Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Maps/Archive 2

message: I'm really confused by all the map talk, etc. that I see.  There seems to be no one taking charge, organizing votes, etc. on how the maps should look.  It might be that wikipedia wants to have a few different map styles, but currently there is hardly any consistency whatsoever.
There should be some sort of general election, with many mock-ups made of different types of maps for different needs, and a discussion of map size (it should be somewhat standardized -- maybe big format that gets scaled down by mediawiki?), and there should be some consensus reached on how thick lines should be, how big city dots should be in diffent contexts, what the colors should be, etc.  Wikipedia needs at least nominally standardized map guidelines so that new map creators don't waste time and energy making maps that will end up superseded in a few months.
If mediawiki gets around to some other standards, at some point, that'd be great, but first things first, we should figure out a common vector format (svg is maybe fine, I generally use illustrator so I don't know exactly), and start sharing resources to a central repository.  If we could get map data (just borders even), from a database, all from the same map projection, etc. that would be wonderful, but style decisions can be made now, and then applied to whatever data comes along.
The country localizers are pretty much standardized now, it seems.  I like the subdued grey of these maps, and their simplicity.  But is that the style that should stick? and if not, what style should replace it?
Anyway, this is somewhat a rant, but I'd be willing to help out once such a project gets underway.  While Wikipedia should encourage random additions by all users, having a set format would save cartographers' time, and help out the reader.
--Jacobolus 06:23, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map Style 

message: A compleate Wikiatlas would surely be a great resource, is there any reason why we couldn't have one? Would it be to ambishous? I have to admit I don't really understand how you are creating copyright free maps at all, if you take a copyrighted map and copy it/redraw it using its messurements (I take it thats what your doing?) does that mean you have created new map or have you ripped off information from old one? Sorry for my ignorance.--JK the unwise 11:03, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikiatlas 

message: I've been experimenting with topographic/bathymetric maps of ocean areas. The one I've done so far is for Indian Ocean; see the image on the Commons. I'm planning to do maps for the rest of the oceans shortly, but I thought I'd solicit some comments first. The projection of this map is a little off, making it look sort of stretched along the north-south axis; I'll fix this when I next get to the computer that has the software I need. Any other suggestions? Also, if anyone has any requests/suggestions for other regions/articles that could use a similar map, let me know. The source data has a resolution of about one kilometer, so this is for large areas only, at least several hundred kilometers across. CDC (talk) 17:53, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Topographic mapping 

message: There is something of a revert war going on at Trinidad and Tobago, Panama, Guyana (and perhaps elsewhere) with regards to new maps made by User:Kelisi to replace the CIA maps.  User: Jooler insists that the CIA maps are: "official or de facto house style" and that: "Any changes to the current status...should be discussed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps".  I disagreed with the assertion that there was any such thing as a "house style" and am of the opinion that the CIA maps were used only as placeholders.  A brief glance at this page suggests that I am right, but to avoid/defuse this edit war, I thought that I should post these question here:
* is there any such thing as a "house style" map?
* is there any reason why CIA maps should be retained when more informative maps are available?
Thanks.  Guettarda 17:25, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the real reason nobody likes those maps has nothing to do with whether CIA maps are "house style" but rather the replacement maps are unbelieveably unprofessional looking (gigantic pixels, decorative fonts, complete lack of anti-aliasing, etc.). I think the "house style" is simply a map which is professional looking and reliable looking. "Informative" doesn't mean anything if the map looks like it was created by someone who doesn't know how to make maps. --Fastfission 03:54, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  House style maps? 

