Tools
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User's Guide
Tools
Wikimapia gives you an opportunity not only to use its data but also to improve it. When you first decide to add or edit a place tag you start using tools. This manual is designed to help you exploring all functions that Wikimapia can offer you for changing and improving the map.
Editing the map
Adding places
Main article: Adding places
Adding places to Wikimapia is what makes it happen; the cornerstone of a wiki that attempts to describe the entire Earth is that all places in it are based entirely on user input. Any user can contribute to Wikimapia. Below are some hints and suggestions to get you started on Wikimapia. But not all things are permitted; unwelcome and unhelpful additions will be deleted.
Adding a place is easy; just select 'Edit map' on the tool bar and then select 'Add a place' from the pull-down menu: a red polygon tool will appear. Manipulate the polygon in a manner which outlines the place you are marking accurately. Once you have finished outlining your place, a box will appear in which you can write information about the place. Choose the language of your tag, write place title, description, address, Wikipedia link, choose place category and add photos.
To mark places that are located inside larger places (e.g. shopping malls, office buildings etc.) you can use the 'parent & child' feature by clicking on 'Add place (company, shop, etc.) to this building'.
You can also make a comment about a tagged object in the 'Comments' section.
Movable objects like vehicles, circuses etc. can only be added if they are stationary for a week and at the time of submission. This provision is exclusive for permanently fixed objects like moored vessels, stationed aircraft in open-air museums and military bases; static mobile homes and inert mobile food/drink carts etc. Regular movable objects which are in constant use shouldn't be marked if they are fixed for less than a week.
Hints and tips
- If the maximum zoom is insufficient to accurately place the lines of your polygon then an additional, digital, zoom level is available. To obtain it, roll your mouse wheel very very slowly forward. It sometimes takes two or three attempts to get this to work.
- If you have the patience to add places (polygons) of buildings, carefully outline only the shape of the building, take care to set the "This is a building" box and then save your work. If the building plot is a large area such as a university campus, industrial estate, commercial development etc., and you want to add this as well take care this time not to tick the building box and again save your work. The advantage of doing this will become obvious when you take a look at the Wikimapia map layer, this contains only the Wikimapia data and ticked appropriately you can distinguish between buildings and the plot on which they sit in different shades.
Editing places
Editing Places is the process in which existing tags are modified. Editing places is a fundamental part of Wikimapia, since our physical world is always subject to change. However, editing should be done in a careful and responsible manner, and in accordance with Wikimapia's philosophy of Neutral Point of View.
Wikimapia's aim is to provide a useful reference tool that supplies usable information for all its visitors, we therefore encourage you to make continuous improvement so that the information is up-to-date. You can add whatever information that is relevant to the place; this can be anything from correcting spelling or grammatical errors, to making wholesale changes to an otherwise bland or uninformative article.
How to edit a place
- When you select a tag, click on the red "Edit" label on the top-left corner.
- Choose "Edit this Page", and make your changes as necessary.
- Choose "Save" when you are done.
Understanding the Editing Process
If somebody has edited an article you have created or edited, do not worry! That is a normal consequence of a wiki: Anyone can edit it. A Wikimapia article can be improved, but only if there is relevant, verifiable, and useful information to add to it.
What Is Not Permitted
Occasionally, there may be places in Wikimapia that may be lacking information, or contain too much information! Please feel free to edit appropriately, but please leave these out of our Wikimapia titles and/or descriptions.
- Non-neutral point of view
- Vulgarity
- Slander/insult
- Invasion of privacy
- Editing wars (continually editing for the sake of ruining an article)
- Spam
- Advertising not pursuant to Wikimapia Ads
- False information
- Boasting/bragging
- Using Wikimapia articles as a forum for opinions and viewpoints, specifically religion and politics.
No member "owns" the tags they create; no tag is free from editing just because they created it, or because they live in the area. Ownership of articles is not a function of Wikimapia, which means that if you do not intend to have your information edited, we recommend you not to submit it to Wikimapia!
