[OSM-talk] map display www.openstreetmap.org

[Ulf Mehlig]

I think the fact that several people presented more or less fiddly ways
to obtain coordinates from the OSM map shows that there is at least some
need to have a coordinate display feature for www.openstreetmap.org. I
don't see that coordinates inserted below "Permalink" (as in Frederik's
example) or in any of the other corners clutter the map to an
unacceptable degree. Coordinate display could also be switched on/off
via the layers dialog -- people who are scared off by coordinates won't
open it, would they? Juan Lucas Dominguez Rubio's suggestion to display
coordinates when the mouse pointer lingers for some seconds at the same
spot is maybe even more elegant.

I also suspect that with GPS chips in many cell phones etc., one or the
other user who "does not know what coordinates are" might try to figure
it out ... with his/her old schoolbooks + openstreetmap maybe ;-)

Cheers, Ulf

On Fri, 2008-10-10 at 09:44 -0600, Eric Wolf wrote: 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 8:06 AM, Jonathan Bennett
> <openstreetmap at jonno.cix.co.uk> wrote:
>         elvin ibbotson wrote:
>         > Steve,
>         >
>         > It looks like fakeSteveC or someone is pretending to be you
>         and posting
>         > elitist, patronising, condescending rubbish in an apparent
>         attempt to
>         > make you look foolish. I look forward to it being
>         demonstrated that
>         > 'most people don't know what coordinates are'.
>         >
>         > elvin ibbotson
>         
>         "Most people" is not:
>         
>         Most people on this mailing list
>         Most people who contribute to OSM
>         Most people involved in GIS
>         Most people who know some programming
>         
>         "Most people" is the man, woman or child in the street, many
>         of whom
>         will never have picked up a paper map, and will certainly
>         never have
>         tried to take coordinates from one. 
> 
> 
> And the set of "most people" could be expanded if the statement is
> "most people don't know what coordinate _SYSTEMS_ are".
> 
> 
> It's a safe best that "most people" have heard of lat/long even if
> they don't know latitude from longitude - but the set of people who
> know the difference between WGS84 and UTM.
> 
> 
> Sorry for jumping in without context...
> 
> 
> -Eric
> 
> 
> -=--=---=----=----=---=--=-=--=---=----=---=--=-=-
> Eric B. Wolf                          720-209-6818
> USGS Geographer
> Center of Excellence in GIScience
> PhD Student 
> CU-Boulder - Geography
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
-- 
 Ulf Mehlig    <ulf.mehlig at gmx.net>
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