message: A new user uploaded the rather nice but not public domain image at :Image:Ottoman1.jpg. It is a wonderful map of the Ottoman Empire, something we apparently lack on here. Could somebody re-create its information with one of our free map templates? It doesn't look like it would be a terribly difficult job, relatively speaking (I would do it myself except I am out of town from my main computer and my mouse. I think my fingers would lock up if I tried to do this on my laptop's trackpad!). I think it would be a wonderful addition. --Fastfission 03:47, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map request 

message: Hi, I am in the process of adding a map showing the location of every town in a subcategory of :Category:Towns_in_England (and intend to then move on to Scottish/Welsh towns). I've had trouble finding the coordinates of some towns. Please could you take a look at User:Lupin/coords and help me to fill in the blanks? Many thanks. Lupin 14:46, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help needed to find latitude/longitude of some UK towns 

message: hi. although it seems that most of the emphasis here is on geographic material, i am interested in linguistic maps. i have created a few maps before i knew the existence of this project.  i submit to the people involved here the maps i have created in hopes that we can hear some good suggestions/improvements to my work so far. this is my first time to make a map and all the first time to use Gimp, so i am sure that they can be improved. i have created maps of 2 types: (1) linguistic map of an entire continent with different colors for each (unrelated) language family, (2) map showing the distribution of a single language on its continent (in two colors). 
in my linguistic map of North America i found it a bit challenging to find enough significantly different colors to adequately show the different language families. i am a little dissatisfied with my borders of somewhat uneven width.
the maps:
*North American languages
*Algic
*Muskogean
*Na-Dene
*Salishan
so any comments? questions?  thank you very much. — ishwar  (SPEAK) 16:35, 2005 May 23 (UTC)
Nice maps! Looking at their Wikimedia commons description page, I can see that you have done your research on these. I very much like the simplicity of the last four maps; even at small resolutions, these are a great addition to their respective articles. The complete map of N. American languages is a little bit jarring, though. I think you're right that the border widths are partly to blame; all your maps would be improved by a thicker continent border, and thinner borders on the language distributions.
It is rather difficult to distinguish the colors in the fully-colored map. Perhaps you could use a wider range of lightness--include some pastel shades in addition to the darker shades you already have. A simple pattern, instead of solid color, might also help, at least in the larger regions where a pattern would be easily recognized, and correctly associated with the list to the left. This would let you expand the number of different "colors" you can show at once, while (hopefully) making them easier to identify. Then again, maybe it would look awful :-) I haven't tried it, and there's always the chance that your software doesn't support it anyway.
Another improvement, I think, would be if you could just "rough up" the edges of the language regions. Some of them look too straight and geometric to be believable; if you just make them a tiny bit wiggly, I think they'll better represent the actual fuzziness and gradual transition from region to region.
It's great to see someone working on maps like this. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the mapping standards under discussion above!
By the way, what software do you use to create these? -- Wapcaplet 17:34, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi. Thank you for your comments. I will try to implement them. I am using The Gimp to create the map. I just traced the print-version of the map & went from there. So, I see that The Gimp has a function to fill in colors with patterns.  I am not so good at figuring out the best range of colors, but I will try to use some lighter colors. I recently lightened the entire N. Amer. map & added changed 2 colors to have patterns. I guess that there is some automatic way to thin out the borders, but I will have to figure that out. Roughing up the edges may be a good idea—I am just following Mithun's borders right now. I guess that what you might most "jarring" are the crazy colors? I will think about the map standard discussion above & if I think of anything I will post. But as this is my first time to create maps or use The Gimp, I cannot guarantee how valuable my contributions will be. Thanks again. peace — ishwar  (SPEAK) 22:24, 2005 May 27 (UTC)
Re: the Salishan/Na-Dene maps.  There's a Na-Dene blotch in southern British Columbia, an island within the Salish "sea" around there, which represents the Stuwix, aka the Nicola Athapaskans.  But they went extinct linguistically a century ago, and were not a dominant population but adopted into the area by the larger Nicola/Sce'emx and Okanagan/Syilx, into whom they became intermarried and absorbed; only a few placenames remain of their language; I've always wondered on linguistic maps, or in language articles, how to represent such a situation; should these guys maybe have a striped blotch or other indication that this isolated pocket was never really territorial; rather one community among three living alongside each other, and also long extinct?Skookum1 17:10, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: language maps

message: Map of Pacific NW Sprachbund language divisions  Had this in my computer's storage swamps; not sure of copyright status but it was in an academic paper; useful for anyone wanting to do a more detailed language map for this complicated (very complicated) linguistic region.Skookum1 17:15, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: NW Sprachbund map

