Brainstorm

This page holds ideas from an active brainstorm to consider what additions and enhancements could be made to the-moon wiki in the near, medium and far future. All contributions are most welcome.

Ground rules and process

You’ve may have been involved in a brainstorm before, but in case not here are the ground rules:
 

• The aim is to list all the ideas any of us has ever had about additions or enhancements to the moon.
• The wild ideas are just as important as the ordinary, so please don’t be afraid to voice them. They might be of more interest than you’d anticipate.
• No one should laugh or criticise any suggestions.

Once all our ideas are on the table, they should be constructively discussed. After that, one of us will put them into some kind of order of desirability/practicality/priority (I’d be happy to draft this – Chuck gets the final say). People sometimes vote at this point – we probably won’t need to.

Although there’s no particular rush to finalise the list we’ve set ourselves a deadline of 2007-11-07 23:59:59 PST.

Please add a heading for your contributions and/or sign them with four tildes.

I have numbered them to make referring to them easier: e.g. Tychocrater 7 is a great idea!. - tychocrater Nov 3, 2007

Thanks,

- ArbusDriver Nov 2, 2007

The ideas

Chuck Wood (tychocrater)

1. One click to get Clementine image of feature
2. Same for SMART-1
3. And Selene
4. Etc.
5. Good image of each feature - Jim is working on this.
6. Also an excellent Earth image as well as space image for each feature.
7. Maps for all features (USGS is doing farside - we link to them - and they will ultimately do nearside)
8. When Selene/Kaguya gets topomap that would be nice to have too.
9. Next/previous arrows to allow easy (alphabetic) navigation through the features
10. Display gravity, geology, topo, etc maps centred on each feature...
11. Random page button - Wikispaces is working on this
12. Gather scientific paper bibliolinks uniformly - botjob? The Moon Wiki does a great job collecting maps, images and data about specific features. My goal was to also make the wiki the place to go to find what professional papers have been published about the feature. NASA ADS is a great resource, but it really takes a lot of effort to search for the 2200 named features and select which of the ADS links are really pertinent. I prefer selected best info, rather than everything that is peripherally related. So there is lots of opportunities for people to search feature names in ADS and add the most relevant to our wiki.
13. Display something different every visit on homepage - recent change link or random page link - to indicate dynamic nature of site
14. Yes to Arb #2.
15. Map of entire Moon (like USGS Map A Planet) to click on to go directly to feature of interest.
16. Map for each named feature showing all lettered craters, peaks etc associated with the feature - there is no existing product that does this. The USGS maps, Rukl, Clementine Atlas often have lettered craters associated with one named one scattered across 2-4 map sheets.

Arb (arbusdriver)

1. Use Lat, Long and Diameter in the table at the top of each feature’s page to generate the maps Chuck mentions above (probably using JavaScript to extract the data and use it to call eg map-a planet).
2. For the lunar novices like me, a farside or nearside locator map similar to those in red boxes in Rukl but generated from Lat / Long / Diameter as above.
3. A robot editor (bot) to do the repetitive edits to many pages that are necessary from time to time. There are two kinds of bot: fully automated (ie you tell it what to do and it goes off and does it) and human assisted (it finds where changes are probably needed and the operator agrees or cancels each in turn). We could use both. There are lots of them in use on Wikipedia, all open source and so clonable. 14yo had a go at writing a WikiSpaces bot from scratch during a couple of days of his half term last week. He got as far as invoking the Text Editor on a test page but then got an error message that we’re still striving to overcome.
4. My wild idea! There is a site called WikiMapia* that takes a feed from Google Earth and lets users mark on top of this features (using squares or polygons) and then write text to describe them. Imagine this with a Google Moon feed and a link from marked features to the relevant entry on the-moon wiki…
5. Add a pronunciation indication for each feature (copied from http://www.lpod.org/cwm/DataStuff/pronounce/Introduction.htm if it exists there). A good job for a bot (question to self, can bots read PDF?).
6. Add a link to an example of the pronunciation in the form of a .wav file or similar. This link might be distinguished by a loud speaker icon. My ideal "pronouncer" would be Stephen Fry (because he has the right skills, experience and voice for the job). Ed Harris would b a good alternative. Unfortunately neither of them is on my contacts list so a stand in would have to be sought. Smile.
7. Link more terms both internally and externally eg the many hasselblad ids that Danny has been adding. A job for a bot me thinks.
8. Make consistent all book/map citations and link these to our description of the book/map. Another bot job.
9. Link more (but not all) uses of abbreviations to our page defining it eg IAU. Bot.
10. As the work on individual features matures, it would be good to have some more general articles on Lunar Science to tie it all together in a top down kind of way. For example, an article (or small series of articles) summarising GHM and updating it with more recent relevant discoveries. (This particular one could be done as a joint effort - any of us could write the summaries but only Chuck seems likely to be sufficiently familiar with recent Lunar Science literature to make the updates). There are doubtless other similar articles that cold be written which I do not have sufficient domain knowledge to even to begin to imagine - I'd love to read them though.

