tkwidmer
commented
10 years ago The issue with gps locations for college campuses is a problem. I've had some discussion about this with some users of the site and allowing direct GPS entry might be the best solution to this. I kept the lat/long display off of the form because i feared that folks might worry that since they didn't know that info they wouldn't be able to submit a bathroom (which isn't true since we do the geolocation on submit). Maybe there is a way to add it as an optional area to the form that can be expanded for more detail.
One of the struggles in this I see is there is a lot of kinds of data we could keep, but I do fear that for some folks having a big long intimidating form and needing to input all that information might be really discouraging and keep people from entering locations (especailly if they have a few to enter, such as yourself.) So it will be an important discussion to have re: walking and finding the balance between the two. ( not getting enough data, vs asking for too much).
I know somebody was working on a system to suggest edits for bathrooms, which could be approved by admins. And perhaps that is a place for this, that users can edit the bathroom and contribute even more data about each one.
I do want to keep the barrier to entry as low as possible (thats why we do not want to get users to sign up and provide an email and password). Thats my one fear with asking for a lot more data of our users. But otherwise I agree, more data is always better.
leavens9
emfetz
kiesia
johana-star
mathonsunday
Hi! :)
In an attempt to further the conversation about database structure (and application functionality), here are some issues I am having:
I have almost completely cataloged all the lockable (mostly single-seat) restrooms for my college campus, but since street addresses are either nonexistent or very hard to find for academic buildings --landlocked as they are by parking lots and sidewalk-jungles-- I have found it much easier to find gps coordinates for the buildings (using either google maps or openstreetmap.org to pinpoint, especially since my phone's gps rarely works when restroom-scouting inside of buildings). So, I am sitting on an awful lot of un-posted data for my campus' restrooms because I am unable to find/infer many (if any) accurate postal addresses.
In addition to not being able to find street addresses for buildings, I also discovered that google maps is not able to accurately pinpoint a building I actually have a verified street address for. See redacted image of an already-submitted restroom below:
What I would really like to see, though, is a way to input actual gps coordinates instead of trying to rely solely on street addresses, which can be very faulty.
Along the same lines of database structure/interaction, here is a list of super-nit-picky criteria I have come up with from my wanderings so far which maybe might be helpful? anyways, here goes: restroom label [labeled handicap accessible?], is it lockable? [does the lock look safe?], directions [able-bodied version, handicap version if applicable (side note: idk if 'handicap' is ok terminology ?), integrated version], facilities [num seats {num handicap seats}, num urinals, num sinks, etc.], street address, long/lat, if restroom is handicap accessible [is building handicap accessible?, lat/long of handicap entrance, etc.], hours building is open [day M/T/W/R/F/Sat/Sun {time block(s)}, is schedule approx or exact?, what parts of year does this schedule apply? {link to applicable calendar}], general tips/comments, images [~ of bathroom, ~ of entrance {~ to building, ~ to restroom}, images potentially annotated???], etc.
Sorry if this is too much/general! Thank you all so much for your hard work on this project! :)