Talk:Cylindrical equal-area projection

Replace low-contrast images
I will be replacing images on the various map projection pages. Presently many are on a satellite composite image from NASA that, while realistic, poorly demonstrates the projections because of dark color and low contrast. I have created a stylization of the same data with much brighter water areas and a light graticule to contrast. See the thumbnail of the example from another article. Some images on some pages are acceptable but differ stylistically from most articles; I will replace these also.

The images will be high resolution and antialiased, with 15° graticules for world projections, red, translucent equator, red tropics, and blue polar circles.

Please discuss agreement or objections over here (not this page). I intend to start these replacements on 13 August. Thank you. Strebe (talk) 22:37, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

File:Cylindrical equal-area projection SW.jpg to appear as POTD soon
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Cylindrical equal-area projection SW.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on February 27, 2016. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2016-02-27. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:16, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

My edit has been reverted
I tried to post an additional article-section to Cylindrical Equal-Area, but an automated filter prevented the edit, on the grounds that it was deemed uncomstructive or disruptive. In what way did the automated filter determine that my edit was unproductive or disruptive? In what way was it unconstructive or disruptive? ...so much so as to be prevented without discussion or explanation?

Additionally, my explanation and justification of the edit, at this talk-page was removed.

Writing in Wordpad, I'd used periods (".") as spaceholders for empty-lines between paragraphs, but the edit posted as all one paragraph. So I added html paragraph-tags. That worked in the Preview, but then the automated filter prevented the edit,due to unconstructiveness or disruptiveness. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.84.140.85 (talk) 19:04, 15 May 2020 (UTC)


 * I can’t comment on what filters did before your posting went live, but the edits that did go live wrecked the article’s formatting. I’ve reverted those edits on the basis of WP:OR, WP:SYNTH, WP:MOS, WP:FORMAT, WP:SOAPBOX, WP:SOURCE. Wikipedia is not for original research or theories. Strebe (talk) 19:25, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

always two standard parallels
Since 2010-07-15 there was the claim "There are always two standard parallels on the cylindric equal-area projection, each at the same distance north and south of the equator." This is false, so I removed it 2023-01-07 12:11. 19:08 User:Strebe reverts "It’s true. Undid revision 1132135156 by Euro2023" but alters the actual text to "Except in the case of the equator, for which there is only one standard parallel, the cylindric equal-area projection has two standard parallels, each at the same distance north and south of the equator."

I don't know whether this is true. User:Strebe, what is/are the standard parallel(s) for the projection, as shown in the third image of the article: File:Cylindrical_Equal-Area_Projection_Oblique_Case_Map_of_the_World.png ? Euro2023 (talk) 13:40, 8 January 2023 (UTC)


 * It’s a matter of definition whether different aspects are the same projection or not. It’s typical for “cylindrical equal-area projection” to mean equatorial aspect unless stated otherwise. In order to make the statement true even under spherical coordinate rotation, you would have to say something very clumsy, such as “Except when the two small circles are actually one and the same great circle, the cylindrical equal-area projection has two standard small circles, each at the same distance from some plane that bisects the globe.” However, even that fails when the model globe is ellipsoidal, in which case, a non-equatorial aspect has no natural, singular definition. It’s reasonable to qualify the controversial statement with “normal”, if you object, but I worry that readers won’t know what the qualification means. I think a better approach is to disclaim other aspects in the description such that the article only means the normal aspect except when otherwise noted — which possibly shouldn’t happen.