Jim Mosher (jimmosher)

In the spirit of the brainstorming, here are some incompletely thought out, and not necessarily at all feasible, thoughts:
 

1. Link each IAU name to the corresponding entry in the IAU Gazetteer. For example, the link http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/jsp/FeatureNameDetail.jsp?feature=60178 brings up a window with nomenclatural and map information for "Abbe" (their database entry #60178) which may be more current than that in a hand-maintained Wiki. The problem with this (and the reason it wasn’t incorporated in the templates) is the USGS database programmer can’t guarantee that these feature numbers will not change at some time in the future, but my guess is they won't.
2. Ideally link the Wiki position and diameter data "live" to the Gazetteer (to keep it in sync if changes are made to the latter).
3. More generally, keep all Wiki-specific information that affects more than one feature in centralized data-base type tables so that the information displayed on individual pages can be automatically updated and kept in sync. For example, basin ring diameters would be in a central table, and the displayed information on the page for a specific basin would be updated "live" when the table is changed.
4. Add the missing IAU Transactions.
5. Add the complete text/tables of Named Lunar Formations.
6. Add the complete text/tables of the System of Lunar Craters (i.e., the LPL "list" – which I believe contains more than just named features).
7. Provide good on-line copies of all maps from both of the previous publications.
8. Link feature names to the appropriate paragraphs of biographical information in the BAA's Who's Who In the Moon.
9. For persons who have made important contributions to lunar studies, have separate pages within the Wiki for the person and feature(s) named for them. For example, Hevelius_person in addition to Hevelius. The person page might link to more general biographical sources elsewhere (as we do now), but would be tightly focused on their lunar work and provide a place to list and describe in detail their lunar publications, time of activity, etc. (information in some cases now inserted on the feature pages, but perhaps inappropriate for a more general biography since it may represent only a small phase of the person's overall life).
10. Supply complete current IAU nomenclature overlays of each image, by mouse-over or button.
11. Provide some kind of context to feature positions. Tightly-focused images are fine for illustrating the features so painstakingly described in words on the Wikipedia pages, but give no sense of where it is located on the Moon or what the surrounding terrain looks like. A set of overlapping labeled Rükl-sized photomontages might be a possibility if they could be displayed with a marker dynamically linked to the feature of interest. If they were to cover the entire Moon, aerial views would seem more appropriate than the Earth-based orthographic ones in Rükl.
12. Point-and-click Moon maps to locate feature pages without knowing names.
13. Improve image search so that it finds links to all available images including a feature at a specific location with information as to scale, sun and viewing angles. The "Find Photos" button in LTVT demonstrates that this technology is quite feasible; but the "search by position" functions at the LPI do not work in this way. Not only do they search only very limited sets of photos, but they tell only if the center point of the picture falls in the search box. In the "search by name" mode they return hits only if someone has manually annotated the image with the name. Note: the new ASU Apollo Image Archive has finally implemented something of the sort
14. The Italian amateur union (UAI) has carefully illustrated many named features with Earth-based photos on their http://www.PlanetMoon.org website, and we really should provide a link to their feature pages wherever appropriate.
