CZ:Geography Workgroup/Gazetteer/Geogra-thon/December

What's a Geogra-Thon?

It's when a bunch of people getting together on a wiki at a particular time to do a bunch of writing. It's like an online party! It's also like theMonthly Write-a-Thon except for one crusial thing. Well two things actually. First it's not a complete free for all - this day is focused on geography. In particular the Gazetteer articles for countries, towns, cities and regions. Secondly, it's on a different day.

When?

Write-a-Thons happen the Last Tuesday of every month. The next Write-a-Thon is Tuesday, November 27. November 27 is a long day since we have writers all around the world. It starts on November 26 at 1200 GMT, in New Zealand, and ends on November 28 at 1000 GMT, in Hawaii. Save The Date! Put it on your calendar! Set yourself a reminder!

Any new article you create, and any edit you make to somebody else's Write-a-Thon article, when it's that day in your part of the world, will count.

Our first monthly Write-a-Thon took place Wednesday, August 1, 2007 and was considered a roaring good time—so lets make sure the Geogra-thon does just as well.

What are the rules?

Rules? This is a party! There are no rules!

Well, OK, maybe there are a couple rules:

• We'll have a Write-a-Thon the last Tuesday of every month.
• To participate, you only have to do two things:
  1. Start a new article within the geography (even just a stub will qualify just try to write a ballanced and well writen stub) please remember to include the CZ:The Article Checklist! and
  2. make a substantive edit (not just a copyedit) to an existing geography article. Then you can list your name here as a partier. Until then, you're just a porch-sitter, party-crasher, or total party poop.

I don't know what to write! Help?

Write about what you know. Start with the biggest geographical region, such as your country of residence. Then do the State or Province you live in. Next try the nearest big city to your home and so on down. Once you have exhaused your current location. Do the same for your place of birth. What about places you visited on holliday. You must remember something about them. You see, you had plenty to contribute after all.

Holliday snaps

It's all fine writing articles but we also need illistrations. Dig out your old photo album, scan in the best of your snaps and put them onto the relevent article. Pop down town and take a pic of the local landmark and put it own your town/cities article.

Create an article, already!

Check it out: Start an article!

Now (this time anyway) easier than ever! Stubs are not only permitted they are encouraged!

The Partiers

• Well it had just gone midnight, so Derek Harkness thought is was about time to get the party started. He reminisced about his travels. It must be eight months since he last visited Shanghai so he felt it high time he went there again. A quick trick to Beijing was called for to renew his travel visa before heading out to Lapland (Well it's christmas isn't it?)

• Well, Hayford had just rolled out of bed early Christmas morning in order see what Santa had left him under the tree, and while he was waiting to roast the Christmas goose later in the day (actually an 8-pound turkey breast that has been marinating for 3 days in a brine developed by Alice Waters, the celebrated owner of Chez Panisse and the instigator of California cuisine), he amused himself by creating a trifling article about the strangely named roads unique (apparently) to Tucson, Arizona. Check out Stravenue to see what all the excitement is about. Hayford Peirce 12:16, 25 December 2007 (CST)

• Hoping e didn't screw things up, or do too little, or... User:Jesse Weinstein imported the Wikipedia article on Culver City, California, cleaned it up some, and added some sentences on its earlier history from a printed source e has. E also added two sources to Hayford's quite interesting Stravenue article.
• Aleta is done with the Christmas Day excess, so she had ice cream for Boxing Day breakfast and popped in to see what was happening at the Geogra-thon. Read all about stravenues and decided to say something about the city they're found in. Also led a tour of Goulburn, New South Wales Aleta Curry 19:39, 25 December 2007 (CST)

• Joe dunno whether Machu Picchu would normally be considered a geography topic, but it is a place, so he thinks it probably counts. Getting a little chilly and lonely out on the porch by himself, Joe paid a visit to Tucson to look into its early history and then moved inside to join the party.

Questions

1. Did Marco Polo realy visit China, did he just write down stories he heard, or did he make the whole thing up? Also, have you read his book? Derek Harkness 11:06, 24 December 2007 (CST)

• I dunno, but give him props for imagination! Actually, I read exerpts from his book back in primary school. (May have been one of those simplified versions for little kids.) Anyway, all I remember about it was that he came upon a river and drank from it. And I said to Miss Treeves: should he *really* have just drunk the river water like that? And she said, No, Aleta, you're right, that's something we wouldn't do today. (Yes, I was an odd little girl, that's all right, you can say it.) Aleta Curry 20:00, 25 December 2007 (CST)

• Well Marco didn't write it. He dictated the book to his prison cell mate who wrote it down and some blame this ghost writer for the most extravegant bits (like the land where all the people have heads like dogs). So we can't give Marco props for imagination (whatever 'props' might be?) Derek Harkness 06:06, 26 December 2007 (CST)

Ha! I got 'props' from musician Randy Jackson, on a US piece of brain candy called American Idol (don't ask). I assume it's current African American Vernacular for "credit", "points", "gold stars", "give that man a cigar", etc. etc. Don't ask me the etymology! Aleta Curry 15:20, 26 December 2007 (CST)

2. Where does Santa live?

• The Brooks Home, Great Neck, New York--Duh! Aleta Curry 19:56, 25 December 2007 (CST)
• 1, The North Pole, Arctic. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 21:02, 25 December 2007 (CST)
• Santa Claus is our (i.e., Dutch) Saint Nicolaus and he lives in Spain (in Madrid I believe).--Paul Wormer 05:09, 26 December 2007 (CST)

Oh! I didn't know he had a home in Spain, too! I'll have to read up on that. Of course, we all agree about the Arctic address. Aleta Curry 15:20, 26 December 2007 (CST)

Previous shindigs

November's Geogra-thon

See also

• Larry Sanger, Why the Write-a-Thon worked, Citizendium Blog, August 9, 2007
• Weekly Wiki
• Article of the Week
• New Article of the Week
• Monthly Write-a-Thon

Images from Google Earth and/or MapQuest

I have a couple of images captured by SnagIt from Google Earth and Mapquest to illustrate my newly created article about Stravenues. Any chance that one of them could be used somehow? Each of them had a copyright thingee on the bottom of their screens before I grabbed 'em. Steve -- anything you can do? Email someone for permission if necessary? Many thanks! Hayford Peirce 13:13, 25 December 2007 (CST)

Here's some info I got from our competitor's article about Google Earth:

Currently, every image created from Google Earth using satellite data provided by Google Earth is a copyrighted map. Any derivative from Google Earth is made from copyrighted data which, under United States Copyright Law, may not be used except under the licenses Google provides. Google allows non-commercial personal use of the images (e.g. on a personal website or blog) as long as copyrights and attributions are preserved.[31] By contrast, images created with NASA's globe software World Wind use the Blue Marble, Landsat or USGS layer, each of which is a terrain layer in the public domain. Works created by an agency of the United States government are public domain at the moment of creation. This means that those images can be freely modified, re-distributed and used for commercial purposes.

Well, we're non-commercial, but are we "personal" enough for them? Or should I try to use the World Wind sites to look for the same thing? Hayford Peirce 16:11, 25 December 2007 (CST)

We had a question about exactly this on the Forum. The conclusion after reading the legal position of Google Earth was that we cannot use images from there. We need specific copyright permission. You should try the other source, I think. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 19:32, 25 December 2007 (CST)