 * We have more serious problem. The images for the various specializations showing indicatrices need to be shrunk or enlarged with respect to each other instead of all having the same width. As shown, they contradict the text and aren’t comparable. Strebe (talk) 06:34, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

User:Strebe, I converted the article to be only about Normal cylindrical equal-area projection, move diff. I also adjusted the sizes of the images, so that they are nearly area-equal. Regarding the topic of this section, for S>1 I think the cylinder doesn't touch and no standard latitude exists. So it is: two, one, none. Euro2023 (talk) 18:38, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

All cylindrical equal-area projections use the formula
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cylindrical_equal-area_projection&oldid=1132363610#Description - is this true? Or is it only true for normal cylindrical equal-area projections? Euro2023 (talk) 14:47, 8 January 2023 (UTC)


 * It’s true. The projection formulæ are the same; the spherical coordinate rotation to change the aspect occurs on the sphere before projecting. Sometimes projection formulæ are given that include the spherical coordinate transformation needed to project to different aspects, but there is no particular advantage to that practice. Strebe (talk) 06:37, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * So it is not true, if latitude and longitude refer to the geographical coordinates. Euro2023 (talk) 09:49, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * User:Strebe, how to calculate φ0 for S>1? Euro2023 (talk) 18:31, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Area-equal set of files
I made the files nearly area-equal, using 100px height for Lambert as a basis. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Normal_cylindrical_equal-area_projection&diff=1132568326&oldid=1132563217 Formula : width = ((((pi*100)^2)/(pi/S))^0.5) where S is the stretch factor.

The Blue Marble images have borders, so they are not well suited for this table. Euro2023 (talk) 14:25, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Removing "normal" qualifiers
I took a bunch of "normal"s out of these cylindrical map projection articles. We can talk about the aspect somewhere, but putting "normal" in front every time anyone says "cylindrical" seems like overkill and does not match prevailing practice in any reliable source I have seen. –jacobolus (t) 22:26, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Also, it seems fine to discuss equatorial / transverse / oblique aspects of these projections in the same article(s). We don't need a proliferation of minor variants of each projection, unless there is some particularity that makes the specific choice of aspect worthy of its own article, with enough material to make it more than a stub. The goal here is to serve readers, not build a taxonomy. –jacobolus (t) 22:31, 9 January 2023 (UTC)


 * user:jacobolus you are free to read the reasoning for why this article was renamed. Euro2023 (talk) 22:40, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I read it. There is no consensus supporting such a change. I think it’s nonsensical and a significant regression that harms readers. -jacobolus (t) 22:40, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * user:jacobolus What did you read? Euro2023 (talk) 22:41, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I read the discussion on this page. Is there some other talk page with a clear consensus reached supporting such a change across many articles? –jacobolus (t) 22:43, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * user:jacobolus The discussion is not enough, since it didn't gave the reasoning. Euro2023 (talk) 22:45, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * In that case, please write up a proposal in a new talk page section and let's have some kind of formal process discussing it, making a mention in the talk page of every relevant article and maybe pinging frequent contributors. Just running across Wikipedia moving categories around, renaming and reorganizing articles, etc. without having some consensus first is a bad idea. –jacobolus (t) 22:47, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * jacobolus before handing out work to others please read the reasoning. Euro2023 (talk) 22:48, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Where exactly did you write down your reasoning? If you didn't write it down in a single place, can you consolidate it, or at least provide some links, so I know what I'm supposed to be looking at? –jacobolus (t) 22:51, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * For a starter: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Normal_cylindrical_equal-area_projection&diff=prev&oldid=1132540390 Euro2023 (talk) 23:04, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Having a detailed discussion in commit messages does not work because there is no convenient way to respond without making further edits. Can you explain your reasoning in a new talk page section and give some indication of what your further goals are across this and other articles? –jacobolus (t) 23:14, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * See below " - section break 1" . Euro2023 (talk) 23:19, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * user:jacobolus "I took a bunch of "normal"s out of these cylindrical map projection articles. We can talk about the aspect somewhere, but putting "normal" in front every time anyone says "cylindrical" seems like overkill " - this /putting "normal" in front every time anyone says "cylindrical" seems like overkill/ hasn't been done, so why do you write this? Euro2023 (talk) 22:50, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

