With the number of questions I have been getting reagarding Wikimapia and this blog I have decided that a Frequently Asked Questions page is appropriate and necessary. So here we go!
#1: How are you affiliated with Wikimapia?
#2: How do I use Wikimapia?
#3: How do I mark a place location in Wikimapia? How to I put a box are a place? How do I “add a new place”? Etc.
#4: Why can’t I see my town/house/village/etc.? Why is the resolution so low? Will you increase the resolution for my location? When will there be new map/satellite/photographs of my location?
#5: How do I use Wikimapia with Google Earth?
#6: Can I use my GPS with Wikimapia?
#7: How can I add a picture to my place information page?
#8: How do I get my “upcoming place” approved?
#9: How do I contact Wikimapia?
#10: How do I contact you?
#11: How do you pay for this blog?
#12: Which web browser should I use with Wikimapia?
#13: How do I resize places?
#14: How do I / Can I add Wikimapia or Google Maps to my website/blog?
FAQ #1: How are you affiliated with Wikimapia?
I am not in any way affiliated with Wikimapia. I run this blog because I enjoy what Alexandre Koriakine and Evgeniy Saveliev have created. I have had contact with them via email discussing with them about their Wikimapia project but I have no official status with them at all.
FAQ #2: How do I use Wikimapia?
Using Wikimapia is fairly simple. Please see my blog category: “How To” where you can see step by step guides to basic Wikimapia usage.
FAQ #3: How do I mark a place location in Wikimapia? How to I put a box are a place? How do I “add a new place”? Etc.
Please see my post: How To #1: Adding a New Place.
FAQ #4: Why can’t I see my town/house/village/etc.? Why is the resolution so low? Will you increase the resolution for my location? When will there be new map/satellite/photographs of my location?
Wikimapia obtains their map imagery from Google Maps. This means that even the creators of Wikimapia cannot control when map images are updated. Google Maps purchases the map images (often from satellites or airplanes) from other companies (often Digital Globe or NASA). This means that, to an extent, Google Maps does not even control when images are updated. Basically you just have to be patient and wait because it is out of Wikimapia’s hands.
FAQ #5: How do I use Wikimapia with Google Earth?
Wikimapia now has a layer in Google Earth. For info on how to use it, see my post: Wikimapia Invades Google Earth.
FAQ #6: Can I use my GPS with Wikimapia?
Yes you can! See my post: Wikimapia Adds GPS Capabilities.
FAQ #7: How can I add a picture to my place information page?
Add a picture by following the steps in my post: How To #3: Pictures and Comments.
FAQ #8: How do I get my “upcoming place” approved?
Upcoming places are reviewed by other Wikimapia users and are approved following this criteria:
-must be at least 24 hours old;
-must have more than 2 positive votes (yes) and 0 negative (no);
-with 1 negative vote, it needs at least 8 positive;
-places with only 2 positive votes and 0 negative will be automatically approved after one week.
For more information on upcoming places, see my post: How To #2: Upcoming Places.
FAQ #9: How do I contact Wikimapia?
See the Official Wikimapia blog for contact information.
FAQ #10: How do I contact you?
You can either leave me a comment here or at the appropriate post or you can email me. You can also vist me at my main blog: Matt Jones’ Random Acts of Verbiage.
FAQ #11: How do you pay for this blog?
I panhandle… ok, not really, but I am a starving student who could always use some help. Please feel free to click the “Donate” link in the side bar that will take you to a secure PayPal donation site that will go directly to me. Clicking the google ads also helps out! Thanks!
FAQ #12: Which web browser should I use with Wikimapia?
From what I can tell, most browser should work. But for best results use Firefox!
FAQ #13: How do I resize places?
For both “upcoming” and official places (if you are registered) you can resize/move a place by opening the place information and in the menu select “move or resize”. This will let you make corrections. Click “save” when done. You can only do this if you have been approved as a registered user.
FAQ #14: How do I / Can I add Wikimapia or Google Maps to my website/blog?
Yes you can! If you want to know how, see my post: How To #4: Adding Wikimapia and Google Maps to your Website.
As more questions come in or as I think of more things that need to be addressed I will add more FAQs. Let me know if you have more questions!
vishnu patel wrote:
hi, Matt’s This is very good and very use full
Posted 12 Nov 2006 at 3:38 pm ¶
Antonio Dominguez wrote:
I’ve found my grandparent’s village in Spain, located it, but Wikimapia assigns it to another town, probably because it’s nearer. What should i do to change this?
Location: Coordinates: 42°17′28″N 8°18′4″W
It belongs to Spain > Pontevedra > Covelo, not Ourense > Melón
Posted 11 Dec 2006 at 3:03 pm ¶
Matt Jones wrote:
Not sure if that is possible. Could try contacting the guys at Wikimapia.
