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Hikipedia

Hello,

Some time ago I was inspired by Wikipedia and a few other hiking sites to create Hikipedia - a wiki entirely focused on hiking trails. I need your help in making it the best place for sharing information about hiking trails. Could you please visit the site and then give me some feedback about it?

I am especially looking for actionable feedback that I could use to improve site's engine and site's content. Would you consider submitting a trail to Hikipedia? Why? Why not? Can I do something that would change your mind? Would you contribute by submitting a photo? A trail report? Voting for trail's difficulty? Do you think that putting the content into public domain is a good idea? Do you think that I should add or improve handling of some trail-specific metadata?

Please post your feedback either here, on Wikipedia or use the feedback page on Hikipedia. Your feedback will help me greatly in building the site.

Let me tell you in a few words, why I think there is a place for Hikipedia and why it might be better suited than Wikipedia for building a free database of hiking trails. If you disagree with some of my opinions, then please by all means reply with your contrarguments.

First of all, Hikipedia is built around trail metadata - it can use that metadata to automatically embed weather report (via accuweather.com), to provide driving directions to the trailhead (via google.com), to search for trails using the metadata (i.e. one can search for easy to moderate trails within 100 miles from Seattle, WA). There are links to topo maps of the trail, to nearby geocaches and to nearby trails. In a separate section I can list guidebooks that include the trail together with a picture of frontpages (via amazon.com).

Additionally Hikipedia puts all its content in public domain, which makes it easy to legally republish the content in short publications like guesthouse handouts or hiking club posters - something that cannot be said about Wikipedia (as discussed on WikiTravel )

Currently Wikipedia has advantage over Hikipedia in an ownership structure. Wikipedia is sponsored by a non-profit foundation, where Hikipedia (at least its engine) is owned by me. Nevertheless Wikipedia also started as a one-man project and I hope that putting Hikipedia content into public domain will ensure everyone that I am not here to steal your work, but to share trail information with the rest of the hiking community. I plan to put google adsense textual advertisments on the site at one point, but it won't happen anytime soon - I am in the US on a H1b visa and currently it would be illegal for me to earn money from any other source than my primary employee (and with the current low trafic the hosting costs are still affordable for me).

Please share your thoughts and comments, so I can improve Hikipedia. Thank you for your time,

Regards,

Lukasz Anforowicz

PS. Disclaimer and apologies for readers that are not in the USA: Hikipedia uses US-specific information for weather reports and finding nearest town, so it cannot be used for storing hiking information about trails outside the US.

Anforowicz 03:00, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Infobox british hills double

It would be nice if the fields in {{Infobox british hills double}} were made optional, as they are in {{Infobox Mountain}}, so that information such as translation or pronunciation doesn't have to be included if it's irrelevant. Is anyone able to do the necessary work? I'm afraid that kind of thing is a bit of a mystery to me. I'd ask Locke Cole but he seems to be on an extended wikibreak at the moment. -- Blisco 19:21, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Alpine huts in Canada

I've begun adding articles for the various huts maintained by the Alpine Club of Canada, along with links to near-by mountains and features. The most recent addition, the Elizabeth Parker hut, has been nominated for deletion, with a suggestion to merge into the main ACC page. If we do this with all 24 huts, it'll make for a very long single article; I'd prefer to keep one article per hut but I can only do one or two articles a day. If anyone's interested in expressing some support for inclusionism, now would be a good time to speak up. Oh, and check Category:Mountain huts in Canada for what I've added so-far. Thanks!  :-) --ghoti 03:06, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Descendant WikiProject Proposal

I'm interested in creating a proposal for a WikiProject devoted to volcanoes, which can be a descendant to your WikiProject. I'm not sure if I can propose it, though because I'm what you Wikipedians call anons. Also, I might need someone from this WikiProject to create the initial page for my proposed WikiProject, since I might be restricted from creating a WikiProject, so can I propose a Volcano WikiProject even though I'm an anonymous user?74.225.117.237 17:13, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Just a question: why not register a username? It would be hard to contribute significantly to a new project as an anonymous user, and your credibility would be low. It's relatively painless to sign up ;) -- Spireguy 03:55, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Volcanoes was launched on March 17, 2007. Cheers. --Seattle Skier (talk) 10:06, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Clarification about Prominence

IMO it would be a good idea to clarify that the prominence referred to in the infobox should be the Clean Prominence and not the Optimistic Prominence. A general definition of prominence is also interesting. Maybe this distinction could be added to the Wiki article about prominence by someone who understands this better than I do.