15. Make better use of Wiki "anchors" : links to items on long pages, like IAU Transactions or Lunar 100 or (now) Individual Scientists should ideally go directly to the item cited instead of to the page in general (i.e., links should scroll directly to relevant entry within the page rather than forcing the reader to search for it).
16. As a goal, if a new kind of information is added to one feature page, try to add it in a comprehensive and consistent way to all feature pages.
17. Document a useful set of recognizable small features with known three dimensional coordinates that can be used as reference points on the Moon. Show exactly what the feature is and how its position is known. Nothing of this sort current exists, at least in any comprehensive way.
18. Photographically document the locations of the former Greek-lettered lunar peaks.
19. Add simple tutorial pages explaining and illustrating basic concepts necessary for understanding feature pages. E.g., basic mechanisms of lunar geology. Or at least links to external pages explaining them.
20. Add brief articles (pages) on topics slightly tangential to the main objectives of the Wiki (whatever those prove to be), but possibly of interest to some readers. A couple I have been thinking about were: (1) Showing how to identify in overhead (satellite) photos the features producing the peaks seen on the Moon's limb at various librations. (2) Illustrating how to determine the "correct" coordinates of a feature in an uncharted area of the Moon using the 2005 ULCN.
21. Add FAQ-type pages answering some of the typical (and perennial) lunar questions. Examples: (1) How many craters are there the Moon? -- illustrate with charts of crater densities & illustrations of surfaces of various ages; (2) What is the current rate of crater formation? -- explain odds that the current crop of lunar probes will see features not there 40 years ago in a certain number of square kilometers scanned; (3) What is the smallest feature on the Moon visible from Earth? -- illustrate difference between typical amateur image vs. what might be possible with professional grade adaptive optics vs. non-visible wavelengths (e.g., radar) vs. space probe.
22. Avoid duplicating what is done better elsewhere
23. Try to attract additional contributors, but at the same time avoid overambitious plans that cannot be completed by a very small number of editors in a finite amount of time
24. Keep the site accessible over low-speed internet connections. Example 1: if a reference has been located in NASA ADS/ABS, give a link to a summary text page from which the reader can download the (possibly very large) PDF file if they wish to, rather than giving a link directly to the PDF file. Example 2: give links to pages containing thumbnail-links to large images, rather than directly to the image itself (a practice we currently observe, for example, in citing images on the LPI site). Similarly do not force readers to download a large image to see a resized version of it. Example 3: avoid long complex scripts or multi-media plug-ins that slow the display of pages.
25. Add a comprehensive annotated "Resources/Links" page highlighting in one place external websites that would be of interest to our typical reader. Examples: LPI science pages, ASU Apollo Archive, Lunar Discussion Groups, sites with collections of exceptionally fine images, etc. -- or, if this is too hard to maintain, at least provide links to sites with good collections of lunar links. Ideally, designed so someone with no prior experience could quickly find the best available material.

Post-deadline additions

1. Illustrate all instances where there are views of a lunar area showing what it looks like from the ground vs. how it appears from overhead.
2. Attempt to give the Wiki a uniform and coherent look and feel by supplementing How to Help and Explanations with a page of Editorial Guidelines (see example).

Mark Tillotson (c17h27no3)

1. Complete all biographies. This is my personal task.
2. Link each 'name' to YOA-T and the Astronomy Compendium. Need feedback here.
3. I also want to see general locator maps.
4. More lists of commonalities - central peaks, rays, secondaries, etc.
5. A list on each page of "Lettered Craters".
6. Expand Lunar Scientists section.

