Talk:What3words/Archive 1

Archive 1

Untitled

It is unfair to say that What3words does not use latitude and longitude coordinates. It does, but it does not display them. The sentence has been edited accordingly.

I replaced the address and the example of the Wikimedia Foundation (a private foundation) with that of the Statue of Liberty (planet.inches.most) as offered by the w3w website.

The phrase "random letter and numbers" is misleading as longithde/latitude does not entail any randomness, and has been rewritten accordingly.

The entry is full of references to favorable reviews disguised as facts of the matter. I moved them to a new section called "Claimed advantages". I also created a section "Criticism".

My advice is that readers should be offered information about how W3W works first, and without any positive (or negative) comment, not even in the references. Thus "Viable alternative" has been edited (and has NOT been replaced with "unviable alternative"!) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Statisticastatistico (talk • contribs) 17:29, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Neutrality disputed

I believe the article is not neutral. I strongly oppose what3words because of its proprietary nature, the fact that you cannot infer proximity, ambiguous addressing and a lot of other concerns. I know I would not be neutral, so I am not going to edit the article. But so far, the article does not mention the disadvantages, and I believe it should. What3fucks, a reaction to what3words, is (although not entirely serious) a much better alternative already. On the OpenStreetMap talk mailing list, there has been a long thread discussing what3words.   –Frankly, my dear... _{I do give a damn!} 13:19, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes. In the business model section I've just expanded it to describe the "closed standard" nature of what they're doing. I thought there would be an article about closed standards to link to actually. Best I could find was: Network effect#Multiple equilibria and expectations. Anyway I think this needs more work. This balance is quite far down the page. The top sections are still a bit brochure-like -- Harry Wood (talk) 15:04, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Someone reverted your additions in revision 742477148, stating "the business model stuff violates WP:NPOV and WP:OR. don't use Wikipedia for advertising". NPOV: As it stands the article isn't neutral either, it just rambles about their business history and how great the technology is. Advertising: Where was the advertising in that? It's not like the article even mentioned any other product! OR: Fair enough. We'd have to find relevant sources criticizing what3words in order to be allowed to criticize it here.   –Frankly, my dear... _{I do give a damn!} 15:48, 20 January 2017 (UTC) (edited to include response to "advertising")

I added the section Disadvantages and clones (with sources) and I removed the POV banner.   –Frankly, my dear... _{I do give a damn!} 21:42, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Prior Art

Maybe something for the criticism section: https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/13629/i-had-invented-and-published-before-this-patent-application-how-do-i-get-it-in I am not familiar enough with Wikipedia to know if the sources cited there are acceptable or if this claim is notable at all. 2A02:1205:5020:8AA0:F177:A1EA:F081:20AC (talk) 08:04, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Emergency Locator?

I've seen several articles claiming that this "app" has saved lives. There's an article here that claims it not only saved "several" lives, but that police in England are urging everyone to download it: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-49319760 But according to the [Advanced Mobile Location] article, AML doesn't require that the caller has to verbally report their location (as What3words does), and is deployed in England. Why the big push for What3words??165.225.38.125 (talk) 13:14, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

I could give you multiple times when the locaiton given by a casualty is a few km away from where they actually are (causing services to look in the wrong place) aslo examples of time wasted while the call handler insists that the caller downloads the W3W app over a poor mobile signal. (Caver Tim) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Caver tim (talk • contribs) 10:32, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@Caver tim: According to this BBC News report, "Emergency services' computer systems - known as computer-aided dispatch (CAD) - usually lack the ability to accurately find 999 callers who are unsure of their location". Which, I suspect, means that when you dial 999 and your phone sends an AML text giving your location, there is nothing at the other end yet to receive it. So unless you can give them a house number and post-code, what other option do they have? If you have to communicate location verbally, transmission of recognisable words is far less error-prone than of numbers [W3W's silly error of regarding singular and plural as unique words aside]. And if you move a few metres, you will get another set of words to use as a cross-reference. As a 999 emergency location service, W3W is not much cop but right now it is the best we have. Hopefully its days in that role are numbered. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:33, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

You might suspect wrong. The phone might not know where it is either. Ormek (talk) 20:32, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Does the order of words matter?