There is no universal agreement among those who calculate prominence as to which method is best: "clean" (better called "lower bound" or "pessimistic"), "optimistic" (or "upper bound"), or "midrange". (This issue has generated a certain amount of traffic on the Yahoo Groups prominence mailing list.) It usually depends on the purpose of the list thus generated: do you want to include all contenders for a certain list, or only include the ones that are sure to make the cut? However, if one follows standard scientific practice, the midrange is the most reasonable, since it is most likely, on average, to be closest, and doesn't consistently under- or over-estimate the prominence value (minimizing systematic error, in other words). Hence when I enter prominence values I try to use the midrange value. (If using peakbagger, just average his clean and optimistic values.)
That said, the errors involved in most cases are small, and since prominence is most useful as a qualitative measure, it is unlikely to be important. Also, peak elevations, saddle elevations, and contour maps all have height uncertainties anyway, so absolute precision is rarely possible to achieve. A discussion of methodology, and this issue in particular, should probably be on prominence, but I don't think it's crucial. -- Spireguy 19:59, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate your discussion of the issue. The articles on prominence and fourteeners seem to be vague. Without clear criteria they seem meaningless to me. Even if arbitrary criteria are used they should be specified it seems. Sorry if forgot it sign my first post. Droll 20:46, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Clearly the prominence article does need at least some discussion on accuracy and methodology. However I'm not sure why you would say a prominence number is meaningless without a precise statement of how it is obtained. If the prominence is taken from a typical USGS topo map and is given as, say, 2,300 ft, then it's one of: 2,300-2,340 ft, 2,280-2,320 ft, or 2,260-2,300 ft (ignoring all other sources of error besides reading the height of the saddle). The differences involved in this example are about 3 percent, which isn't (to me) terribly significant. I guess my philosophy is that in an encyclopedia (as opposed to an original scientific paper), not every number has to be fully qualified and explained with details about methodology, especially when those details do not materially affect the way the number is used.
Certainly for some peaks, say fourteeners near the 300 foot prominence cutoff, it is significant to try to get as exact a figure as possible, and to specify any errors in an inexact figure. This is done on the fourteener page by giving a range of possible prominences. Is that what you are saying is vague on that page? I had hoped that giving the range is clear enough. Thanks for your input-- Spireguy 02:59, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Opinions wanted on an AfD

The Jim Haberl hut has been nominated for deletion. It's one of the 25-odd mountain huts in Canada for which I'm gradually writing articles. I believe this particular hut has sufficient notability to warrant an article, but deletions here are based on democratic process, not verifiable objective criteria. The hut is one of a collection, and *has* been written about in external references. Do folks here think we should have articles on huts? Also, should articles be deleted simply because they're about new things? If you have an opinion, PLEASE express it on the hut's AfD page.  ◉ ghoti 18:52, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

{{Geolinks-US-mountain}} is great, but includes links that are inappropriate for Canadian mountains. Does anyone see a reason not to create a {{Geolinks-CA-mountain}}? Many of the US links don't work for Canadian locations, but there are some alternatives. And it would be nice to standardize it with a template.  ◉ ghoti 20:40, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I originally wrote {{Geolinks-US-mountain}}, before {{coor dms}} was written. I think that now Geolinks-US-mountain is superceded by the coordinates field in the infobox, and shouldn't be added to new articles. I haven't gone on a cleanup rampage, because other people disagree. So, I would think the same for Canadian mountains, too. -- hike395 22:43, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
You know what? I disagree.  :-) Unless I'm missing something, I think that while {{coor dms}} is important, it doesn't provide the quick mountain-oriented info that your template does. {{Geolinks-Canada-region}} or {{Geolinks-Canada-cityscale}} are close, but still not ideal. From my WP reading, I don't see anything that would prevent me from filling a need that I see, as you did.... Am I being too bold, as I seem to have been with alpine huts??  ◉ ghoti 04:18, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
First, rest assured that I won't post such a template on TfD. I think you are being unfairly punished for your alpine huts articles at AfD --- that's a hotbed for rampant m:deletionism. I think RedWolf's suggestion about merging into a Canada-wide or province-wide article is a good one.
There's nothing against the rules for creating {{Geolinks-CA-mountain}}: I was just suggesting that it may not be needed. hike395 12:53, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

