Talk:Mount Mary Austin

	California portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject California, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of California on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CaliforniaWikipedia:WikiProject CaliforniaTemplate:WikiProject CaliforniaCalifornia articles
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Mountains Low‑importance

	Mountains portal This article is part of WikiProject Mountains, a project to systematically present information on mountains. If you would like to participate, you can choose to edit the article attached to this page (see Contributing FAQ for more information), or visit the project page where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.MountainsWikipedia:WikiProject MountainsTemplate:WikiProject MountainsMountain articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	An editor has requested that an image or photograph be added to this article.

It is requested that an image or photograph be included in this article to improve its quality. Please replace this template with a more specific media request template where possible.
The Free Image Search Tool or Openverse Creative Commons Search may be able to locate suitable images on Flickr and other web sites.

Upload

Coordinate error[edit]

I checked the coordinates and they correspond with those on the GNIS feature page cited. –droll [chat] 05:08, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Coordinates on This Page Caused Me a Problem[edit]

I'm not sure if this is a new global formatting issue in Wikipedia, but it is the first time I experienced the problem. Clicking on the coordinates for this Wiki page on Mt. Mary Austin (CA) resulted in this data being displayed on the GeoHack page:

36° 48′ 56.77″ N, 118° 21′ 46.35″ W

When I cut and pasted this string into Google Earth it took me to a location which was off the actual mark by at least 75 miles. After using a GPS calculator to check the decimal rendition of the coordinates (because I thought the data on this Wikipedia page to be wrong), I realized the problem lay not in the coordinates but in the formatting of the visible string above. Specifically, the use of intelligent or forward slating apostrophe and quotation characters caused a problem when cutting and pasting the coordinates displayed in Wikipedia directly into Google Earth. By editing the visible string, as thus (using standard ASCII apostrophe and quotation symbols) I fixed the problem.

36° 48' 56.77" N, 118° 21' 46.35" W

This is a troubling development, if it is a system-wide formatting change. While I can always grab the decimal GPS coordinates, I typically go for the lat-long coordinates as they are displayed on top, I have been grabbing them for years, and there was a time Google Earth did not accept input of decimal formatted coordinates.

While the intelligent characters might look nice to the reader, they are extremely problematic as a transfer format for data and I would recommend avoiding them for this reason. You've got to expect people to cut and paste the data between applications, and I think KISS applies here.

I am using Firefox browser on an iMac Duo Core running MacOS-X (10.4). I did not check this issue in Safari, IE or any other browser or platform. It failed on the one I use predominantly, and that is enough to consider it a #FAIL. --Symmerhill (a.k.a. Summerhill) (talk) 01:25, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The format used to display the coordinates on the GeoHack page is not an issue specific to this article and I don't think your problem is related to your system or browser. You should move this discussion to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates as I believe your issue is not with this article but with the way coordinates are displayed by the GeoHack tool. –droll [chat] 05:08, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]