message: I don't see this having been suggested before: would it be possible to reduce effort and promote consistency by creating locator maps on the fly? Look at :Category:GBdot. Each of these could be generated by the appopriate coding given just the base map, lat/long, and a size and color for the dot. You could pack these parameters into a URL and <handwaving>something executable could stream a PNG file in return</handwaving>.
I realize it's a coding project as opposed to an uploading project, and disk space is cheap, but once the coding is done it would surely be a faster way to generate locators. David Brooks 17:03, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: With a little more reading I realize this is far from a new idea. As you were. David Brooks 17:28, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maps on demand 

message: Hello, I'm new here.  I was thinking of starting a project of making locator maps for some of the rivers.  This map would go with Potomac River.  Any comments?  Does it work without labels?  Should I add more stuff to give it more context or keep it simple?  - Karl  16:09, 2 August 2005
: Works fine without labels.  Higher resolution would be better, though.  Possibly other bodies of water in the pictured area (in a very light blue, so they can be distinguished from the main river).  Make "up" be North (it looks like NNE to me). dbenbenn | talk 00:31, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Locator maps for rivers 

message: Hello, since you are interested in maps I thought hat you might support our letter to Centre for Cartography, Vilnius University. We are asking to release their maps found at www.balticdata.info under GFDL licence so they could be used in articles about Lithuania. So far we got 14 people to "sign" it. The draft in very very rough English is available at user:Renata3/letter. If you decide to support it, I'll need just your first and last names together with your user name. You can leave it on my talk page or send it via email: just attach @gmail.com to my user name. Thanks so much! Renata3 22:15, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Asking to "sign" a letter

message: I'd like to make some maps for New Zealand but I am suspect about copyright. According to copyright there's a legal concept called the idea-expression divide. This means that I can reproduce the idea that a map conveys but not the particular expression: the map itself.
Does this mean I can copy a map by tracing? Or by entering co-ordinates into a computer program? Or by writing down a list of places that are inside/outside a boundary and just drawing a boundary between them?
Is there a place where this has been discussed already?
Ben Arnold 04:55, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I have heard that map-makers include intentional errors in their maps as a means of exposing such plaigerism. (sp). Coordinantes from multiple maps would seem fair, particularly if the maps are themselves representations of public records. (the location of cities, their borders, streets, and building permits are all public records in the US and surely in other countries as well.) (unsigned - who needs to be baiting the public-record IP nazis?  read building code publishers).
--C Hawke 17:02, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Copyright

message: Hi, does anybody know where I can find free border data of national subdivisions (states, provinces, etc.) for use in GMT? Fragwürdig 21:30, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subdivision border data for GMT 

message: Unsure if there existed one for such purpose already, but I wrote Template:Mapit for use with :Category:Wikipedia map requests. Nuf said. -St|eve 17:46, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map requests template/category 

message: Hi, I'm just dropping in to see if someone might be able to give me some advice. My friend was involved with the mapping of Atauro Island in East Timor for the first time recently, so she has some maps that she has made totally herself. I want to help her make the best possible map (for the wikimedia community) so how should I advise her? Please leave me any comments on my Talk page. Thanks, pfctdayelise 02:23, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Creating new maps from scratch 

message: Hey, I was wondering where I could get some assistance with gaining some knowledge with Arcview 9. karmafist 09:21, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Hey

message: Any chance we can get a map of the country of South Africa so that we can use it in the templates used in Wikipedia:WikiProject Protected areas...it would be best if it would be the same in colors and other parameters as the one of the U.S. shown here  and we have another one that meets this standardization already for Australia. Thanks for your help.--MONGO 02:47, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map request 

message: I seem to remember there being a template with which to tag images from the Perry-Castañeda Library's map collection. Anyone else remember which one this is, or did I imagine it? -- Gyrofrog  (talk) 04:35, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: .--Patrick 09:56, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

text: And .--Patrick 10:04, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you! -- Gyrofrog  (talk) 16:05, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Perry-Castañeda template? 

message: I don't know how active this WikiProject currently is, but I'm in dire need of a good map for United States of Greater Austria. Thanks!  Nightstallion ✉ 23:47, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Map request - USoGA