For example, if my address were that.was.all, would it be the same as was.that.all? (In general, are these equivalent: ABC, ACB, BAC, BCA, CAB, CBA.) Moreover, may an address include more than one instance of a word? E.g. that.was.that. I tried to find this in the article, but I couldn't find it. I think the answer to these questions would improve the article. Eddi (Talk) 18:58, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

You can simply try this yourself at their website. The order of the words does matter, as you can find out when you change the order of the words of an address, you will get a different location (it is not sure if you always get a location). Also, double words are possible, as you can find out by removing one of the words from an address and replace it with one of the other two words of the address, you get (sometimes/always) a valid other address. Gollem (talk) 19:49, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

List of uses by emergency services

The two events related in What3words#Emergency services use are rather anecdotal, are they the only two successful uses of what3words by emergency services? If not, I don't think they should be individually detailed. Unless someone is willing to seek out every single use of what3words by emergency services that has been reported on and put them into a table. Pinging DavidBernadine as you recently added the second one. codl (talk) 12:43, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

As you already noticed, I solved the problem. Gollem (talk) 15:28, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

WhatFreeWords

As of 21 July 2020, the section "WhatFreeWords" is supported only by citations of a single source, whatfreewords.org, which does not exist so the text as written cannot be verified. In addition, this citation fails WP:PRIMARY, since (if we could see the site), we only have their word for it. Secondary sources are needed: google news gave me nothing. Unless this problem is rectified, it is difficult to see how the section can avoid deletion, which would be a real pity. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:10, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

The information is not entirely based on a single primary source. There is a reference to a letter from what3words on whatfreewords in the section before. Gollem (talk) 11:10, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Not really. The DMCA take-down notice from W3W to Github refers only to a user called 'Cardinalhood' who has copied W3W's proprietary data onto Github and claims to have reverse engineered its algorithm. The letter says nothing about WFW. For WP purposes, the letter is only useful as citation for text that says that W3W has asserted its IPR in at least one case: it is irrelevant to any material about WFW. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:07, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

It might indeed not solve all citation problems. However, it does provide a second source for the relevance of whatfreewords. Moreover it provides some technical details on what points whatfreewords might have conflicted with w3w rights and thus how whatfreewords was reverse engineered. This is enough to remove the one source section template and add citation needed labels next to the existing citations where needed. Gollem (talk) 14:15, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

That is a huge leap of faith. Short of WP:OR, it provides no such thing. Nothing in the DMCA-TDN mentions WFW.

However, I have since found that, unlike archive.org, archive.is did capture it: see https://archive.fo/FW3No and more. So since it interests you, would you rebuild the citations? But I'm afraid the 'single source' tag has to stay unless you have better luck than I did in finding an third-party RS that even gives it a passing mention (beware of WP:CIRCULAR). --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:54, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Editorialising in the lead

Gollem made a bold edit to the lead, stating in their opinion that this system cannot be used for safety-critical applications. I reverted per this bold edit, per WP:BRD:

• This opinion is uncited.
• This statement does not summarise body content, per WP:LEAD

The WP: ONUS is on Gollem to justify why this material should remain. Repeated reinstatement contrary to WP:brd is edit warring. I suggest you self-revert until you can resolve these issues. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:41, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

I disagree on both points and most other things you write. I didn't state that system cannot be used for safety-critical applications. User 213.205.242.45 did this with a sourced edit [1]. You attenuated the wording, making it too vague [2]. My edit was meant to fix that the statement should reflect the implications stated by the source ("not suitable for safety critical applications") at two points. (1) The use for emergency services should be mentioned as clear example of the need for an "unambiguous location". (2) The ambiguity will instead of may limit the value of the system, since it occasionally will send people to a wrong location in situations when such delays are fatal. I deliberately did not undo your rewording to the version of user 213.205.242.45, but decided to make a smaller change so we could iterate to a wording you can agree on too. Unfortunately, you decided to revert instead of trying to find consensus at that point.

Thanks starting the discussion now and for for explaining your problem with the location in the lead section. I do agree with that this does not belong in the lead section and I moved the text to another section. Also, I changed "limits" to "can limit", in the hope this might solve your other objections. Feel free to suggest another solution or explain your objections more clearly.

Gollem (talk) 07:29, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

However we got there, today's version is a significant improvement, so thank you. BTW, the citation you mention was only to report the security researcher's finding that homophone locations are not as widely separated as claimed: it was WP:synth to declare that this would make the system unusable. (There is an obvious workaround but it would be blatant synth/OR to add it).

Taking into account WP: weasel v MOS:CLAIM, we should prefer 'says' to 'claims' - except in the cases such as the performance of an algorithm where the output is measurable.

We should not lose sight of the fact that relaying a string of numbers over a scratchy radio link is vastly more error-prone. Warts and all, this system is significantly more valuable to emergency services than grid references or lat/lon in such circumstances. Of course there is the added safety net that a 999/112/911 call over mobile automatically sends the geodata of the caller (but who may have left the incident site to get a signal). --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 08:22, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear that you find my last edit an improvement. If you want to change a 'claims' into a 'says', go ahead. I don't understand your reference to WP:synth, though. The cited source [3] literally states 'not suitable for safety critical applications' in the title. If it is WP:synth to conclude the found problem 'limits its value for safety-critical applications', it would be because it downplays the implications stated in the source instead of that it exaggerates them.

