CycleCharge Project - Announcements & Discussions

[morphix]

Hi all,

I've started this new dedicated thread for all things CycleCharge related, so we can keep things tidier on the forum. Instead of creating different threads all the time, we can just post everything here in one place. Seems more sensible!

 

[morphix]

Charge Point map coordinates accuracy

I've had another query from a member yesterday concerning charge points not appearing accurately enough on the map. This particular charge point was displayed 5 miles away from the actual location. This is an issue that has come up a few times and the reason is because at present, we don't have a precise way of getting the longitude and latitude map coordinates for charge points with absolute precision. That would have to be done on location I think, by people with suitable GPS/SatNav software (which is freely and readily available).

At the moment the way we generate the coordinates is using the postcode which I use a Perl module on to convert to longitude and latitude points. This then gives us a rough idea of where the Charge Point is on a map...in most cases this will be fairly accurate and within a short walking distance...however in larger postcode areas or large rural areas, the postcode area could be several mile radius. Hence why some points may appear not exactly where people expect to see them on maps when zoomed in to street level.

So.. how do we get accurate longitude and latitude coordinates? Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? The obvious way is to encourage charge points themselves to provide these via their profiles on our site, assuming they have access to smartphones or SatNav etc. The other approach is we teach volunteers how to generate these coordinates when they visit/sign up charge points..

What I propose then is that for now we continue using the postcode approach, but we could have an indicator/button on the site which allows users to flag Charge Points which are not appearing accurately enough at street level. Flagged CP's can then be sent an automated e-mail requesting them to provide coordinates from GPS and update their profile..and where that's not possible, we send out a local volunteer to get them?

Thoughts? Perhaps I'm missing something obvious here or someone has a better approach?

 

[flecc]

If the notifier of the charge point uses their mouse pointer to zoom into the building in Google Earth, the precise co-ordinates of the mouse indicator are shown at the foot of the map box.

Alternatively the charge point themselves will sometimes be able to do this.

For example, the front entrance of Buckingham Palace:

51 degrees, 30.04' 96" N

0 degrees, 08' 30.50" W

As precise as we'll ever need!
.

 

[morphix]

Thanks flecc that sounds like a good approach and better than sending volunteers to all those points that can't provide us with coordinates. I think we'll encourage points to provide the accurate coordinates then as part of the registration process but where they can't we'll use the postcode and have some way of indicating these are not fully accurate and need updating..then they can be queued for the Google Earth treatment ;-) If we get a trickle of points I don't mind doing it..but if we get a lot we'll need volunteers to help out.

 

[OldBob1]

Map cordinates

I have used Streetmap which will give you Lat Long and post code plus other info

Streetmap - Maps and directions for the whole of Great Britain

Regards Bob

 

[morphix]

On a different note... I'm looking at expanding my business and probably going into the e-bike business next year.. I have no plans to sell bikes at this stage, and will probably sell kits and parts. I don't see this as creating any conflict of interest with CycleCharge..there won't be any products being sold on the CycleCharge site or any direct advertising to members for my products! Apart from probably sponsoring CycleCharge along with the other businesses, I will keep my commercial stuff completely separate.

I thought it best to be up front about this though. If anyone does see a potential conflict of interest with me being in the e-bike business I'm happy to stand down as project manager and let Lyn or someone else take over the role, while still offering my technical support to the project.

 

[morphix]

We're maintaining a static kml map file for CycleStreets of all our charge points at http://www.cyclecharge.org.uk/maps/directory.kml... and they can periodically suck this into their own map as CC "places of interest"... I'll probably code some page for them which indicates when it's been updated and sends them an e-mail notice.

 

[Old_Dave]

if anyone has any issue with me being in the e-bike business I'm happy to stand down as project manager

The only peeps who would have an issue are the jealous bigots of the world... to be honest there would be no real conflict even if you used CycleCharge as an advertising medium.

 

[morphix]

The only peeps who would have an issue are the jealous bigots of the world... to be honest there would be no real conflict even if you used CycleCharge as an advertising medium.

Thanks Dave, I appreciate you saying that I just didn't want anyone to think I've been devious and planned to use CycleCharge all along as a business marketplace or something! I had no real plans to go into the e-bike business until last month when I started giving it some serious thought..

 

[flecc]

And this Google map derived site is very easy for anyone to use online, just zoom in on the point of the map for the charge point, click on it and the longitude and latitude are shown in boxes at the right:

Latitude and Longitude finder

 

[flecc]

If anyone does see a potential conflict of interest with me being in the e-bike business I'm happy to stand down as project manager and let Lyn or someone else take over the role, while still offering my technical support to the project.