For some reason (which I don't understand), {{coor dms}} now points exclusively at Google Maps. This doesn't have much value for mountains: you usually can't see a mountain peak on the Satellite view, and never on the Street Map view.

So, now Geolinks are really vital: if we want to link to topo maps, we have to use our own Geolinks templates.

I urge all project participants to now use {{geolinks-US-mountain}}, and as ghoti says above, we should extend it to other countries, too.

Does anyone know what happened to coor dms? Later: apparently, the web host that coor dms points to is broken, see Template talk:coor dms

hike395 08:22, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

A replacement web site has been created, so the urgency on using the geolinks template is reduced. However, now I believe that coor dms is fragile, so I see the utility in the geolinks template. hike395 20:35, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Categories

I have a question about categories. I noticed that "Category:Volcanoes of Oregon" is a subcategory of "Category:Mountains of Oregon". It is my understanding that it is undesirable to use both of these categories in the same article since one is a subset of the other. What I did was remove the category "Category:Mountains of Oregon" from most of the articles about volcanoes. Was I right in doing this. If not I'll go back and fix things. --Droll 08:24, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I just read the discussion above and it would seem to imply that volcanoes are not a subset of mountains. Now what? --Droll 09:48, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Never mind. I recategorized the Oregon volcanoes as mountains. --Droll 23:47, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Keeping volcanoes and mountains separate is correct, I think, but then I thought this 2 years ago, also hike395 03:17, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

TopoZone.com map coordinates?

I have noticed that when using Template:geolinks-US-mountain the link resulting for TopoZone.com yields a result which interprets the input coordinates as being NAD27. I have been entering coordinates based on NAD83/WGS84 for North America based on Wikipedia:WikiProject Geographical coordinates#Geodetic system which says that "All coordinates should be referenced to WGS84, or an equivalent datum". I could easily modifying the template if there is no objection. I think this is the proper place to discuss this since the template relates to mountains. --Droll 10:27, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, this sounds like the right thing to do. hike395 01:54, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Without objection it is done --Droll 00:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Mountain Pass infobox

I recently created an article, Pinkham Notch, about a mountain pass in New Hampshire. Is there an infobox I can use? If not, can someone help me make or find one? Its an FA candidate, and could use one. Feel free to fix it up while you're there. -- Sturgeonman 16:23, 1 October 2006 (UTC) Sorry. I found it above. Sturgeonman 16:24, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Coordinates in two places

I am curious if anyone knows why the Template:Coor dms is posted at the upper right, on the title line of every Mountain article...seems silly when we already have the coordinates in the infobox...if anyone knows how to fix this or can tell me how, let me know. Thanks.--MONGO 15:57, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I just reverted Template:Infobox Mountain Pass to the previous version before the redundant coordinates were added. Nationalparks 18:38, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
And now they are out of Template:Infobox Mountain as well. Nationalparks 18:40, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Figuring out the name of a mountain