– maybe you want to weigh in here? As an aside, should we try to start a map projections WikiProject to centralize discussion about changes affecting many pages? (There is a WikiProject Maps but it is mostly about creating maps for geographical articles, not about map projections per se.) –jacobolus (t) 22:42, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Strebe above wrote: "It’s typical for “cylindrical equal-area projection” to mean equatorial aspect unless stated otherwise." - but I see no evidence that "equatorial aspect" is the same as "normal". Euro2023 (talk) 23:18, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * "Equatorial aspect" and "normal aspect" are synonyms (in this context), except that "equatorial aspect" is much more explicit and less confusing to readers, because everyone here knows what the equator is but "normal" means a thousand different things in different technical contexts (and even multiple different things in the context of map projections). –jacobolus (t) 23:26, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * In which context? And what is your source? And, yes, I know "what the equator is" but don't know what "equatorial aspect" is. Normal is about the axis. What does "equatorial" refer to? Euro2023 (talk) 23:41, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Take a look: "equatorial aspect" map projection. Or for a specific well-regarded source, try Snyder (1987). –jacobolus (t) 23:48, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * First hit from your first link is https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23729333.2016.1184554: "According to this definition, aspects can be normal, transverse or oblique. According to the second definition, an aspect is the representation of the area in the central part of a map, and can be polar, equatorial or oblique. Therefore, it is possible for a map projection to have a normal and polar aspect, but it can also have a normal and equatorial aspect. The second definition is not recommended for use, due to its ambiguity." - So, equatorial is not the same as normal and is not recommended "for use". Euro2023 (talk) 00:24, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes exactly, the point of this sentence is that it is clearer to avoid combining the term "normal" with terms equatorial or polar, because depending on the projection the term normal might mean either of those two. This article explains that Maurer (1925) did not like the name normal, and Lee (1944) replaced it with direct to avoid ambiguity. –jacobolus (t) 01:12, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * "The following terms can be found in contemporary English references: polar, equatorial, meridian, oblique, horizon and transverse aspect" –jacobolus (t) 01:16, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * But all of this is largely beside the point. We can have a separate discussion elsewhere about names for map projection aspects and how best to communicate to readers the diversity of existing names in the literature, etc. –jacobolus (t) 01:19, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * jacobolus why don't you improve the content in the article namespace by adding your findings? Euro2023 (talk) 02:45, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * If you like you (or someone else) can expand Map projection into a separate short article at aspect (cartography) or some similar title (or maybe make a new article at classification of map projections and add "Aspect" as a section), and include a full discussion of this topic. But again, that’s not really the point of this discussion. –jacobolus (t) 02:49, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * jacobolus, at Map projection again the term "normal". Euro2023 (talk) 03:35, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Sure, the term "normal aspect" is an accepted term in cartography, and nobody ever claimed otherwise. There is no problem whatsoever with using the term "normal aspect" within Wikipedia articles, notwithstanding disagreement among cartographers about which terminology is clearest. –jacobolus (t) 04:56, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Restricting article to the normal case
As said here: "this article is 99.9% about normal cylindrical projection, the mentioned oblique case is removed, so it is now 100% about normal cylindrical equal-area projection. Article content, section names etc. can be much simpler now." . All the named so called "specializations" are about the normal case. The normal cases are the most relevant. The other cases could be treated somewhere else, e.g. at Map_projection. But probably it would make sense to have one page for all cylindrical projections. What is also questionable, is that there are pages for the specializations - what for? Mini pages. Their content could be merged here to the so called "family" of normal cylindrical equal-area projections. Euro2023 (talk) 23:15, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * First and foremost, I think it's a bad idea to change the title of this article, because then every wiki-link is going to unnecessarily be a redirect. The phrase "normal cylindrical equal-area projection" is not a standard name; it occurs only 2 times in a Google scholar search of the academic literature compared to thousands of times for "cylindrical equal-area projection". So this is not a change supported by WP:COMMONNAME or WP:RS.
 * Second, I think it is a bad idea to eliminate discussion of oblique and transverse aspects from this article. They are not independently interesting enough to merit separate articles, and it does no harm to mention them here. –jacobolus (t) 23:25, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Throwing around "bad" is not a way to conduct a scientific discussion. Please refrain. Just mention facts.
