Talk:Multimedia Usability Project Meeting France/Request for comments

Ideas and comments welcome here!

Infographics, maps, and data-driven content

Here are some ideas that I have, and hope that can be discussed, relating to dynamically generated and interactive content. Aude 00:07, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Maps

We already have the OpenStreetMap integration project underway, though with the database and rendering infrastructure in place, it's possible to build upon that. Could we allow people to upload GIS data files (e.g. shapefiles, GML, KML) and create custom overlays on top of an OpenStreetMap base layer (or other baselayer options such as satellite imagery, terrain map, or political boundaries)? Would Wikimedia Commons be the place for such uploads? how would we handle them?

What about allowing people to use external live data and map sources, such as WMS (web map services) services or live data feeds? Some of these are in the public domain, from providers, such as the National Weather Service in the U.S. for hurricanes and from the USGS for earthquakes.

I'm toying with the idea of developing a mapmaking utility that could reside on the toolserver, for generating custom static maps (without pan/zoom capabilities). If the maps rely on a live data source or need periodic updating, perhaps a bot could be incorporated into the service to regenerate maps on a periodic basis and upload new versions. Aude 00:07, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Dynamic charts and graphs

Another related idea is to allow dynamically generating charts, graphs, and other content from data sources (e.g. data.gov or U.S. census data), similar to dynamically generating maps. It's a pain right now to maintain such graphics on Wikipedia, as they are hand made and people have to redo them in order to update them. Aude 00:07, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Infographics

Another idea is to allow adding interactive multimedia infographics to Wikipedia articles, or as supplemental material.

Examples:

• http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/business/2007_BUYRENT_GRAPHIC.html
• http://www.lakeshorepreserve.wisc.edu/imap/LakeshoreNaturePreserve.html

These typically are implemented in Adobe Flash, but think that JavaScript/ajax approaches like w:OpenLayers would be feasible but not trivial to implement. With Wikipedia's volume of traffic, there are issues with caching graphics and how do we cache or handle such interactive graphics? These may be more reliant on client-side rendering.

How JavaScript is handled, in relation to caching, is also tricky. With the SlippyMap extension, it's been challenging to attempt to implement conditional loading of JavaScript or make the JavaScript code dynamically generated. With some of the MediaWiki hooks, I can have the extension check for presence of a "slippymap" tag, and if true, then have the JavaScript addScript call added in the page header. But, when pages are cached, the addScript call doesn't always get loaded. So, for now, we are having the OpenLayers js included globally, but with that and jQuery and all the other stuff, it can get to be too much. Aude 00:07, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Other data-driven content

Not really dealing with multimedia, but related to dynamic and data-driven content is how to handle the 2000 U.S. census data that is in many articles on small American towns, added by Rambot. It will be outdated with the 2010 U.S. census. How do we update it? And, the Census Bureau does other surveys more frequently than the census, such as the American Community Survey, that could be useful for updating such statistics. Aude 00:07, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Legal issues

I think I am mildly obligated to volunteer myself to talk about patents (philosophy, concerns, strategy, why hosting the servers on Sealand is not sufficient, etc.). I think it is even possible not to be overly boring. :-) Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 00:24, 15 August 2009 (UTC)