Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Map of Cohousing Communities

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

Catya wrote (about why almost all states have with green pins) :

> My assumption is that this is a holdover from the ic.org code, and
> it's showing a flag for any state that has any communities.

That is the pins indicate states that have any kind on intentional
community listed with IC.org.  Thank you for that explanation.
http://directory.ic.org/iclist/geo.php does not have any communies
listed for ND and WY which tends to support your explanation.

In the cohousing directory 26 of the lower 48 states are listed in
the database as having cohousing communities.  It's a good idea to
have the green pins on a map of the whole lower 48 US states on the
screen to give an overview of the distribution.

If one could view the red pins at that scale (many of which would over
lap) would be almost as good.  That may not allow as convenient
zooming in. It may be that Google does not reasonably support that
many pins on the display at one time; it many take too long to
display.

The red pins at that scale would give a sense of how many communities
various region has. Ideally the green pins would have the number of
communities in that state in a custom green pin.

I checked the red pins for Colorado.  All 16 Colorado entries in the
database were on pins but not all commnunities have their own pin.
Curiously 3 are on one pin. The pin under highway route 7 NW of
Boulder has "Washington Village, Silver Sage Village and Lyons Valley
Village" (when you "hover" over the pin). Lyons is ways north of
Boulder (for some reason the map does not have the usual scale
displayed.)

Note: How I got to view this.
After clicking the green Colorado pin, I clicked on the "+"
to zoom in 5 times after dragging Boulder to the center of the map
between each click.  This gives a scale that one can see each red pin
individually around Boulder.

I think the automated map is the way to go, hopefully improving or
eliminating the green pins. This would require a modification to the
code that generates the map.  Do we need a volunteer for that?.  Till
that can be done the description of the green pins should be re-worded
to explain the intent / descrepancy.

Wiki like collaborative effort is best used to update the database.
Does the current system for authorizing an editor for a community
allow for there being a regional editor for those commnunities that
do not have an individual editor?

The Cohousing Directory, on the Cohousing Website, is a sub-set of the
Intentional Community Directory maintained through the ICDC as a
self-serve online database.  In the
"Instructions for Adding or Editing your Community Listing"
at http://directory.ic.org/neweditors.php#find
the assumption seems to be made that the editor is a resident
of the community in question but I note that there are exceptions and
there can be more than one editor for a given community.
Maybe a system of regional editors could be developed and encouraged
to update "orphaned" community listings.

Another question that occurs to me is... is there an archive of
community listing that have been removed from the database for
historical / research purposes?

Fred

--
Fred H. Olson  Minneapolis,MN 55411  USA        (near north Mpls)
     Email:        fholson at cohousing.org      612-588-9532
My Link Pg: http://fholson.cohousing.org         My org:
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