 * "every wiki-link is going to unnecessarily be a redirect" - not true, not "every wiki-link is going to be a redirect" and if any *link* is going to be a redirect, then either it is not "unnecessarily" or if it is, it can be changed - has nothing to do with the restriction of the topic for this article.
 * "I think it is a bad idea to eliminate discussion of oblique and transverse aspects from this article" - while I gave reasons for doing it, you just claim "bad". Please make positive statements instead of normative ones.
 * Euro2023 (talk) 23:32, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * People will wiki-link to cylindrical equal-area projection because that is a standard name in wide use in the literature. Nobody is going to wiki-link to normal cylindrical equal-area projection because that is non-standard, unnecessarily wordy, and confusing to readers. –jacobolus (t) 23:35, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * You attack me as being "Nobody"? Euro2023 (talk) 23:43, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Nobody has ever linked to that title before you did (and as I said, this term is not in wide or current use in the technical literature). I am not trying to insult you. You seem to be very invested in making yourself a victim / making me a villain, but it is not productive to discussion. Please assume good faith (cf. Assume good faith; likewise, accusing other editors of "vandalism" is insulting and unhelpful). –jacobolus (t) 23:45, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * "Nobody has ever" ... cared about fixing several longstanding errors in the article ... until I came here. "You seem to be very invested in making yourself a victim / making me a villain" - but it is like that. Wikipedia and I are victims of your attacks. But you can improve. Stop claiming things you cannot prove, e.g. "Nobody is going to" and "confusing to readers". It is all just attacking me and my edits. And the vandal aspect of your edits has been explained to you, there is another section for that below. Can you please focus here on facts and scientific style of discussion? Euro2023 (talk) 00:12, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I strongly disagree that including multiple aspects of a projection in one page is an "error" or that you fixed it. In my view you removed content that rightfully belongs to this topic without putting it back anywhere else, adopted a non-standard and confusing title, egregiously violated Wikipedia community norms (in flagrant edit warring which has thankfully now slowed), and continue to assume bad faith and fling aggressive insults all over the place. I again ask you to familiarize yourself with normal Wikipedia practice and desist from off-topic mudslinging. –jacobolus (t) 01:23, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Anyway, back on topic, as for "bad", I tried to make my criticism explicit, but I can try again: In most cases (with some noteworthy exceptions like the transverse Mercator projection, "cylindrical projection" means an equatorial aspect, and that is assumed when someone writes or reads that term. Adding additional qualifiers is not helpful to readers, but just distracting/confusing, especially when it is a word as vague/over-subscribed as "normal" (cf. Normal). But cylindrical projections (including the cylindrical equal-area projection) are sometimes used in other aspects, and that is worth mentioning on the relevant pages. In most cases the other aspects are not independently interesting or notable enough to merit their own articles, but are still worth mentioning somewhere. (Having a large number of stub articles about obscure variants of map projections does not serve readers, adds maintenance burden for editors, and gets in the way of the Wikipedia project.) –jacobolus (t) 00:03, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * "cylindrical projection" means an equatorial aspect, and that is assumed when someone writes or reads that term - by you and maybe others - sometimes. But it wasn't by me. And sometimes - when you vote for not restricting the content to normal, you show that leaving normal out in the title exactly allows for other meanings.
 * "Adding additional qualifiers is not helpful to readers, but just distracting/confusing - can you proof that? Am I not a reader? How can a less vague title be confusing?
 * a word as vague/over-subscribed as "normal" - it should be explained, and there is text trying to do that in the article - before I arrived: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Normal_cylindrical_equal-area_projection&oldid=1081135026#Cylindrical_projections
 * Having a large number of stub articles about obscure variants of map projections does not serve readers, adds maintenance burden for editors - so you support my hesitant but existing proposal to merge each article about a named normal cylindrical equal-area projections here?
 * Euro2023 (talk) 00:12, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * leaving normal out in the title exactly allows for other meanings. – which is just fine. As I said, other aspects should also be discussed on the same page. Wikipedia page titles are not a precise scientific taxonomy. The goal is to put pages at the most common names (see WP:COMMONNAME) and then explain the context and details in the article text. –jacobolus (t) 00:17, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * merge each article about a named normal cylindrical equal-area projections here? – merging e.g. Behrmann projection, Hobo–Dyer projection, and Lambert cylindrical equal-area projection into here sounds fine to me. Gall–Peters projection has enough noteworthy non-technical content to merit its own article (see Summary style). But before doing that change, you should make a proposal in a new talk page section, link from the relevant other article talk pages, and wait a while (say at least a week, or maybe longer since these are relatively low-traffic articles) before going ahead with the merge. There's no hurry. –jacobolus (t) 00:23, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, most common