Help:Add Grounds

Adding a new place to the wiki, referred to as "grounds" begins by clicking on the Add Grounds link on the left hand menu. That will bring up a form asking for the name of the place. See the architect naming section in the Style Guide for directions as to how to style the name. (If a page for the place already exists in the wiki, the data you enter here will be added to it. If not, a new page will be created.)

After entering the name, a new form will be displayed listing the various fields typically associated with a site. Enter in as many of the fields as you have data, leaving the rest blank.

The image field anticipates an uploaded file. If you have an image of the site, click on the "Upload" button and a file selection window for your machine will open, allowing you to select a local file to upload. Once uploaded, the system will execute further processing on the file to ready it for display on the final pages. There is no standard as to what sort of image should go here. We leave that up to you.

The perimeter field takes a long string of values beginning with "polygons=", which values are geo-coordinates of points around the perimeter of the site. This provides the data for the infobox map in displaying the shape of the grounds, not merely a marker somewhere in them. The values are obtained by using the map editor. The detailed instructions for this task are found on the Using the Map Editor help page.

Then, as if that weren't enough, the system also requests geo-coordinates for a marker somewhere in the middle of the grounds. This is used for maps elsewhere on the site which should reference these grounds by virtue of some person or firm being associated with them. There are actually three boxes on the form pertaining to this field: a box with "Enter address here" greyed out, with a button next to it labeled, "Calculate coordinates using address," a box below those two which initially is blank, and below that a box containing a map.

The goal of all three boxes is to enable you to determine the latitude and longitude of the approximate center of the site. Since there are few surveyors or astronomers contributing to the wiki, we've come up with a simple way to enter the correct values. There are three options:

• First, you could enter the address in the "Enter address box" again. After entering in the address the map should update and place a red marker where it thinks that address is. If the map shows someplace in East Jabiff (!), it means that the national database used to do these sorts of look-ups has another candidate matching that address, but somewhere else in the country. Go back to the address box and add the zip code or other local identifying element to what you had there already. The map should update accordingly.

• Second, if you have the lat/lon values already from another source, you could enter them right into the middle (initially blank) box. The map should update accordingly. Note that the form expects decimal degrees, which is not the same as degrees, minutes and seconds. Note the difference: 30.5 degrees (which is decimal notation) is the equivalent of 30°30’00” (degrees, minutes, seconds notation). Do not take something looking like 30°23’46” and enter it in as 30.2346. They are not equivalent and you'll find the map marker does not land where you intend.

• Third, you could go right to the map, panning around and zooming in until you see the site. Clicking on it will compute the lat/lon and place it in the box above the map.

Look carefully where the map placed the marker. If it is not pointing right at where you intend, click directly on the spot you want, and the marker should move to where you clicked.

The other designers field deserves some additional explanation. In it you can enter the names appropriate, hitting <Enter> between each one. After doing so, the name will appear as sort of a button inside the field. Then enter in the next name, as appropriate. On the final display page, each name will appear as a link (blue or red, depending on whether the target page has been created or not). And each link will be discrete, even if there are two, three or more names listed in the field.

The founding and opening dates of the grounds should be entered in the founded and opened fields. Dates can have either the entire date or fragments of a date and can be flagged as approximate if necessary. Doing so ensures that "Abt:" prepends the date display on the final page.

The type field plays a significant role in whether this record will display on maps generated elsewhere on the system. Currently, entering "Park" here will ensure that the record is displayed. Other values will be added in the future.

When entering the URL for the NRHP record, remember to include "http://" at the beginning of it. Doing so alerts the wiki that the link is to an external site.

When you are finished entering all the data, click on the "Save page" button at the bottom and you will be returned to the page you just created.

Now you can use the Edit text link to add freeform text, images, citations, etc. to the page. Should you need to add or correct anything in the infobox, use the Edit Infobox link.