Posted 22 Dec 2006 at 3:16 pm ¶
sankar wrote:
Last month when I zoomed my place, it was very clear to see my places. But yesterday, when zoomed, the following message has appeard: “We are sorry, but we don’t have imagery at this zoom level for this region” Whether the zoom level is changing frequently???
Posted 24 Dec 2006 at 11:12 pm ¶
Nat Colley wrote:
Do you have example url’s of sites that use wikimapia on their pages?
Posted 30 Dec 2006 at 5:06 pm ¶
SAIBAL GHOSH wrote:
I have had my house marked, But at present it is neither showing marked box nor it accepts new marking (add new place).Whenever I am trying it says ‘ihe place is already marked’.How can I rectify the problem? and make the box visible.
Posted 08 Jan 2007 at 1:46 am ¶
Matt Jones wrote:
sankar I do not know why that would be.
Nat, I have it on front page of this blog and at this post.
I don’t know Saibal.
Posted 08 Jan 2007 at 11:16 pm ¶
Vilas Gohad wrote:
If the description of places/upcoming places is available in a tabular text form for a particular area, say Pune, India where I stay, it will be more convenient to vote, edit or delete. Many corrections/deletion can be marked immediately. Also, my name ‘gohad’ appears in the comments. Can this be changed so that people around can not guess about the person making the comment?
Posted 03 Feb 2007 at 12:49 am ¶
Rishi wrote:
Hi matt,
I have added a place and it is approved. It was approved about a week back. But it is still not showing up in the search listings. Does it take some time for that, and if so how much.
Thanks,
Rishi
Posted 08 Mar 2007 at 3:37 pm ¶
CB wrote:
Hi !
Can I annotate a place with a comment about an event? Like using the &comment which would write “comment” at the location in the centre, for example “….’s party on “.
It is not something which should go in the description of a place. I can then mail the link to all invited. Right now I have to tell them, go the centre of this map.
Posted 08 Mar 2007 at 9:27 pm ¶
Leo wrote:
I think this will be better, an option can allow me to view only the place I made in map instead of all.
Posted 19 Mar 2007 at 1:46 am ¶
Vinay Thaha wrote:
Hi. Is it okay for me to take a printout of the places around my house for my personal use? Will I be violating any copyright laws? Thanks.
Posted 19 Mar 2007 at 5:15 am ¶
Matt Jones wrote:
Sorry, I don’t know the answer to that. You might email the guys at Wikimapia and see if they answer.
Short answer: No. Longer answer: that really isn’t an appropriate use of Wikimapia as it is supposed to be a place for information that doesn’t really change and not really to be used for promotion.
I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like that would be a problem because it is your own personal use. But I really don’t know.
Posted 24 Mar 2007 at 4:58 pm ¶
CB wrote:
“Short answer: No. Longer answer: that really isn’t an appropriate use of Wikimapia as it is supposed to be a place for information that doesn’t really change and not really to be used for promotion.”
Exactly … which is why I don’t think adding it to wikimapia is appropriate. However if you could add a comment to the URL of a location which would show up as a bubble->arrow text to the center of the map, then you could specify events (and email to people) without dirtying the Wikimapia content.
Posted 04 Apr 2007 at 3:38 pm ¶
Jayasree wrote:
Will google list my place in its search Engine?
Posted 15 May 2007 at 11:08 pm ¶
RS malik wrote:
How to upgrade my user level
Posted 31 May 2007 at 8:53 pm ¶
arielCo wrote:
Hello,
There’s a city I want to rename (the 2nd result for Leninogorsk (Лениногорск) is actually Baikonur/Leninsk), but after clicking on the result, I can’t find it on the map in order to open/edit it. Any ideas? Maybe something’s wrong with the outline.
Posted 01 Jul 2007 at 7:25 pm ¶
delton wrote:
A few things for the above posters:
CITIES: cities are found using Google’s database of city names. This means that there is no need to place cumbersome outlines around virtually all cities, and most cities will not have outlines. The city information is fairly exact, especially in the US, because it comes from the USGS. I would trust it above your intuition if you are doubting it.
GOOGLE LISTINGS: Wikimapia’s database is not affiliated with Google, so I don’t think they will show up in any Google searches. (as far as I know Google cannot crawl Wikimapia for information).
Posted 10 Aug 2007 at 3:49 pm ¶
paras wrote:
how to make visible certain city in wikimapia?
Posted 11 Sep 2007 at 7:56 am ¶
punisher3161 wrote:
Is there going to be information how to add road soon
Posted 01 Dec 2007 at 5:26 pm ¶
smff wrote:
Our area or place is showing under wrong city, Please tell how we can correct city.