name, but it should also accurately describe the content. And if it is confined, then use the most common name for that confined topic. Re: Gall–Peters projection - that conflates two topics, a projection and a specific map. The map and the related controversy could get their own page. There is nothing special about the projection apart from S=0.5. Euro2023 (talk) 00:31, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * No, the controversy is about the "projection" not about a specific map. Gall and Peters called it a "projection" and most of the people responding to them called it the "Gall–Peters projection". Wikipedia readers will expect to find an article under Gall–Peters projection and putting that material at some other page does not serve anyone. –jacobolus (t) 00:35, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * There is some inevitable semantic ambiguity about the difference between a "family of map projections", a "map projection", an aspect of a map projection, a fully qualified map projection (including precise center, scale, etc.), an abstract "map", and a "map" meaning a specific physical artifact. These different senses are sometimes confused, differences between them elided, etc. But Wikipedia should use language the way authors use it in practice in available "reliable sources" and do our best to be clear to readers without overburdening them with unnecessarily pedantic distinctions and qualifications. Writing technical material for a broad audience always involves some trade-offs between absolute precision, familiarity, and legibility. –jacobolus (t) 00:41, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * "unnecessarily" you can't stop it, can you? Euro2023 (talk) 00:42, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * This is not a personal attack. Pedantry (or if you like, precision) is in some cases essential to clear communication. In other cases it is unnecessary and distracting. We are having a discussion about what writing style to adopt in a collaborative project, not your personal merit as a human. –jacobolus (t) 01:26, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * You keep running around claiming "unnecessary" - can you express it differently? There are three common different types of cylindrical projection: normal, transverse, oblique. If a text is only about one type, but other texts are about other types, how would one distinguish in a concise manner the topics covered by the texts if not using the names for the types? Euro2023 (talk) 02:36, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * How can a less vague title be confusing? – When you include unexpected qualifiers and change a standard term to a non-standard one, it jerks readers out of their reading flow and causes them to wonder at the cause of the discrepancy. Then they need to devote conscious attention to considering what "normal" means in this context, perhaps going on a research digression to look up the word.
 * Even someone who knows that "normal aspect" for a cylindrical projection means an equatorial aspect and "normal aspect" for an azimuthal projection means a polar aspect might not immediately guess what the "normal" is intended to mean in front of "normal cylindrical equal-area projection", since the word "normal" is used in at least dozens of other senses in adjacent technical fields as well as several distinct senses in colloquial speech.
 * Speaking only for myself, I found your non-standard term jarring and confusing, and I can easily imagine other readers feeling the same. –jacobolus (t) 00:33, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Again, the term was in use before: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Normal_cylindrical_equal-area_projection&oldid=1081135026#Cylindrical_projections and is relevant for the named projections in that page. Each is normal, while other projections exists that are not normal. Instead of telling the reader in each case that the projection is normal, it can be stated once for all projections in the article - if the article is restricted to these. Euro2023 (talk) 00:38, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't doubt that the term "normal cylindrical projection" has been used before in this sense, but no source was given for that claim. Most of the examples of "normal cylindrical projection" I can find in literature are recent and seem to have gotten the term from Wikipedia. It doesn't seem to be widely adopted standard terminology.
 * Several of the uses I can find mean specifically a radial projection onto a cylinder ("normal to the axis"), resulting in the Lambert cylindrical equal-area projection; not cylindrical projections with rectangular graticule in general.
 * for example this paper, which cites Do Carmo's Differential Geometry of Curves and Surfaces (but I can find no mention of the term in the book). this paper and this one also seems to use "normal-cylindrical projection" and "normal cylindrical projection" in this sense.
 * As an example of a pretty good source, Osborne (2013) uses the term "normal cylindrical projection" in the sense used by your link above, but that’s a self-published monograph and not necessarily representative of standard use. I’m pretty sure Osborne got this term from Wikipedia.
 * Overall, I would not say that the term "normal cylindrical projection" is well enough established to use without explicit definition. Beyond the Lambert cylindrical projection I can also imagine readers thinking of the equirectangular projection which is the "normal" cylindrical projection in the sense of "standard" or "common". –jacobolus (t) 01:07, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, there wouldn't be any ambiguity if someone referred to a "cylindrical projection in normal aspect" or a "cylindrical projection in equatorial aspect". Either of those is fine (though I would prefer the equatorial for being more explicit). –jacobolus (t) 01:10, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