An advantage of 3 random words over 12+ digits of a coordinate pair is that it can be transferred over a faltering mobile phone faster, not that it is less error-prone. In both cases it is needed to repeat and confirm the words/numbers to check for mishearing. It is easier to remember 3 words and it hasn't the problem of dozens of notation variants of coordinates (lat-lon, lon-lat, decimal degrees, degrees-minutes-seconds, etc.). A disadvantage to me is the fixed accuracy of 3 metres, while with coordinates I can define a location with any accuracy, e.g. decimal degrees with 2 digits (1 km) to 8 digits (1 mm). But the main problem is that one needs a device to encode a location to three words and the other side needs a device to decode it to coordinates. If both sides have such devices, why not use it to send the coordinates as digital text in stead of reading out words? Gollem (talk) 10:22, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I suspect that W3W for emergency services will fade away because Advanced Mobile Location will replace it with direct data exchange as you suggest. I am surprised that it is not already in the See Also, I'll do it now. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:19, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I see you alphabetised the see also list of alternatives. The list was in chronological order and used to give the year of introduction of each system too. I liked that [4]. Should we reintroduce the years? Gollem (talk) 16:44, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I didn't spot that sequence; most see alsos are in alphabetic order. I don't really have a preference so go ahead. But see next before you do, maybe? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 18:14, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Proposed new section: alternative systems

Before I do a lot of work on it, can I check that there are no serious objections to a new section on alteratives? This would cover:

• Grid references: in places like Great Britain (OSGB) and Ireland (OSI, OSNI) where maps are usually printed showing the national grid, it is possible for someone with a map but no other technology than a scale ruler to identify a location correct to 100 metres
  • World Geodetic System, aka WGS84, a world wide system. This grid is printed on some European maps, possibly US too?
    • Or do I mean Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system (UTM) which seems to have come to the fore.
• Mapcode favoured by Google Maps: just {{excerpt}} the lead.
• Advanced Mobile Location again, excerpt the lead with maybe a bit more emphasis on emergency service.

Thoughts? Does it stray too far off-topic? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 18:14, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

The source would need to relate the other system to W3W, and that is how it would need to be presented here, otherwise it would be off-topic. Alexbrn (talk) 18:34, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I disagree with Alexbrn. There is no need to make this restriction. But I would like to limit the list of alternatives to more or less the current topics under "See also". I would definitely not include national grids (there are literally hundreds of these: more than one for most countries). If a specific international geographic coordinate system (lat., lon.) is mentioned, it should be the scientific ITRS supported by the UN and not WGS84 (which is used only for a GNSS operated by the USA). Gollem (talk) 19:07, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

This is the article about W3W - if RS compare it to something else, that's fine, but we can't add things just because we think they are similar. We already link to Geocode where readers can find more general information. SmartSE (talk) 19:14, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes we can. If we keep the text concise, we can list the obviously related systems of the topics under "See also" with a few explanatory words per topic. Gollem (talk) 19:27, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

To avoid WP:OR, which is prohibited by policy, there would need to be a source making that connection. If it's obvious, such a source should be easy to find. Encyclopedia articles reflect what good sources are saying about topics, not what editors think might be neat. Alexbrn (talk) 19:29, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

You can't stretch the restriction on WP:OR that far, otherwise list articles would not be allowed either. W3W is for geolocating, so we can make a section on a small selection of other methods for geolocating. (We do need a source that it is a geolocation method for each method). Gollem (talk) 19:46, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Alexbrn that it would be OR to include them without sources comparing them to W3W. SmartSE (talk) 20:02, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I have to say that "original research" was the last challenge I expected. "Other methods exist to achieve the same result" is surely WP:the sky is blue? I foresaw WP: fork (though many articles contain summaries of other articles) or even WP:synth (here is this and there is that: is it possible to compare and contrast them without synthesis?) But I'm sorry, I still can't see from anything written above that demonstrates original research. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 08:06, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Our disagreement might seem larger than it actually is, as we could have completely different ideas on what this section would look like. I suggest to keep it really simple, to stay far from WP:OR. For example something like only grouping of the topics of "See also":

See also

Geocode systems based on geographic coordinates in chronological order:

• Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system (c. 1942)
• Maidenhead Locator System (1980)
• Geohash (2008)
• MapCode (2008)
• Open Location Code (2014)

Emergency location sharing systems:

• International Cospas-Sarsat Programme (1979)
• Advanced Mobile Location (2014)

Gollem (talk) 13:43, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

That is pretty much what I had in mind, though I thought maybe we could attach at least its wp:short description to each, to give visitors at least some clue as to why they might want to actually see also. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:16, 5 May 2021 (UTC)