alt Hacker NewsLocal Wikipedia: Wikipedia, but only for things a half hour walk from you
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Time to promote my project: https://tomthe.github.io/wiki-importance-map
It shows all Wikipedia articles on a zoomable map. The size of the labels depends on its pagerank score and the pageview statistics.
This is a great idea but I'd definitely make the distance configurable. Where I am right now would need several hours walking to reach anywhere Wikipedia worthy but if I expanded to say a 15km circle there's probably a couple of places of interest.
Meanwhile if someone lives in a city they'll get loads of results.
EDIT: actually this is just a wrapper around wikipedia's nearby feature I think. I tried a couple of places and they give identical results.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Nearby#/coord/15.90721...
Distances measured in yards for European destinations is an insult
This is super cool! Just punched in my zip code, and hit "random article" three times, and came up with three weird stories I didn't know about the history of places within a few blocks of me in Portland, Oregon. What an awesome idea for travelers!
I used this during my walk around around Tirana, Albania this morning where I'm traveling right now. I learned some interesting history about the neighborhood I'm staying in. Also discovered some museums and buildings nearby that I'd like to check out now.
When I visit a new city I usually spend time poking around Google Maps to discover points of interest nearby, but this will be another useful resource. Thanks!
Wikipedia has a nearby feature that works in other languages as well
Awesome, I found that possibly the first bookstore cafe was in Palo Alto on Cal Ave! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printers_Inc._Bookstore
It's cool, but a bit sad, to discover establishments that used to exist nearby but don't any longer. It's not easy to do that otherwise.
Super cool idea! Would love support for other languages, as English Wikipedia is quite limited where I live.
none Americans complaining about using yards is hilarious tbh
Like others, I agree this is very cool.
I live somewhere pretty remote, and every article it suggests is an entry for a nearby village, which is usually a sentence long. There are other interesting things nearby: could it have some kind of variance function, so it looks specifically for a variety of content?
Here I am, seeing something cool and immediately asking for changes. Spirit of the internet ;) Genuinely, it is a wonderful idea, and I admire the concept and that you did it.
Vey nicely done! One issue though, not many local articles in english here. I see no obvious way to change language?
Is it possible to change the language of Wikipedia? For many places, the local language Wikipedia has more articles.
The nearest place to me was
> 0.8 miles
Ok great I thought that I can walk...
however, it is actually 1.9 miles when walking according to Google Maps and the path lacks sidewalks.
Why is this not called Walkipedia?
I consider this to be far more progress for humanity than landing on moon or sending a spaceship to outside of solar system. That's because this move is in the right direction, while others are not. As a human, you need to first master your habitat around you, before getting excited or concerned about things that happen in another country thousands of miles away.
Checked Hong Kong, not much on the page
Cool idea! I had lots of fun looking at stuff nearby.
Right now it seems that it simply removes links for stuff without a geotag that's nearby. But many articles are in fact nearby and are simply missing geotags, or perhaps encompass a slightly larger area where only a part of it is close by. Also, all the pictures don't have working links so I can't click on a picture to make it bigger.
I found out that a closed church I walk past regularly was called "St Chad's"
Related: OsmAnd has support for wikipedia-sourced points for the local offline maps. Not sure about the details though. Only related thing I found for an explanation is "Geospatial Wikidata Dataset", which is suspiciously fresh.
Very cool idea. Would be even better if it had an option to use a local language.
Why not Grokipedia?
Content that is curated by interested humans, without commercial interests, is so good.
This is the World Wide Web I want to see. Amazing job. Thank you!
This is so cool, although I would like a feature to filter by subtopic or what the structures are used for (e.g. churches, bridges, museums).
Very cool. Obvious in hindsight with every location having coordinates.
Found an abbey around my place in Western Bavaria I didn't know existed
I love it. It would also be nice to be able to a) enter desired distance, and b) choose the metric system.
This is a really fun idea, but I went from excited to disgusted in the span of one click.
The first thing that pops up for my city of Malmö is the school stabbing that happened in 2022. They're so rare here, and yet Wikipedia felt I just had to see it.
I'm not going to make stupid feature requests, but it would be cool with a filter for types of Wikipedia articles to show.
I guess it works but I have no idea what a yard or a mile is.
Very nice! It really should have a field to enter the radius of the search.
https://wiki-map.com/ considered much better.
Has local language too.
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Omg I love this so much mate! Incredible how much more relevant nearby articles feel than the default to which you have no personal connection. I also think local news are much better/useful for the same reason.
I'm working on something similar! Open World, an app that turns collecting nearby Wikipedia places into a game! [1]
It started with you having to go to the place IRL to unlock the article/story, mostly so you find cool spots out on a walk. But slowly I discovered that most people go on walks somewhat rarely, so now it also includes a virtual Fast-Travel system using Apple Maps LookAround :)
Oh, also a 3D map of the different neighbourhoods of a city to unlock one a time, plus narrative Quests to complete with the secrets you found, ...
Local History is fun!!
[1] https://openworldapp.xyz