I added a description to Virginia State Route 16, and it appears there are two mountains named Brushy Mountain that it crosses. But only the second one is in the USGS database. Can someone help me determine if the one between Sugar Grove and Marion, along which the Appalachian Trail runs, has another name? This can be seen here, including the name. Thank you. --NE2 20:14, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Topozone.com shows a Brushy Mountain there, in the middle of that clump of mountains between Marion and Sugar Grove. It appears to be the mountain over which the Appalachian Trail runs. But yea, the USGS GNIS database doesn't seem to list it. Odd since the maps in topozone.com are USGS maps. I'd go with the maps over the GNIS database. GNIS seems to have more gaps. Also, the DeLorme topo-atlas of Virginia, while it doesn't name Brushy Mountain there (has no name at all for the main ridge with the Appalachian Trail on it), it does name "Brushy Mountain Road" right there. There are so many Brushy Mountains in the central/southern Appalachians, I wouldn't be surprised if GNIS missed a few. I can't keep track of them all myself, that's for sure! Pfly 20:39, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
How would you disambiguate this? The one further north (just north of SR 42) is longer and more major, being shown on road maps like the VDOT transportation map. --NE2 20:50, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Are they in different counties? We've done things like XXX Mountain (YYY County, Virginia) and XXX Mountain (ZZZ County, Virginia). hike395 00:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Both of them enter Smyth County. --NE2 00:47, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
The larger Brushy Mountain is the largest Brushy Mountain in Virginia, isn't it? It crosses a bunch of counties, I think. Perhaps it could be called "Brushy Mountain (Virginia)", if it really is the largest and most important. Then others could be given county names. Or the large one could be given the full list of counties it is part of, although that might get unwieldy. Also, there is the question of whether smaller Brushy Mountains, like the one in southern Smyth County, will ever get a page on wikipedia. Isn't it relatively small and not very notable? Maybe it doesn't need a link to a page that isn't there anyway. Just some thoughts. Pfly 01:15, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

What next for this Wikiproject?

Looks like the infoboxes are under control. I can see work going in 2 directions:

  1. Expand out from mountains: mountain passes, mountain ranges, etc.
  2. Bring our favorite articles up to good article / feature article / V 1.0 status

What do others think? hike395 00:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

  • There are thousands of mountains out there that do not have articles. Also, many (most?) of the existing articles are not properly referenced (I admit to not doing this properly myself in the past). It would also be nice to have free photos for all the infoboxes but that will be difficult (e.g. cannot even find one for Mount Logan, the highest in Canada, but not totally surprising since it's a difficult place to access so is not often visited). I would graciously volunteer to travel the world taking photos if someone would provide the necessary funding! :) Seriously though, I definitely agree that we need to bring more of the better known mountains up to good/featured article (e.g. Mount Everest and the rest of the seven summits) as well as mountain and mountain range. RedWolf 22:07, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
