Outdoor Ontario
Off Topic => Board-related Issues => Topic started by: stvgarrett on April 03, 2011, 10:49:48 PM
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If you are reading this posting you probably noticed my earlier posting describing how to create a link such as this:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=43.621698,-79.473835&num=1&t=h&sll=43.627114,-79.478298&sspn=0.006295,0.006295&ie=UTF8&ll=43.623433,-79.475355&spn=0.012815,0.027144&z=16
I think the green arrow might be the location of a Harlequin Duck someone posted today on Ontbirds. The problem is, I'm not sure. All he said (and I DO NOT MEAN THIS TO SOUND CRITICAL :-) ) was:
There is a beautiful male Harlequin feeding in the pebbled bay between Humber Bays East and West in Toronto.
Now which of these descriptions is easier, the map with the green arrow, or the verbal description?
What if you don't know Humber Bay East or West? My bet is the first thing you will do is open your favourite map and search. At the very least, posters can save readers that amount of trouble.
Ok, I get it: birds move around, and half the fun in birding is tracking down birds. But tomorrow I have limited time before work to go look for this bird, and it's going to be pouring rain. It would sure be nice to take the guess work out of knowing exactly where it was seen. Am I the only person that feels this way??
Here's a short but highly scientific poll I've designed :-) Pick the option that comes closest to describing how you feel and let the world know where you stand in the Great Google Birding Maps debate (that I just started 1 minute ago).
p.s. I also get that this isn't ONTBIRDS, but if I get support from this forum, I plan to take it to that list as well.
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and someone is likely to point out that the person posting to ONTBIRDS was posting from his iphone, so it's not likely that he would have been able to easily create a link to a map :-) Still, the question stands: is there value to the users of this forum in having links to maps?