Posted 05 Dec 2007 at 11:40 pm ¶
Mark wrote:
Please i want to know how can i protect a place which i tagged on wikimapia if this is possible, thank you…
Posted 21 Dec 2007 at 2:22 am ¶
Salim Alsunny wrote:
Dear, Alexandre Koriakine and Evgeniy Saveliev
Your wikimapia website attracted my attention especially it gives the chance to illustrate places that were vague and not known for other people. I am a Saudi citizen from the west province of the Arabian Peninsula where there are a lot of places not named or shown on google Earth and many other maps. Your website is unique when i looked over your map where many places were unexeptable to find. Unfotunately some of the places i found not exactly well prepared and some times not exactly describe the place. Generally speaking you need someone able to deal with such things along with his identity as one of the people belong to that region or area who can speak& write English well. For this i would like to apply as a special member with some power to observe and correct the wrong places or comments written by other and send report if needed. Really i enjoyed the website hoping to share in giving good information about the area and putting the right bridge between the different culture.
Thank you so much for paying attention to my email:
salim30@gmail.com
Posted 17 Feb 2008 at 6:49 am ¶
Vikichauhan wrote:
Hi Matt,
I am Vikichauhan, an old Wikimapia user having deletion privilege but recently when I added a new place without LOGIN, it became permanent place automatically.
It seems voting feature was withdrawn recently and now even new users can directly create permanent place marks.
Pl use your communication channel with Wikimapia founders and get this voting feature reintroduced else one people will clutter the cities/towns with over sized permanent places.
Thanks.
Posted 10 Jun 2008 at 7:09 am ¶
D. Jayachandra Menon wrote:
hi,
going over the wikimapia, i find no way to identify the oceans and seas. for eg:- even if you search for ‘dead sea’ what you get is some hotels etc in far off places. can u get the oceans and seas marked?
Posted 14 Jun 2008 at 2:44 am ¶
Anonymous wrote:
how i delete my account and place from map. i dont want to show now please help me out. itired very much but not able to delete my account and place
Posted 24 Jun 2008 at 10:26 am ¶
Mukesh Agarwal wrote:
How the watch list feature works.
I really not able to find out..
Posted 07 Jul 2008 at 6:06 am ¶
Anonymous wrote:
Hi,
Can you please let me know how to delete the comment? There is an abusive comment in wikimapia and there is no way I can delete that. It is hampering my reputation. Please HELP.
Regards,
Prakash
Posted 28 Sep 2008 at 3:43 am ¶
jabrik09 wrote:
hi matt.
i have a favor to ask.
someone made a very bad comment on my friend address in the map.
and i didnt find any way to delete it can you be kind to erase that.
please let me know by my email and i give you the address. thanx a lot befor mate.
regards
eddie
Posted 06 Oct 2008 at 10:11 pm ¶
surya wrote:
how do i delete photos from a place they are offensive.
Posted 31 Oct 2008 at 7:03 am ¶
saumyadev wrote:
how do i vote for other users? please say me the procedure in details
Posted 08 Dec 2008 at 10:20 am ¶
WW1969 wrote:
I marked a certain area as “UFO Base?” on march 13, 2009. I asked people to provide a link showing a more detailed picture of that particular area. My marking got deleted within a minute. It was however a honest research inquiry. Why did it get deleted, and by whom?
Posted 15 Mar 2009 at 3:36 am ¶
durga wrote:
plese tell me how to erase comments on my map. some one made very bad comments on my address in the map. ididnt find any way to delete that comments. please erase or please tell how to erase.
Posted 03 May 2009 at 8:53 pm ¶
durga wrote:
please tell how to erase comments on my address in wikimapia. someone wrote very bad comments on my address. please tell how to erase that or please erase that comments
Posted 03 May 2009 at 8:58 pm ¶
BS wrote:
How can I go about having a link to my geographical location on wikimapia deleted as it contains location details which I do not want to be available on the internet. Pls assist.
Thanks & regards,
BS
Posted 14 Jun 2009 at 11:06 am ¶
Scabies wrote:
Nice blog and good info,thanks
Posted 01 Oct 2012 at 11:32 am ¶
acung wrote:
nice website. i like style this
Posted 06 Jan 2013 at 6:04 am ¶
iphone 3g docking wrote:
Heya this is kinda of off topic but I was wanting to know if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with HTML.
I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding experience so I wanted to get guidance from someone with experience. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Posted 13 Apr 2013 at 6:30 pm ¶
Icahbanjarmasin wrote:
Thank you very much Matt..really I like your site.
Posted 16 May 2013 at 4:31 am ¶