File talk:Map Hudson County New Jersey municipalities.gif

This is the discussion/talk page for Image:Map Hudson County New Jersey municipalities.gif.

Created to verify performance
This file is purposely being maintaining in GIF format (along with a PNG-format version) for longitudinal studies of Wikipedia performance, of PNG versus GIF format. Such studies are needed to avoid OR (original-research) claims of performance, but rather, show actual live examples in Wikipedia-image displays compared over a period of years. This image is intended to co-exist as a GIF version of the equivalent PNG-format image for years (not days) to compare performance while evolving Wikimedia software is modified over those years. -Wikid77 05:42, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Version names
There are multiple formats (GIF & PNG) for the county map:


 * GIF format: Image:Map Hudson County New Jersey municipalities.gif
 * PNG format: Image:Hudson County, New Jersey Municipalities.png.

The 2 versions are intended to co-exist for years, as the long-term performance of the evolving Wiki software is studied. -Wikid77 05:42, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Performance comparison




In August 2007, the GIF file stored as 22 kb, while the PNG stored as 20 kb (10 % less). However, when displayed as resized to 350px thumbnails, the GIF file displayed as 24kb while the PNG file resized for 350 px displayed as 65 kb (PNG about 2.7× slower than GIF), offering further evidence that such a map should NOT be re-converted into slower PNG format from GIF.

Even for a smaller thumbnail size of 130px, the GIF file was nearly 2.3× times faster/thinner than the PNG file (see properties/size tabs of the 2 displayed thumbnails at right), with the resized PNG image using 16614 bytes and GIF using 7108b: ratio 16614 / 7108 = 2.337.

Studies from 2006 showed similar performance on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons: GIF files were typically displayed 2.7× (or 3×) times faster than PNG files at the same image width. Images displayed on Wikimedia Commons showed the same performance difference (GIF nearly 3× faster than PNG), as though Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons used the same image-display software, for resizing image files. -Wikid77 05:58, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Label "incorporated"
Townships in New Jersey are "incorporated." This map [Hudson County] is misleading by using the label "incorporated place" to refer to the other types of municipalities. Unincorporated parts of counties are more common down South and out West; where there are places with no local government where the County itself administers services. Not true in NJ. 204.52.215.13 18:39, 3 June 2007 (UTC)


 * 25-Aug-2007: I have verified that NJ townships have been incorporated for over 300 years (see: "Newark was incorporated as a township in 1693" in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica article, webpage: www.1911encyclopedia.org/Newark,_New_Jersey). The label "incorporated place" could be changed to "City or Town" for this Hudson County map.  Thanks for the note, and I realize there are other Wiki "facts" at least 300 years out-of-date.  It's a challenge to get people to focus on long-term concerns.  -Wikid77 23:27, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Other topics

 * [ Discuss other unnamed issues here. ]