    As well, for the photos we do have, they should all exist on Commons if not already, except for any that would violate Commons licensing. RedWolf 22:42, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Even the Canadian Mountain Encyclopedia (bivouac.com), which is generally exhaustive for Canadian principal summit photos, doesn't have a decent pic of Logan, for exactly the reason you point out. Similarly Mt. Kennedy and others in the same area are usually only pics from expeditions, and even those in some cases the authors/creators aren't sure which is which because, well, one icefield looks pretty much like all other icefields. I'm just in the process of getting re-permission from GEMS, the BC govt ministry which runs all its maps and stuff like that, for use of scanned images from S. Holland's definitive Landforms of British Columbia, which are really nice vintage aerials of summits otherwise invisible to mere mortals; one of Fairweather in particular is particularly nice, but obscurities such as the Tahltan Highland and Level Mountain (Meszah Peak, a huge shield volcano due east of Juneau, to the south of Teslin Lake) are also in the collection. They had no problems with Bivouac.com using their images for public display, so long as the credit read "BC Govt Photo", so I'm soliciting from them a permission-for-Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons which will enable such an upload to not get deleted; "public education" is "fair use" for BC Govt photos of this kind, apparently, but which license to use for that I'm unsure, since although it's fair use (text of email from GEMS to me when I was Bivouac's senior geographer available for review; just ask) it's still a government photo, and not 50 years old (which automatically become public domain in Canada). Anyway here's a couple of samples, uploaded and linked to my own webspace:
I'm also seeing if I can get permission for my colour-contrast adjustments from a website named Randalll's Flying Photos or Photos by Kat, which is an online series of amazing aerials throughout southern BC, including many otherwise-unphotographed peaks but also some interesting views of rivers, canyons etc. (new flights this last summer/fall; haven't browsed the pics yet but quality looks a lot better; and no haze from forest fires as in previous series...) Her originals were very hazy so I adjusted them a lot; examples:
Thing is, both her photos and the BC Govt photos were donated/permitted on Bivouac for public viewing purposes; but now, to see the fullsize an various photo essays built off them, Bivouac has restructured so that viewing these is now membership-only (i.e. paid for). This obviously isn't the case with Wikipedia so I'm hoping for whatever permissions/mandate is required; if in Kat's case - if someone knows the rules - she has to upload them, this gets more complicated as I'd have to send her my colour adjustments for her to upload, instead of me doing it directly. Suggestions as to licence, type of permission needed, etc; or would a repro of the BC Govt/Photos by Kat emails which said "OK for public viewing/education" suffice, and if so what license should I use?
Currently I'm working on using the NASA images and other PD maps/photos to enhance items in Category:Mountain ranges of British Columbia and the occasional bit of Category:Mountains of British Columbia as well as BC's plateaus and highlands and so on; just brightened the one that had been placed on Monashee Mountains.....Skookum1 22:53, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
So, there are really 4 tasks ahead of us:
  1. Expand number of mountain articles
  2. Expand out from mountains (to passes, ranges, etc.)
  3. Add photos to mountain articles
  4. Bring high-priority articles up to high standards
All of these are good --- my personal opinion is that expanding the number of mountain articles at this point is lower priority than the other 3. hike395 05:56, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
And just per No.3, another British Columbia WikiProject editor beat me to it and wrote Randall and Kay's Flying Photos for blanket permission - open GFDL or whatever it is - for their amazing collection of aerials of southern BC - check it out, especially the Chilko Lake flight at the top of the page. They've given permission before for http://bivouac.com and also my own site http://www.cayoosh.net/ (see http://www.cayoosh.net/mountains.html, among other pages which feature their pics, although the 2006 flights are even better quality). Keep your fingers wiki-crossed....Skookum1 19:06, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Mount St. Helens

