How we handle locations

Locations are an important part of the entire Wilderness Adventure Society system. We tag Adventure Blogs (stories), photos, forums, and other stuff with locations to allow members to find the information and people they want, when they want.

We generally store locations as latitude, longitude pairs. We don't really worry about datums, geoids, or coordinate systems; geoid and datum errors are negligable for our purposes.

How to enter locations

We have 4 ways to enter locations, depending on the context:

Latitude, Longitude Pairs

For Adventure Blog entry locations, photo locations, profile locations, and search options, we use our primary location entry system that has three options:

1. Type latitude and longitude into the entry boxes
2. Move a pin on the map to the desired location
3. Type a search phrase into the Google Search box, and the map and pin will move to the first search result.

All three options are ways to set the latitude and longitude boxes. In these cases, we store the latitude, longitude values only; place names are used to find a lat/lon position.

Named Places

The fourth option is used in a few particular cases to allow us to store a sepcific place name, not a latitude, longitude pair. In these instances (Future Adventure locations, Forum locations, Event locations), we have a search box tied to a place name database. To use, follow these directions:

1. Click the Change link to edit the text box.
2. Enter a place name and state or country. The state and country are optional, but help narrow the search for a place in the database.
3. Select one of the returned options; the drop-down list will have the name, state, country, and place type (city, mountain, etc.). If the page has a map, one red pin will be added for each option. Click on the pin to set the drop-down list.
4. Click Set.

The search returns all places that start with your text, so entering "Nepal" with return all places that start with "Nepal". You cannot search for just a country or state; pick a city, mountain, lake, bay, airport, etc. in the country.

If you make a mistake in this process, pick some location and click Set, and then Change to edit the text box and start again.