I found the three: normal, transverse, oblique. The article had nothing about transverse, and oblique only for one graphic having the description "Cylindrical equal-area projection with oblique orientation" - no link, no explanation. All the rest of the article was about the normal "orientation"/"aspect" cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Normal_cylindrical_equal-area_projection&oldid=1081135026. The formulae are only for the normal case, the table, the talk about specializations. For Mercator there are at least two articles: not one for all three forms. There is also a graphic having the text "Comparison of tangent and secant forms of normal, oblique and transverse Mercator projections" - the three again: "normal, oblique and transverse". The formulae for the oblique cylindrical equal-area projection are probably longer (= more "complicated"). It's fine to have them, I don't know if they are already in Wikipedia. The formulae for the transverse cylindrical equal-area projection are maybe not longer than for the normal case, but for these one too, I don't know if they are already in Wikipedia. But for the normal case formulae exist, images exist, individual mini articles exist. One could merge them and by doing so avoid a lot of duplication, since the differences are minimal. Why would one argue against splitting with respect to "oblique" (one graphic with text) and "transverse" (zero content) projections, but at the same time not care for merging the existing mini articles containing content for the "normal" projection? Euro2023 (talk) 02:36, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) Mercator projection
 * 2) Transverse Mercator projection


 * at the same time not care for merging the existing mini articles – Did you make a clear proposal about this somewhere? Did anyone oppose it? If not, go ahead and add a new talk page section with a merge proposal, mention it on the talk pages of all of the relevant articles, and open a conversation about it. I suspect other editors would support such a merge, but if not they could explain their reasoning for keeping those articles separate and we could discuss and come to some consensus. My personal opinion is that there are a substantial number of stub map projection articles which would be more useful to readers if carefully combined so they could be put into context. –jacobolus (t) 02:51, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * jacobolus, instead of handing out tasks you could perform them. The passage was directly meant to refer to you: you care about a tiny unsourced part in the article that I moved out and don't care for moving larger parts more closely related to this article in. Euro2023 (talk) 03:49, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Nobody can demand you do anything. Wikipedia is a volunteer project. But if you don’t try to achieve consensus through discussion, people will revert your edits and then if you try to edit war about it, ask an administrator to block you. That would be much simpler for everyone else involved, but would probably leave you feeling pretty frustrated. –jacobolus (t) 04:18, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