I see no conflict at all. For example, Pete Mustill privately set up and ran the annual Presteigne e-bike rally successfully for a couple of years. He then became a director of Onbike, a multi e-bike agency, within which he and his fellow directors continued to run the Presteigne event without anyone protesting.

 

[banbury frank]

Hi Perhaps you could contact Russell and have him give a new heading for .org non profit organisations At NO cost


The only links on there site to bike sales already pay to advertise on the forum

These organisations only help the Electric bike businesses grow

I think the Charge Scheme is a fantastic Idea with many free hours imputed by the Volunteers


Frank

 

[morphix]

Hi Perhaps you could contact Russell and have him give a new heading for .org non profit organisations At NO cost


The only links on there site to bike sales already pay to advertise on the forum

These organisations only help the Electric bike businesses grow

I think the Charge Scheme is a fantastic Idea with many free hours imputed by the Volunteers


Frank

Thanks that's a good idea..I did suggest to Russell a while back that he might consider creating a dedicated forum for CycleCharge since it has been entirely funded and is run by volunteers from here, so is really a spin-off from Pedelecs and should stay here. I think he wanted to wait a while to see if the project would continue and take off perhaps! I guess we can continue with this thread until such time as it gets too big and Russell might then consider moving us to a separate forum.

 

[morphix]

Thanks to everyone for a great first year for CycleCharge

Lynda is away for Christmas in Spain so probably won't be online much (so is my brother, alright for some!)..anyway I'd like to take the opportunity to raise a glass and say thank you from both of us to everyone who has given generously this year with their time and money. You've helped turn our CycleCharge idea into a reality. Lynda and I couldn't have done it alone without your generous support, so thanks very much everyone from both of us.

 

[mountainsport]

The only peeps who would have an issue are the jealous bigots of the world... to be honest there would be no real conflict even if you used CycleCharge as an advertising medium.

Solid point, i like how your mind works or how your brain ticks.

Mountainsport.

 

[morphix]

I've added the Irish Republic to the list of regions so our first Irish charge point can register if they want to ;-)

 

[morphix]

Not a good start for our Wikipedia page... the Wikipedia admins have blocked the user account Cyclecharge because they said it's against Wikipedia rules to create a username which represents a group due to potential issues with promotion and/or conflict of interests.

So now I've had to appeal the block and request that they unblock the page content I created and assign it to a new personal user account I created which is their recommended course of action.

Hopefully they will and the work won't be lost, or there will be some way of accessing it from them to start over. Oh well, that's what becomes of rushing in and not reading the rules!

 

[morphix]

SIGH. I've encountered the anal admins at Wikipedia again. No wonder people are reluctant to donate or contribute articles to that project with idiots like they have running it.

"You have totally misunderstood the purpose of Wikipedia. It is an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not a facebook or yellow pages."

Basically they're saying CycleCharge can't have a page at all, and that's why they blocked the user account. What idiots. I've tried to explain that the project has significant information interest to the general public (and probably will have important historic interest over time) but they're not taking any notice.

CycleStreets has a page which they allow, yet Cyclecharge can't. Both are similarly run non-profit, public services. Go figure!

Edit: I've just been in the Wikipedia chatroom and discussed it with them, they're as anal on there as they are on the Web article "Talk" thing. Simply not worth bothering with and complete waste of my time.

Unfortunately we won't be having a page for our project, unless someone who is not affiliated with CycleCharge decides to write one and is able to verify every piece of information with credible sources! Seems they have one set of rules for us because we're a fairly new project and another for everyone else. Makes completely no sense at all to me, but there it is.

If anyone wants to write a page, feel free. But be prepared for it to be blocked/declined.

 

[flecc]

That's very frustrating Morphix, presumable if Cyclecharge became very popular and widely known over a number of years it would suddenly become acceptable in Wikipedia.

For example, here is the link to their article on the AA, which is a private profit making limited company!

Automobile Association
.

 

[morphix]

That's very frustrating Morphix, presumable if Cyclecharge became very popular and widely known over a number of years it would suddenly become acceptable in Wikipedia.

For example, here is the link to their article on the AA, which is a private profit making limited company!

Automobile Association
.

That's about the size of it flecc. If there's some way of retrieving the article from their site, we'll just host it on our own site with the Wikipedia tags and content..maybe Google will index it as a wikipedia page ;-)

Edit: Bah, it doesn't look like I can even retrieve it. They've deleted it. Google is no longer caching it either. I wish I had saved a copy but I didn't expect to be dealing with such idiots. I'm not sure I can be bothered to write it all out again. At least not for a while anyway. I might try submitting another simple page just for the hell of it, purely to see how Google indexes and ranks pages that use their mark-up and page layout.