WikiMapia

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WikiMapia
WikiMapia as seen in Firefox with fullscreen mode
URL	www.wikimapia.org
Slogan	Let's describe the whole World!
Alexa rank	<1700
Commercial?	yes
Type of site	Collaborative mapping
Registration	yes (not compulsory)
Available language(s)	64 languages, including English
Created by	Alexandre Koriakine and Evgeniy Saveliev
Launched	May 24, 2006
Revenue	from AdSense
Current status	active

WikiMapia is an online map and satellite imaging resource that combines Google Maps with a wiki system, allowing users to add information, in the form of a note, to any location on Earth.^[1] It was created by Alexandre Koriakine and Evgeniy Saveliev, and was launched on May 24, 2006 with the aim of describing the whole world. It is one of the top 2000 websites visited,^[2] and now has over 8.4 million places marked.^[3] While registration is not required to edit or add to WikiMapia, over 153,000 users from around the world currently are registered.^[4]

Contents 1 Features 1.1 Tag a location 1.2 Watchlists 1.3 Multi-lingual 1.4 User accounts and levels 1.4.1 Messages 1.5 GeoTools 1.6 Roads 1.7 WikiMapia Map 2 Business model 3 Interoperability 4 User-submitted content 5 Criticism 6 See also 7 External links 8 References

[edit] Features

[edit] Tag a location

WikiMapia allows any contributor to add a "tag" (placemark) to any location by marking out a polygon around the location and then providing a default language, title, description and category (location types).^[5] An optional note can be provided, as well as keyword tags, images, and embedded YouTube videos, which all appear on the place's information window.^[6]. One can add multiple categories to the placemark by clicking add button which shows up when one hovers the mouse over a category (the numbers displayed along with category denotes number placemarks belonging to that category). If a Wikipedia page exists for the placemark, one can put the link to that page as well.

[edit] Watchlists

WikiMapia allows registered users to check on certain areas of the map, showing edits and additions to the map. For this option one have to go to Wikimapia->Profile->Watchlist and then add a watchlist of appropriate area size.

[edit] Multi-lingual

Location tagging is fully multi-lingual. Currently a total of 64 languages are supported, and 100% of the interface has been translated into 25 languages.^[7]

However WikiMapia tries to use its own abbreviations for the languages; for example, it uses "tk" as the abbreviation for Turkish.

Registered users can help translate the WikiMapia interface at a special page.

[edit] User accounts and levels

Optional user accounts were introduced in October, 2006.^[8] Since then, a system has been under development whereby users can rise in status. For instance, users can vote in favor of or against other users' contributions. There are three user-levels, explained in the WikiMapia FAQ. In October, 2007 a forum was begun, for discussions by registered users. ^[9]

In some areas of the world with out-of-date or very expensive mapping, such as India, WikiMapia growth has been phenomenally rapid. This rapid growth brought problems of its own, however, with urban areas becoming covered with thousands of overlapping rectangles marking the positions of private residences, but with no utility available in the WikiMapia interface for displaying places of public interest, distinguished those from houses and flats and apartments. Recently, however, category browsing has been introduced, allowing users to select what category or categories of features they want displayed.

[edit] Messages

Registered users can send personal messages to each other.

[edit] GeoTools

Basic tools for measuring distance and land area, and for mapping IP addresses to locations, are available from the menu at the top of the page.

[edit] Roads

Registered users can mark the route of roads using a series of segments and points. Once marked, these can be named and described in a manner similar to marking locations.

[edit] WikiMapia Map

The WikiMapia Map layer shows only information that is made by WikiMapia users, such as polygons and roads -- and the polygons are in different colors depending on the category of the tag, e.g. blue for a lake or reservoir, or green for a park.
One can filter on a given category of placemarks, if the current view area have placemarks belonging to that category then after applying the filter only those placemarks will be shown.

[edit] Business model

The site generates some income using Google ads. In July 2007, the founders of WikiMapia decided to start looking for an investor to accomplish their plans.^[10]

[edit] Interoperability

A GPS receiver can be connected to WikiMapia using a plug-in program (beta, download for Windows OS from WikiMapia site [1]).

Limited WikiMapia functionality is available on:

• Google Earth, using Google Earth dynamic layer in KML file.
• Google Maps Mapplets using special layer.
• Any HTML webpage, using code for a map frame which can found on the top menu, under "WikiMapia:Map on your page"
• Most Java-enabled cellphones using 3rd party software such as Mobile GMaps.

[edit] User-submitted content

Unlike Wikipedia, all user content on WikiMapia is licensed exclusively to WikiMapia. WikiMapia does not use a GFDL license, so royalties and many usage rights are forfeited to WikiMapia upon submission. ^[11]

WikiMapia user submissions are available for personal or educational non-commercial purposes through the website.^[12]

[edit] Criticism

• National security and privacy issues which are valid of Google Earth (Google Earth#National security and privacy issues) or Google Maps (Google Maps#Criticism) are also valid for Wikimapia, also here anyone can add placemark/description to sensitive/private places over and above what Google Earth or Google Maps offers.^{[citation needed]}

• Some have complained that there is no check on validity/correctness of newly added placemarks, which can sometimes lead to over sized and or incorrect placemarks cluttering the Wikimapia (especially true for countries where Wikimapia is quite popular.) Earlier in WikiMapia, there was a voting system in place to check for addition of incorrect/oversized placemarks, but that feature has since been disabled. Defenders say that the system is self-policing, with users checking one another's contributions.^{[citation needed]}

• The Wikimapia FAQ is sometimes said to be quite outdated and usually doesn't reflect the current state of features.^{[citation needed]}

• Satellite image alignment errors can sometiems be seen. These come directly from Google Maps (Wikimapia's source for images) and are often more amusing than a serious problem eg Map Error

• When Google introduces new satellite imagery there is occasionally a registration difference between the old and the new images. This has the effect of causing misalignment of all Wikimapia place markers in the affected area. Once spotted and notified to the Wikimapia administrators it can be quickly compensated for^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] See also

• List of wikis
• Google Earth
• Collaborative mapping
• EEmap
• OpenStreetMap
• Placeopedia
• Windows Live Local

[edit] External links

• WikiMapia
• WikiMapia Forum for discussions
• Official WikiMapia Blog
• Matt Jones' WikiMapia Blog
• Meta.Wikimedia/about the connection with Wikipedia

[edit] References