Mount St. Helens is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy (Talk) 03:17, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Infobox US mountain

Template:Infobox US mountain has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. RedWolf 06:52, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Descedant project: WikiProject British hills

I've set up a WikiProject British hills for all the hills and mountains of Great Britain (with scope for it to be renamed "British and Irish hills" if there's enough interest in that direction). There's plenty of work going on in these articles at the moment with very little collaboration or coordination, and I think a new project with a relatively narrow scope should help focus efforts. Please consider signing up if you have any interest or involvement in the area! --Blisco 00:01, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 14:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Add Google maps to {{Infobox Mountain}}?

See the discussion at Template talk:Infobox Mountain. Thanks! hike395 10:32, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:Climbing is back

Yes, wikiproject Climbing is back up! We're going to be working with you guys on mountain related articles, and we'd appreciate your help on climbing related articles as well! Check it out at WP:CLIMB.⇒ SWATJester Ready Aim Fire! 06:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 19:54, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Inconsistent "Mount" usage

I just initiated discussion on the WP:MoS abbreviations talk page in case anyone wants to offer their two cents about when and if abbreviation should be used. --"J-M" (Jgilhousen) 20 :20, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Template

Just informing you. User Caroig just created {{Infobox Mountain Range}}. Feel free to comment or improve. - Darwinek 19:04, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Also created {{Infobox Mountain Summit}}, alternative to one which we currently use. Please discuss. - Darwinek 22:22, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I would greatly appreciate any comments on those two templates which try to unify geography related infoboxes (together with Template:Infobox River Geography), especially on what fields they should contain. The latter one is (re)named to Infobox Mountain Summit. It is be possible to incorporate syntax which would allow to use it fully instead of Template:Infobox Mountain if required. – Caroig 23:09, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I really like the Range template, but why do we need 2 competing Mountain (Summit) templates? What's the compelling reason to change over? We've been using the Mountain Infobox design for years now... hike395 23:28, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, this is just a suggestion. No-one's forced to use it. It's simply aimed at giving all geography related infoboxes the same looks. – Caroig 07:10, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
It would be a shame to have some peaks using one, and some using the other. hike395
There are areas where no infoboxes are used or there are just a few, like the Czech Republic. As I wrote earlier if the new style infobox is found useful I might add a feature that would allow it to accept input fields from the old style infobox, so it could fully replace Template:Infobox Mountain. I didn't want to do it right away, without checking whteher such switch is welcome. The old infobox style is, in my personal view, a little bit outdated and not coherent with other Wikipedia infoboxes. All infobxes change from to time. I remember times when Wikipedia used tables with non-collapsed borders in infoboxes. – Caroig 08:12, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
And it was quite simple to reuse the code from Template:Infobox Mountain Range. – Caroig 08:12, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, I'm curious what other WikiProject participants think. hike395 03:34, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, I support the old one. - Darwinek 10:25, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I do also: can we agree on just using the existing (standard) mountain infobox? hike395 20:19, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
It seems consensus was already reached. - Darwinek 23:15, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
  • While the visual style of this newer template looks somewhat more visually appealing, I also vote that we stay with our existing infobox. I also have some issues with the newer template such as the use of parameters named "ascented" and why the second variant of a parameter is labelled using "1" and not "2" (i.e. why is it range1 and not range2)? Also, we just finished converting thousands of articles to the consolidated infobox (versus the multi-template) and I for one am not prepared to convert to yet another infobox at this time. I do not think it would be good for us to mix the use of infoboxes either. However, there are some articles using the existing infobox that may be better suited to using this new template. For example, I have seen a number of island articles using the project's infobox where the newer template might be a better fit. RedWolf 17:03, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Wiki standard on peakbox info? - metric or imperial?

Hi; I saw User:Hike395's change on Rocky Mountains of the highest summit from metric to imperial; OK, OK, the range's highpoint is in the US, and so imperial is used there, but the standard on Canadian summits/articles is metric. Is there an established Wikipedia or Mountains Project standard for this? Always strange to see an American use the term "imperial", too (in Canada, the old imperial volume units were VERY different, as were the weights).Skookum1 01:39, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

You can see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Units of measurements, which suggests using non-metric for USian topics. For mountains, ever since 2004, we've been using metric units first, imperial second for all non-USian mountains, and imperial first, metric units second for USian mountains, from a suggestion by Mav (see, e.g., Talk:Sierra Nevada (US)). I suppose we should put this explicitly into the WP Mountains page. hike395 03:51, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I generally support the current usage, as detailed by hike395 above. Of course this is a tricky situation, with a range that spans the US and Canada. I would be willing to go either way on this particular article. -- Spireguy 04:35, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I see the point about usage the US, and of course Elbert or Columbia or whichever it is that's 14,400 is in the US; it's like us insisting on Canadian spelling in articles about Canadian topics (gets snarly when it's the Oregon boundary dispute or other cross-border matters, though...). I was just surprised because of the existence of metric as the main world standard now (grudgingly accepted by yours truly years ago, even though certain elevations and other classic measurements I still think of in imperial, including miles per gallon - our old gallon, the imperial one, which was different than yours of course). Anyway, so long as the Mount Robson article has metric first (as being the highest in the Canadian Rockies, that's fine. Gonna get trickier with border-spanning units like the Border Ranges (Montana Ranges in the US) or the Selkirks); I guess it's whichever country the highpoint is in; so for the Cascades (Rainier) or even the North Cascades (Baker), they wind up in feet rather than metres. Kinda trickier with the Pacific Coast Ranges, i.e. the larger version of that, not the Oregon-only definition...what's the deal with Fairweather, then? - because the peak itself is just inside BC/Canada.Skookum1 04:50, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I think we can mix and match -- if we refer to an elevation in the US, it's feet, outside, it's meters, even if its in the same article. Is that OK with particpants? hike395 05:08, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
And don't forget - outside the US, it's "metres" ;-) Skookum1 05:10, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I have seen the metric versus imperial question raised a few times over the past couple years and this WikiProject has agreed to use the convention as outlined by hike395 above. Of course, what to do about mountains that span Canada and the USA (or other countries sharing mountains with the USA). We could just abbreviate metres/meters to m and link it to metre on first usage (since meter redirects to metre). As to whether metres or feet is listed first, I think the location of the summit should decide that. As an aside, regarding the use of metres outside the USA, there are a lot of Canadians who use/acknowledge the Americanized meter spelling due to some of the influences of American culture/media. With our British history but our locality to the USA, you tend to see a lot of mixing of USA and British/International spelling. RedWolf 22:26, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