I think it’s unnecessary to rename this page to "Normal cylindrical equal-area projection" and include the word "normal" every time "cylindrical equal-area projection" is mentioned. That’s not what authors in the literature call it, and writing "normal" repeatedly clutters up the text and makes it harder to read. Yes, it’s technically incorrect, but I think most English sentences are technically incorrect; what matters is whether the way readers interpret the sentence is correct, and I expect readers to understand that "cylindrical projection" usually refers to a cylindrical projection in the equatorial aspect. If it’s confusing the way it was, then we can add a note to the lede saying that, unless otherwise specified, this article is about projections in the normal aspect. If we don’t put the transverse/oblique info on this page, then we can link to it wherever it is with a summary-style section so that the title of the article accurately reflects its scope. Justin Kunimune (talk) 13:24, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Edit warring
you need to stop edit warring. It is extremely counterproductive. I don't want to get administrators involved here, but you are now well outside Wikipedia guidelines and will be temporarily banned from editing if you persist. –jacobolus (t) 22:56, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * user:jacobolus you need to stop vandalizing. If you revert some stuff and not other and leave pages in an inconsistent state, then it is doing harm to the project - on purpose, since you know it. Euro2023 (talk) 22:59, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * This article should not be moved to a different title until you have consensus for the change. If the state is inconsistent when the article is at its old title, we can instead revert to a previous state. How far back do you want the revert to go? –jacobolus (t) 23:03, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * jacobolus I don't want any revert, since I changed a lot in the article and would not like to lose that. Please explain why you are so mad on reverting. Euro2023 (talk) 23:09, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Reverting people's changes is not vandalism, but is a natural part of Wikipedia process. See BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. But after the "revert" stage, you need to discuss. A BOLD, revert, revert, revert, revert, ... cycle is not a functional means for collaboration. Beyond that, when you revert over and over again, that violates Wikipedia's three revert rule. If you persist we will need to get an administrator involved, and you can be temporarily blocked from editing. But I would really rather not do that, as I am sure we can resolve this dispute more successfully by talking about it and reaching community consensus than by trying to engage in rules lawyering. –jacobolus (t) 23:05, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * That depends on how the reverts are applied. Your style of revert leaves the article in bad state. There is no need to rush it. Yes, talking would be good. Can you please stop the reverts? Euro2023 (talk) 23:09, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * You are right, there is no need to rush. Which is why changes that are going to propagate across many changes should be made with community consensus. –jacobolus (t) 23:15, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * What is "many" here? Did you revert "many" without talking first? Euro2023 (talk) 23:21, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * You created a new category, started changing many of the wiki-links to this article to include the word "normal", and so on. All of the follow-on changes from this title change you want should wait for some consensus. –jacobolus (t) 23:31, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * jacobolus you mean, I did what you did? https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Cylindrical_equal-area_projections&action=history Euro2023 (talk) 23:34, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, I moved your category to remove the word "normal" which is not supported by any community consensus. Having a subcategory for cylindrical equal-area projections is not in itself controversial (though if at some point most of the specific-parameter pages get merged into here, it would cease to be a meaningful category and could be re-absorbed); I think that's just fine. –jacobolus (t) 23:36, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * You didn't move but created a new one. Without support by "any community consensus"? Euro2023 (talk) 00:16, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * That's how categories work. I recategorized the articles and copied your content to the new category title. –jacobolus (t) 01:34, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * jacobolus, then don't claim that you moved. Euro2023 (talk) 01:45, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

