in reply to Geotagging uploaded data

As a quick disclaimer, I haven't done this before. But, for what it's worth, it sounds like a reasonable way to me. I might change the order, though, to 3,2,1,4.

I figure that if you can do it without bothering the user who, for all we know, doesn't know longitude from latitude anyway, you may as well (as long as you always have the option for the user to override any of the others and manually set the location).

Setting from the EXIF data first is sort of an extension of the user being able to override the automated methods, I figure, so go there first.

Then, if that fails, try the web service. Failing that, just ask them. If they don't know either, use the IP address, which could be significantly off. At the very least, I'd use their IP address as a suggested value when you let them enter it manually, though.

You could also just allow the priority of each of the four to be set by the user in their account settings, maybe under "advanced settings" or something.

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Re^2: Geotagging uploaded data
by dsheroh (Monsignor) on Jul 01, 2009 at 15:58 UTC
    I agree with your reasoning, I just concluded that it supports the opposite order of things...

    The different conclusion is probably because I didn't explain the user interface involved. There are three input fields: One to enter text, one to upload a photo, and one to enter a geotag. All three fields are optional, although nothing will actually be done unless the user submits text and/or a photo, since there wouldn't be anything to geotag in that case.

    I figure that, if the user enters anything in the "geotag" field, then that should take precedence over any passively-obtained information and a more-specific entry (#1) should take precedence over a less-specific entry (#2) if both are present. If the user doesn't fill in the "geotag" field, or if their "geotag" entry isn't a recognizable location, then we fall back on information specific to the photo (#3), reserving the user's IP address as an absolute last resort (#4).

[reply]
      Ah, I see what you mean. Yeah, I'd say that's a reasonable way to go about it.
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