CFD

I have nominated Cat:Lists of terrestrial volcanoes for merger. Please vote or comment at WP:CFD. - Darwinek 18:33, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Suggested addition to infobox

"Name status/source" - gazetted/official, local/traditional, climbers/guidebooks etc. "Gazetted/official" would still apply when the common form is used for the article title and is only a variant of the official name, e.g. official Cheam Peak is usually Mount Cheam, etc. But otherwise there will be no mention in the infobox, or potentially any ref in this encyclopedia, as to whether a name is official or not.Skookum1 21:43, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Hm. Good point. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places) says we should use the official English name for articles. What we've done in cases where the common name is different from the official name (like Mount Katahdin), is mention the common usage in the lead paragraph, but use the official name everywhere else, including the infobox. hike395 17:27, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Coordinates of volcanos

Someone recently changed the coordinates of Sunset Crater to point to the center of the summit caldera, rather than the highest point of the volcano. This is a (mildly) interesting question: which should we use? Comments? hike395 17:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Trial range map for southwestern BC

This I made up tonight as a stab at trying to show a sample regional map that had named ranges shown with boundaries; no room for names so I gave it a number key; I can do the same easily enough for other areas as I'm famliar with the boundaries; posting this for feedback. This project spun off a discussion with Spireguy earlier about the North Cascades, which I just made a new map for to get the boundaries right (still not link-fixed but will do so in the morning; it's 2:52am...); but I can see at different scales and different frames it might be good to have a map like this for range-locator maps, instead of stand-alone ones; not in all cases but definitely when covering a large area like Interior Mountains or Columbia Mountains, in order to show their major breakdowns. Anyway, here's the key

[Aaargh on adding comments to the list I left off Bonaparte Plateau...which is basically the Silwhoiakun Plateau and Arrowstone Hills, plus that southern bulge of 17. adjoining them...; back to the drawing board in the morning...so I'll fix the Nicola Plateau too I guess...grrr the work I make for myself.....]

For space/clutter reasons avoided putting in any tiny rangtes within bigger ones, say in the Garibaldi Ranges (Fortress Range I think it is, really a ridge, over by Lillooet Lake; and the Spearhead Range, which runs for 5-10km back from Whistler) or North Shore Mountains (Fannin Range, Brittannia Range); or the Cheam Range (Four Sisters) in the North Cascades (Cdn side) - all just ridges (though the Four Sisters is a very impressive ridge!!); although I did squeeze in the Scarped Range, which is a tiny chunk of the small Clear Range. The group that someone here dubbed the Coquihalla Range isn't officially called that; climber jargon up here calls it the Anderson River Group and it's right underneath the 14b, but it has no formal boundary from what's north or southeast of it; I put in the usual (though unofficial) division between the regular Canadian Cascades - "Cascade Mountains" - and the North Cascades as they protrude into Canada (14a).

There's a few tiny officially-named plateaus within the bigger plateaus shown, but my source maps and definitions don't have precision boundaries and while the Nicola Plateau might be included (a part of the Thompson Plateau), I'd already put one of those "15" marks right on top of where its boundary should be....but this is a draft anyway, and there's some vaguenesses built into it that I can tidy up later easy enough (always save a blank basemap at the same scale/frame as the one you're building on!!!....thing is in the software I'm using I have to paste over the mistake from the original, then close the new one and reopen it or the drawing/alphabet tool won't work, even when I jump around the layers. Sigh. Anyway, this is a trial balloon, and I don't even know what article it would be for yet; Landforms of British Columbia maybe, to ape the title of Holland's book for the BC Govt on the same theme; these are geography regions, also - NOT geological regions, or biogeoregional whatchamacallits; just the formal geographers' defintions.