Deleting Places
Some place tags in Wikimapia are not satisfactory because they do not contain useful or interesting information. Again, there are other place tags, which do not describe places or are offensive, defamatory or hurtful in nature. If you encounter place tags like these, you should always attempt to correct them first. If they cannot be corrected, and they meet the deletion criteria of the Wikimapia Guidelines, they should be deleted.
To delete a place tag, select 'Menu' > 'Delete place' in the place tag's window. You will be prompted to choose a deletion reason; it is important to note that you are obligated to confirm deletion only for the reason chosen. The place tag will enter a deletion period, after which it shall be deleted. The duration of the deletion period varies and depends on your user level.
Remember, always delete a place tag if it cannot be reclaimed into something acceptable bearing in mind, though, that willful deletion of a good place tag is forbidden.
Undeleting/Place restoration
If you think if a tag has been wrongfully been deleted, you can restore the tag by undeleting it. You'd first need to select 'Deleted places' option from the Map type menu, the Map type menu is situated at the top-left of the screen, when you click on the Map type menu a drop down list will appear. The 'Deleted places' option will appear on the tenth row, select it and deleted places will start to appear on the map in square boxes.
When you find the tag which has been deleted, click on the tag and hover the mouse arrow on the 'Menu' text and it will show a drop down menu. When you see the text 'Undelete place; click on it and it will give you the option to write a brief explanation as to why the tag was wrongfully deleted, but this is optional. It is recommended however to write one as to clear up any misunderstandings, then you can go ahead by pressing the 'Undelete place' button which is situated at the bottom left of the tag. It takes about 2-3 minutes for a tag to be restored on the map.
What kinds of place tags are most often deleted?
If none of the above considerations are relevant, how do you determine whether to delete a place tag? The vast majority of deletable place tags fall into one of the following categories:
- “My house”, “I live here” - For personal houses, the thing to remember is that local conditions are different from place to place. In the US and Canada all personal homes are to be deleted, unless they meet the full criteria in the Adding section of this User Guide. In places like India, properly sized homes that have a person's full name and/or instructions on how to find their house are not deleted. [On the other hand, we would delete a place like "Nandini's House" because we assume that there's more than one woman named Nandini in India.]
- Too big – the rectangle is MUCH too large for something that claims to be a single building, and there is no way to tell which specific building inside the rectangle is intended to be the actual described place.
- Duplicates - Two or more tags for the same place. One of them should be edited and improved (if possible) and the other(s) deleted. The newer tag is the one that should be deleted. Edit the older tag as needed to bring it up to the information level of the newer tag - then delete the newer one.
- Inappropriate language - Places with offensive or abusive language.
- Spam
- Advertisements not made through Wikimapia's Ad (advertisement) service.
- Political or religious content that cannot be effectively removed by editing - e.g. the whole tag is a partisan statement.
If there is any other problem with the place tag, don't hesitate to bring it up in the Forum. The forum's Place Deletion Requests thread is a long and ongoing thread about deletion discussions.
Protection
If a place tag has been the target of vandalism (e.g. a genuine article is repeatedly placed for unjustified deletion), you can request its protection by contacting an Advanced User. You can request protection in this forum topic (Request for Semi-protection) or you can contact an Advanced User directly through PM. Only advanced users can enable protection on place tags.
History
The history shows all edits made to an object since it was created. Each saved edit is known as a revision, and each revision is stored as a version number with a brief overview of the editor's name, edits made and date of edits in the history.
To access an object's history select 'Menu' > 'History' in the object's window.
Linear features
Main article: Linear features
Linear tools is a completely different method of marking map objects compared to the 'Add place' tool. Where the sole purpose of the 'Add place' tool lies in marking static areas with a precise outline, the purpose of the Linear tools is to mark map objects whose dimensions aren't defined by static areas but by extensive lengths. With this in mind, the tool has been specifically designed to mark roads, rivers, railway lines (railroads) and ferry routes. This is accomplished by using elastic segments, as opposed to polygons, to mark the linear nature of the mentioned map objects.
Roads
Roads is a Wikimapia feature wherein you can mark out roads by adding points. These successive points are joined (automatically as you go on marking them) by road segments.