Danny Caes (cogevinas)

1. Including all sorts of popular and well-known magazines with moon-related articles in them, such as: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, LIFE, the German DER STERN, the French PARIS-MATCH, etc... etc... (some of this kind of magazines are still available in libraries and/or second-hand bookstores, for example: shelves full of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC issues, those of the sixties and seventies)(the hey-days of Apollo!!!).
2. Including the names and authors of "artistic" books about the moon (for example: FULL MOON by M.Light/ A.Chaikin). Something which I did on several pages. And also: all sorts of books, magazines, posters, album-covers (LP /CD) on which there are lunar photographs (Apollo-related, etc...).

By the way;
Dear folks of the IAU, wouldn't it be EXTREMELY interesting if you could add the names of all the Apollo-astronauts who orbited around the moon and walked on it? (okay, Apollo 8's and Apollo 11's are already on the moon, but I, and others too, would like to see Apollo 10's, 12's, 13's, 14's, 15's, 16's, and 17's on the moon too!). In other words: the names of all twenty-four astronauts who participated in the missions to the moon.
Apollo was mankind's greatest adventure!
P.S.;
-Including orbital Hasselblad-photographs which show "two things in one image" (1: The described surface formation. 2: part of a CSM or LM in one of the image's corners). Because... we have to let the wiki's visitors know that APOLLO was REAL!!!
-Including lots of lunar space-art (for example: Chesley Bonestell's, Don Davis's, Lucien Rudaux's, etc... etc...) (Trivia/ Images).
-Including the pages of Harold Hill's A Portfolio Of Lunar Drawings (in Bibliography).
To bring the moon to the people... ...is the main purpose of The Moon Wiki, I think (and also of the LPOD).

Mission and vision

Funny things mission statements. They leave most people cold. But it turns out that the process of constructing them can be very useful to the principals of an enterprise - it's a great way of concentrating ones thoughts on exactly what the enterprise is trying to achieve.
 
  As a by-product it is common to produce statements of eg "what the-moon wiki is", "what the-moon wiki is not" (Chuck asked for ideas about the second of these a while back but appeared to get no replies) and a tag line (eg Wikipedia's "The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.").
 
  To get the ball rolling I've copied some statements from Chuck's Introduction, etc. Your task is to add additional statements. We'll open a discussion of the whole caboodle from Thursday to see if we can refine it to something succinct but precise. - ArbusDriver Nov 4, 2007
 
 

Mission statement

• An encyclopedia-like series of descriptions of [surface?] features on the lunar surface.
• For ... lunar observers and others thinking about the moon as a place.
• An experiment to collect data about individual features. (Is this still an experiment? - c17h27no3 c17h27no3 Nov 4, 2007)
• Named features arranged alphabetically by name.
• Anyone (after registering) can add or edit every entry.
• The most convenient way to find all the photos and maps of any named lunar feature!
• A creditable [credible?] Web resource.

What the-moon wiki is

• Basic coordinates, crater diameters, and Elger text.
• Basic image and descriptive data.
• Geochemical and geophysical data.
• Additional Information about features
• Provide basic biography of the person a feature is named after. - c17h27no3 c17h27no3 Nov 4, 2007
• Describe nomenclature history, where available. - c17h27no3 c17h27no3 Nov 4, 2007
• Preserve information about the people who study the moon.
• Provide a comprehensive bibliography of lunar science literature.
• Where, on Earth, things significant to our understanding of the Moon have occurred.
• Described the data returned by each successful lunar mission, together with sufficient historical background to put this data in context.
• List the basic documents concerning the history of lunar nomenclature and provide current and historic nomenclature information for each named feature.

What the-moon wiki is not

• Provider of almanac information for lunar observers (ephemeris, librations, eclipses, etc).
• Provider of current event information or news.
• Primary focus seems to be on observable surface morphology (gross visible structures) with perhaps some geology (structure-forming mechanisms), but with almost no petrology (mineralogy of individual lunar rocks), gravity, orbital dynamics nor many other interesting fields in the vast lunar literature (I may not have the terms quite right). - Jim Mosher

Tag line

• Danny's last sentence is one possibility: To bring the Moon to the people...

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