Anyway, it's just a sample; is the yellow line too bright? Should I try and include unofficially-named areas - this map in the Pacific Ranges would also have the Clendenning Range, the Pemberton Icecap, the Lillooet Icecap, the Overseer Group a little bit of the Chilcotin Ranges called the Dil-Dil Plateau, there'd be the breakup of the different named bits of the Cascade Range (Anderson River Group/Coquihalla Range really only; the others don't have specific names), and so on; the point here in coming up with this wasn't to show prominence zones or climbers' names, but rather to illustrate officially-named areas; which other than the North Shore Mountains and the separation in the Cascades, is pretty well all that's here. It's a bit easier in the Columbia Mountains because the there's a tier system, particularly in the Selkirks....might have to use more than one colour line, though....here it was just 2-point of 4-point. Feedback?Skookum1 10:49, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

PS if this would be better on a subpage of this project, let me know and I'll move it; just tell me where (other than the "circular file"). Thx.Skookum1 10:49, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Baldy Mountain article cleanup

The article on Baldy Mountain is very confusing and I think it is being referred to two entirely diffrent mountains. I added a cleanup tag but I really don't know much about this mountain. Can someone here who knows this mountain fix up this article?

Posted by: Hdt83 | Talk/Chat 05:15, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Groan. The article has been vandalized to be purposefully confusing. I reverted back to RedWolf's version in October, hopefully that fixes things. hike395 05:37, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Erg. This ultimately will have to be a BIG disambiguation page, or maybe there is one already. Try searches for "Baldy", "Baldy Mountain", "Mount Baldy", "Baldy Peak", "Old Baldy", "Little Baldy" ad nauseam in www.topozone.com and in provincial basemap at http://maps.gov.bc.ca and the Canada GeoNames Database (link later); there's a good forty "Mount Baldy" entries, another twenty "Baldy Mountain" and that's just an estimate; I was Senior Geographer for http://bivouac.com and plotted the locations and prominence relationships of most of them; there's at least six in British Columbia alone, and far more in the US ("Baldy" is a bit of a synonym for "barren hilltop/dome-peak" and even in one state there can be several....).Skookum1 07:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Yep, we've done this before, see, e.g., Granite Peak. I can get the USian peaks out of the GNIS database, is there any easy way to get a data dump of all "Baldy Mountain"s in Canada? In this case, we should be strict about the naming --- "Baldy Peak"s would be in a different article. hike395 08:12, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Okayyy, there's the US "Baldy Mountain"s, and variations like Little Baldy Mtn. Oy.
—wwoods 00:16, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
And just to be clear, just picking from the barrel, Idaho has five, so does Oregon, California has six, Montana has nine, and Colorado has the most - ten. And of those ten, two are in the same county (Rio Blanco); also of Montana's nine, two are in the same county (Lewis and Clark). New Hampshire has four....and various other states as well (too confusing to total 'em all up, but you get the idea). As for Mount Baldy, there's slightly fewer, but Montana has the most at six (and none of them are the same as Baldy Mountain, even in the same counties... There's slightly fewer named just straight "Baldy", with Oregon having the most at five...and that's not including things with names like "Little Baldy" or "Highwood Baldy".....also not included are "Old Baldy Mountain" (three in Montana, two in BC, one in Washington); Colorado has three named "Little Baldy Mountain" and Utah and Idaho have one each....(oh, everything from Little Baldy since is only from bivouac.com's index - there may be more if you were able to search for "[wildcard] baldy" in topozone, but you can't....Skookum1 02:41, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

BTW In Canada, an only in BC alone, searching BC Basemap with "Find Location", there are seven Baldy Mountains, and also Mount Baldy Hughes...haven't looked into the Canada Geonames Database, but....Skookum1 02:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Just checked Canada Geonames Database and there's only two more - the one in Manitoba, and the other in Yukon. Didn't check for other variations (main search window is [1] in case that other link didn't work right or you want to look something up). Both of those links, by the way, should be added to any resource/tools section of this WikiProject; there's a more elaborate equivaletn to BC Basemap called the Land and Resouces Data Warehouse Catalogue, which is chock-full of all kinds of information including property lines, ground cover/type; but you have to toggle stuff off instead of on as on BC Basemap.Skookum1 02:48, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
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