Talk:Mount Mary Austin

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Coordinate error

I checked the coordinates and they correspond with those on the GNIS feature page cited. –droll [chat] 05:08, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Coordinates on This Page Caused Me a Problem

I'm not sure if this is a new global formatting issue in Wikipedia, but it is the first time I experienced the problem. Clicking on the coordinates for this Wiki page on Mt. Mary Austin (CA) resulted in this data being displayed on the GeoHack page:

36° 48′ 56.77″ N, 118° 21′ 46.35″ W

When I cut and pasted this string into Google Earth it took me to a location which was off the actual mark by at least 75 miles. After using a GPS calculator to check the decimal rendition of the coordinates (because I thought the data on this Wikipedia page to be wrong), I realized the problem lay not in the coordinates but in the formatting of the visible string above. Specifically, the use of intelligent or forward slating apostrophe and quotation characters caused a problem when cutting and pasting the coordinates displayed in Wikipedia directly into Google Earth. By editing the visible string, as thus (using standard ASCII apostrophe and quotation symbols) I fixed the problem.

36° 48' 56.77" N, 118° 21' 46.35" W

This is a troubling development, if it is a system-wide formatting change. While I can always grab the decimal GPS coordinates, I typically go for the lat-long coordinates as they are displayed on top, I have been grabbing them for years, and there was a time Google Earth did not accept input of decimal formatted coordinates.

While the intelligent characters might look nice to the reader, they are extremely problematic as a transfer format for data and I would recommend avoiding them for this reason. You've got to expect people to cut and paste the data between applications, and I think KISS applies here.

I am using Firefox browser on an iMac Duo Core running MacOS-X (10.4). I did not check this issue in Safari, IE or any other browser or platform. It failed on the one I use predominantly, and that is enough to consider it a #FAIL. --Symmerhill (a.k.a. Summerhill) (talk) 01:25, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The format used to display the coordinates on the GeoHack page is not an issue specific to this article and I don't think your problem is related to your system or browser. You should move this discussion to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates as I believe your issue is not with this article but with the way coordinates are displayed by the GeoHack tool. –droll [chat] 05:08, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]