Railroads
Railroads is a Wikimapia feature wherein you can mark out railway lines by adding points. Once you anchor a point and move the cursor, a segment will automatically extend from it. A segment can only be established when another point is fixed to a location. These segments and points should be aligned accurately with the linear image of the railroad on the map.
Ferry
What constitute a Ferry ? A scheduled public passenger/car/rail transport service that travels over water on a set regular, frequent, seasonal, return services route. At least the ends of the ferry line must be named and information about the route and sailing times must be presented. In other words, a ferry route should have a predictable route and a provable route. Links to its schedules and sailings are also to be provided where available.
This clearly rules out Touring Vessels, Cruise Ships, Ocean Liners, Cargo Vessels, ocean tramps, fishing vessels etc. And other charter vessels not engaged in the above-defined service also are not to be marked
Creating New and Editing Existing Ferry Routes:
Click on "Edit map" and then select "Ferry" in the menu. If you are viewing a coastal ferry port, you may see some ferry lines highlighted with red boxes in the style of place outlines. You can edit an existing ferry or add a new line. See the documentation for the other linear features (Example : Rivers) for more information. It is more or less akin to river markings except that ferry do not have “ferrysides”
In "Satellite" view the ferry route is depicted as a blue dashed line. In "Map" view the ferry route is shown as a light blue dashed line.
Rivers
Rivers is a linear tool wherein you can mark waterways such as rivers, canals, streams etc. The marking of rivers is done by adding points and segments. Segments form the main "body" or "line" of the linear tool, while points link segments to each other. Points also enable segments to be laid in different directions.
Edit Summary
The edit summary 
is an optional section found in the edit window of all tools (polygon & linear). It allows you to leave a brief comment about an edit you have made so that other users can see the reason behind it. If an edit summary comment has been made, it can be accessed in the history of an object.
Watchlist
If you want to monitor the activity (new places, changes, deletions, ...) in one or more specific areas, you can do that with the Watchlist tool, which is available on the Tools tab on your profile page.
To add a watchlist you click the Watchlist link on your profile page and then click the background map (closing the profile page and revealing the watchlist sidebar). Click the "add" button, type a name of your choice where it says "Watchlist name", size the rectangle to cover the area you are interested in and save it. After that you can click the name you chose and it will show all recent changes in that region. "Old" changes are on a gray background, while "new" changes are on a white background. When you have finished examining the new changes you can click the "mark as viewed" button to bring the gray background all the way to the top of the list.
Status grid
Main article: Status grid
Status grid is a powerful tool to help in monitoring and improving the map. You can find it on the Tools page, it is available for all registered users. The grid is a colorized layer over the map which collects and shows basic statistics about places for each grid cell. It should be helpful in finding badly described areas and tags. The status grid works at zoom levels between 5 and 15.
Map shift
| The contents of this article/page refers to a tool/feature which is not functioning properly at this moment in time. Please visit the forum for more information. |
Main article: Satellite images updates list (Map shift)
Every month or so Google updates their satellite imagery and sometimes as a result of it the outline positions of Wikimapia objects in some areas become out of sync. Such areas need to be fixed. To avoid doing this for each object individually, we have designed a special tool, which allows simply to update the whole areas, where this problem occurs. You may be familiar with it, it is called "Map shift" and is accessible from the user tools page in the top menu or user profile page and via direct link: http://wikimapia.org/#m=b&show=/user/tools/mapshift/. Now we are releasing a new version of it and making it available to more users than before.
Reports list: Bug/features
Wikimapia has an issue tracker supposed to collect and process bug reports and feature requests. It is the only right way to report a problem or a bug.
Interface translation
| The contents of this article/page refers to a tool/feature which is not functioning properly at this moment in time. Please visit the forum for more information. |
Whole Wikimapia interface is being translated by users. Users with user level 3 and higher (3+) can translate the interface phrases into another language. The tool provides the list of phrases in English (with description of what they mean and where are they used) along with possibility to translate them into your language. A history of changes is maintained to avoid vandalism.
