Local Wikipedia: Wikipedia, but only for things a half hour walk from you

248 points - yesterday at 11:01 PM

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esperent today at 6:54 AM
This is a great idea but I'd definitely make the distance configurable. Where I am right now would need several hours walking to reach anywhere Wikipedia worthy but if I expanded to say a 15km circle there's probably a couple of places of interest.

Meanwhile if someone lives in a city they'll get loads of results.

EDIT: actually this is just a wrapper around wikipedia's nearby feature I think. I tried a couple of places and they give identical results.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Nearby#/coord/15.90721...

tomthe today at 7:51 AM
Time to promote my project: https://tomthe.github.io/wiki-importance-map

It shows all Wikipedia articles on a zoomable map. The size of the labels depends on its pagerank score and the pageview statistics.

darkest_ruby today at 7:29 AM
Distances measured in yards for European destinations is an insult
phgn today at 8:04 AM
Omg I love this so much mate! Incredible how much more relevant nearby articles feel than the default to which you have no personal connection. I also think local news are much better/useful for the same reason.

I'm working on something similar! Open World, an app that turns collecting nearby Wikipedia places into a game! [1]

It started with you having to go to the place IRL to unlock the article/story, mostly so you find cool spots out on a walk. But slowly I discovered that most people go on walks somewhat rarely, so now it also includes a virtual Fast-Travel system using Apple Maps LookAround :)

Oh, also a 3D map of the different neighbourhoods of a city to unlock one a time, plus narrative Quests to complete with the secrets you found, ...

Local History is fun!!

[1] https://openworldapp.xyz

johnny_lol today at 7:56 AM
I used this during my walk around around Tirana, Albania this morning where I'm traveling right now. I learned some interesting history about the neighborhood I'm staying in. Also discovered some museums and buildings nearby that I'd like to check out now.

When I visit a new city I usually spend time poking around Google Maps to discover points of interest nearby, but this will be another useful resource. Thanks!

noduerme today at 6:32 AM
This is super cool! Just punched in my zip code, and hit "random article" three times, and came up with three weird stories I didn't know about the history of places within a few blocks of me in Portland, Oregon. What an awesome idea for travelers!
slymax today at 6:49 AM
Wikipedia has a nearby feature that works in other languages as well

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Nearby

pastel8739 today at 6:37 AM
Awesome, I found that possibly the first bookstore cafe was in Palo Alto on Cal Ave! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printers_Inc._Bookstore

It's cool, but a bit sad, to discover establishments that used to exist nearby but don't any longer. It's not easy to do that otherwise.

flohofwoe today at 8:08 AM
Neat! A whole 25 articles for my neck of the wood :D

(although I guess the German Wikipedia would have a bit more content than the English Wikipedia used here)

TonyStr today at 6:40 AM
Super cool idea! Would love support for other languages, as English Wikipedia is quite limited where I live.
vintagedave today at 7:12 AM
Like others, I agree this is very cool.

I live somewhere pretty remote, and every article it suggests is an entry for a nearby village, which is usually a sentence long. There are other interesting things nearby: could it have some kind of variance function, so it looks specifically for a variety of content?

Here I am, seeing something cool and immediately asking for changes. Spirit of the internet ;) Genuinely, it is a wonderful idea, and I admire the concept and that you did it.

kubb today at 6:33 AM
Is it possible to change the language of Wikipedia? For many places, the local language Wikipedia has more articles.
mvdwoord today at 6:56 AM
Vey nicely done! One issue though, not many local articles in english here. I see no obvious way to change language?
collabs today at 7:49 AM
The nearest place to me was

> 0.8 miles

Ok great I thought that I can walk...

however, it is actually 1.9 miles when walking according to Google Maps and the path lacks sidewalks.

jamiescript today at 7:51 AM
Why is this not called Walkipedia?
zkmon today at 7:44 AM
I consider this to be far more progress for humanity than landing on moon or sending a spaceship to outside of solar system. That's because this move is in the right direction, while others are not. As a human, you need to first master your habitat around you, before getting excited or concerned about things that happen in another country thousands of miles away.
dllu today at 6:27 AM
Cool idea! I had lots of fun looking at stuff nearby.

Right now it seems that it simply removes links for stuff without a geotag that's nearby. But many articles are in fact nearby and are simply missing geotags, or perhaps encompass a slightly larger area where only a part of it is close by. Also, all the pictures don't have working links so I can't click on a picture to make it bigger.

slyall today at 6:52 AM
I found out that a closed church I walk past regularly was called "St Chad's"
Elucalidavah today at 6:53 AM
Related: OsmAnd has support for wikipedia-sourced points for the local offline maps. Not sure about the details though. Only related thing I found for an explanation is "Geospatial Wikidata Dataset", which is suspiciously fresh.
dzogchen today at 7:27 AM
Very cool idea. Would be even better if it had an option to use a local language.
snickerer today at 7:21 AM
Content that is curated by interested humans, without commercial interests, is so good.
bcvvvy today at 7:27 AM
This is the World Wide Web I want to see. Amazing job. Thank you!
izecube today at 8:04 AM
none Americans complaining about using yards is hilarious tbh
Trigodil today at 6:49 AM
This is so cool, although I would like a feature to filter by subtopic or what the structures are used for (e.g. churches, bridges, museums).
no1guangming today at 7:58 AM
Checked Hong Kong, not much on the page
refsab today at 6:27 AM
Very cool. Obvious in hindsight with every location having coordinates.

Found an abbey around my place in Western Bavaria I didn't know existed

commandersaki today at 8:02 AM
Really cool but disappointed that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canberra_Deep_Space_Communicat... wasn't in my vicinity when it's about a 15 min drive away.

Edit: Looks like it doesn't show up on wikipedia nearby either.

thatwasunusual today at 6:27 AM
I love it. It would also be nice to be able to a) enter desired distance, and b) choose the metric system.
INTPenis today at 7:16 AM
This is a really fun idea, but I went from excited to disgusted in the span of one click.

The first thing that pops up for my city of MalmΓΆ is the school stabbing that happened in 2022. They're so rare here, and yet Wikipedia felt I just had to see it.

I'm not going to make stupid feature requests, but it would be cool with a filter for types of Wikipedia articles to show.

ChrisGreenHeur today at 7:00 AM
I guess it works but I have no idea what a yard or a mile is.
MajorTakeaway today at 6:19 AM
This took too long to make.
dyauspitr today at 6:59 AM
Very nice! It really should have a field to enter the radius of the search.
timonoko today at 6:57 AM
https://wiki-map.com/ considered much better.

Has local language too.

vegan_muffin today at 6:39 AM
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ravivarmat today at 7:02 AM
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huhu6tf today at 6:29 AM
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geroge_kyaw today at 7:47 AM
Why not Grokipedia?

https://grokipedia.com