Commons talk:Geocoding

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Continental drift problem?

Example Australia has moved 1.5 metres since 1994: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-28/aust-latitude-longitude-coordinates-out-by-1-5m-scientists/7666858 Will there in Commons be problems about image geocoding in future? --Zunter (talk) 17:44, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Far as I know, nobody's worrying about it. I've been geotagging pictures in North America three centuries old or more, with the assumption that Broad Street Manhattan was where it is now, despite knowing that it was then a canal and few meters closer to Greenwich, so the coords I've been giving for a building on its eastern shore actually pointed at the middle of the canal in those days. People back then didn't know that the Atlantic was becoming wider but they knew their estimates of its width were likely to be off by a mile and they didn't worry as long as they had the correct distance from Broad Street to Broadway. In another century or three, the obsolescence of WGS-84, now forty years old, will be a real concern but currently nobody seems to be worrying. Jim.henderson (talk) 14:39, 4 January 2024 (UTC)