In the near future, I plan to re-style the country pages. They're a mixed bunch now and the least interesting pages at the moment I think, and are just a quick way to get to a site or tentative site page.

But what content should they have, besides an overview of that country's sites?

- Should there be a photo or a map or a flag or neither?
- What should the introduction text be about? General info on where the country is located, or more specific (what?). Or no text at all?
- Should the drop down listbox with all the other countries stay, or shall I limit that to links only to countries in that region?
- I plan to delete the country links, as there are few and most of them can be moved to the tentative site pages we have now.
- I also plan to show the last reviews of that country's (t) sites, in the format that is now used at the home page (the short teasers with photo). A good idea?
- Anything more you'd like to see?

Please help!

I wouldn't put a lot of effort into duplicating info which can be found elsewhere - the concentration should be on WHS related matters. A link to the Wiki page can provide access to info on population, flag, map etc etc. However Wiki doesn't show where sites are (??) and the UNESCO maps of site locations are a bit awkward to get to so an equivalent could be useful for each country??

"WHS related matters" can be defined I think to include travel and tourism-related matters such as Cultural and Natural sites which are not on the list.

Perhaps provide a brief intro on what each country's Inscribed and T List entries tell us about it AND its view of itself and the image it wishes to portray to the rest of the world! Another possible way of providing a quick overview is a summary "analysis" - the list of site names isn't always that illuminating! Eg Algeria has 7 inscribed and 6 T List with "strange names" but what are they - Natural, Cultural etc Etc? You could just list the Categories involved to avoid doing "extra analytical" work (would need to assign T List to categories some time!)!! That would give a good and quick resumee of what they are!!

Some (many??) countries have their own National sites with information on WHS related matters. The links to these should be shown. There will be language problems - but use of Babelfish or similar can overcome these at least for the European languages plus a few others - is there a method of speeding up the use of a translation site by eg a link from this site to sites in their own language via eg Babelfish with a choice of "target language" to do translations and thus avoid all the hassle of copying the web link and translation details into Babelfish first??? Once you are seeing a site "through" Babelfish in your chosen language my experience is that it works pretty well

Such National sites are likely to include
a. The "Local" UNESCO Commission
b. The Government department responsible for World Heritage matters
c. The organisation(s) (both Governmental AND charitable) responsible for looking after the tangible cultural resources of the country
d. The tourist organisation

eg For UK
Its World Heritage Portal leads to some very nice Web sites
http://www.ukworldheritage.org.uk/
It has a UK National Commission for UNESCO
http://www.unesco.org.uk/

I know that Sweden has
http://www.unesco-sweden.org/english/english.asp
http://www.visitsweden.com/VSTemplates/Page____48292.aspx

IN USA there is the National Parks Service
http://www.nps.gov/oia/topics/worldheritage/worldheritage.htm

Many countries will have organisations like the National Trust in UK with very useful information
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace.htm

Enough suggestions for now!

PS.
I forgot the Google Map facility which has a facility to show all the sites in a country - better to use that than try to set up something special.
Its main weakness as far as I can see is that, even if you choose a specific country, it always "starts" with a "world view" so you have to zoom in to the chosen country before anything useful is seen.
I don't know of any way to get the link to "start" with a predetermined appropriate level of "zoom" for each country (Not as simple as it sounds - eg UK needs to have a "world view" because of its 3 far-flung island sites!).

Herewith Mexico if anyone doesn't know of the feature
http://labs.beffa.org/worldheritage/whmap.php?country=Mexico

Yes, I know of the Google Maps but do not really like their lay-out.
I've been experimenting a bit with another mapping tool this morning. You have to zoom in here too, but that's a setting that can be changed (and the zooming can be handy for some countries so you know where it's located exactly).

See:
Lithuania

Yes zooming is essential but it is helpful to start at a useful point too which Google doesn't seem to!
It might be a matter of taste but (as a confirmed and long term "cartophile"!) I FAR prefer Google maps to the AMMap tool
a. its zoom in facility is far better and faster - you can get to roads and exact locations. Just zoom in on Puebla - Beautiful!! I can even retrace my walks of a few months ago in the town centre!!!! A proper map rather than a "sketch"!
b. the site click shows a picture of the site
c. You can go directly to the UNESCO page

The functionality of Google Maps is far superior, but do you really want to zoom in to street level from a country page? I think a map on that kind of page has to show an overview of where the WHS are located in the country, and possibly also what kind of WHS (nat, cult, mix) they are. Via a click one should be able to go directly to the according site page.

Plus:
- Shows roads and cities (handy for orientation)
- Comes already complete with all the data

Minus:
- The Google WHS Maps shows pictures taken from the Unesco-website. I don't think I'll get away with that.
- I hate their lay-out and icons.

So I'm not really convinced right now (and will keep on experimenting).

P.S: Google Maps on a site-page would be a very handy feature though - so we never have to worry about not being able to find a site again!

Goes on the To Do-list!

Dear Els,

"This topic is closed. New replies are not allowed."

What happen? The Japan topic is closed and cannot post anything.

Hmm I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the Lock Topic button?

It only seems to be an option if you were the person that started off the specific forum thread, I think I accidentally pressed it on my phone when trying to post a comment, as it sits right underneath the "Post message" button, so is very easy to do by mistake, espcially on a phone.

I think I may have accidentally pressed it on the BBC in the media thread a few months ago. I can't seem to find a way of overriding it, perhaps Els has permission to?

I've unlocked it!