unique placename AFAIK and that is Wikipedia. To be clear,  Wikipedia can
only guarantee uniqueness for an instant in time because they can change the
URLs, although they rarely do.

>> What it does with a site like http://pledgebank.com in the U.S. version
is that when I search a city "Winona" it asks which one specifically:
http://www.pledgebank.com/search?q=winona

Nice. I guess with sites that depend on it the web service must stay up...

-Mike Schinkel 
http://mikeschinkel.com


-----Original Message-----
From: wp-hackers-bounces at lists.automattic.com
[mailto:wp-hackers-bounces at lists.automattic.com] On Behalf Of Steven Clift
Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 2:25 PM
To: wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com
Subject: Re: [wp-hackers] Re: Place, Geotagging

Mike Schinkel wrote:
> Of course that doesn't provide an exact match to a City/Place which 
> would be very useful. Problem is, I guess, that there is no standard list
of places.
> I did find "Natural Area Code" but it is proprietary:
> http://www.nacgeo.com/nacsite/licensing/
>   

Wow. Thanks for digging into the topic.

One more link for the mix is the place name database that mySociety uses
for:
http://gaze.mysociety.org/

I can't find the link, but I was once told by the developers that they
adapted a public domain U.S. military database of 4 million place names
around the world. Perhaps they now do something different for various
countries.

What it does with a site like http://pledgebank.com in the U.S. version is
that when I search a city "Winona" it asks which one specifically:
http://www.pledgebank.com/search?q=winona

Steven Clift
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