I find these recent edits by Euro2023 to be extremely disruptive and I disagree with their motivation, as per the discussion we were conducting until Euro2023 unilaterally decided everything had to be their way. I agree with jacobolus in all the reasons the articles should not be split up into practically useless stubs.

The problems Euro2023 seems to be trying to solve could be dealt with simply by remarking at the beginning of the article that the article text applies to the conventional presentation for the projection, which in this case is straight, horizontal equator with north up and west-to-east-equals-left-to-right. Strebe (talk) 01:42, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Strebe,
 * dare to explain what you mean by 'these recent edits by Euro2023'?
 * why you "find" them "to be extremely disruptive"?
 * I disagree with their motivation, as per the discussion we were conducting until Euro2023 unilaterally decided everything had to be their way dare to explain what motivation and what you mean by "everything had to be their way"? Where was that so? What discussion?
 * I agree with jacobolus in all the reasons the articles should not be split up into practically useless stubs - are you joining jacobolus in spreading false attack information? I didn't suggest "the articles" to "be split up into practically useless stubs". On the contrary, I suggested to merge small articles about the "spezializations" here.
 * Please explain and proof your claims attacking me or retract them. Euro2023 (talk) 01:53, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Euro2023: @Strebe has been a productive and constructive member of the Wikipedia community for 20 years, during which time he has spent countless hours sharing his expert knowledge and improving articles, in particular (relevant here) those about map projections, a field in which he is a professional researcher. I haven't interacted with him all too often, but have always known him to be polite, friendly, and respectful to other community members old and new.
 * By contrast, you just signed up last week and are already picking a big fight.
 * Please take a deep breath, take my assurance that none of us here is out to get you or has any personal animus for granted for a moment, and try to understand why your current approach is bothering both of us. I will do my best not to get frustrated myself.
 * After that, see if you can articulate a clear vision for how you think this (and other cylindrical map projection) articles should be organized and titled. Make up a proposal including how the articles are now, what changes you want to make immediately, and what larger changes you think should be made beyond that. Put it in a new talk page section. Then we can rope in a few more editors, open the discussion about it for a week or two, and come to some community consensus.
 * What I am worried about (and I suspect Strebe has the same concern) is that you will try to take every separate aspect of every map projection on Wikipedia and try to split them into separate articles titled {"normal X projection", "transverse X projection", "oblique X projection"}, and then we’ll have a triplication of effort for no real benefit to readers. If that is not your intention, then if you would please explain clearly what you do want, we can have a better discussion.
 * All the best, jacobolus (t) 02:44, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * jacobolus again a hostile framing. Did you look at the article state before I edited it? I removed a long standing false statement, then comes Strebe in a hostile, because deceptive manner, using the edit summary "It’s true. Undid revision 1132135156 by Euro2023" - portraying me as someone who made an error. But I didn't.
 * By contrast, you just signed up last week and are already picking a big fight. - I was attacked, first by Strebe, then by you. And you claim I am "already picking a big fight"? Because I am new, you are allowed to treat me like shit, not answer questions related to claims made (Strebe), ...
 * What I am worried about (and I suspect Strebe has the same concern) is that you will try to take every separate aspect of every map projection on Wikipedia and try to split them into separate articles... did I create any new article about a projection? I think I didn't. But have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gall_isographic_projection&diff=909848433&oldid=889763216 - Strebe 2019 and ongoing didn't care about merging that mini "article"
 * then if you would please explain clearly what you do want as can be seen from my edits I want to make this article error-free, remove any duplication contained in it, remove broken links, remove content not fitting with the main part of the article. I would like to add better images and made three requests in Commons regarding that, two users responded, Strebe not. Outside the article, I would like to see better explanations of the classifications of map projections. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Map_projection&oldid=1132670105#Classification - starting: "A fundamental projection classification is based on the type of projection surface onto which the globe is conceptually projected." doesn't explain "fundamental" nor why this one is listed first. And a little later "Many mathematical projections, however, do not neatly fit into any of these three conceptual projection methods." So, the fundamental is only fundamental for some projections that fit neatly? "conceptual" - did the authors of this section have a "concept" when putting words into it?
 * Euro2023 (talk) 03:32, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * “Hostile” is entirely in your head. Nobody here has been remotely hostile (a bit frustrated, sure). But since you are unfamiliar with prevailing community norms, you are misinterpreting people’s actions, mis-ascribing motives, and not seeing how your own actions come across to other people. Which is why I recommend taking a deep breath, stepping back for a bit, and trying to approach the community with a more open mind and less aggressive/aggrieved attitude. –jacobolus (t) 04:10, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * For instance, note that “disruptive editing” is a term of art (Wikipedia-specific jargon word) here and not an insult. –jacobolus (t) 04:13, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Protection
The page is fully protected in the last stable version. It is also move protected. If you can't solve the problems using the above section the go to Dispute resolution. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 17:24, 10 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I trust we will be able to work out some kind of community consensus through discussion. –jacobolus (t) 20:07, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Based on User talk:Euro2023 I will unprotect the page. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 03:16, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Proposal: merge specific cylindrical equal-area projection pages into this page
Separate from the discussion about aspect, @Euro2023 mentioned above wanting to merge some of the stub pages for cylindrical equal-area projections into this page. That seems like a good idea to me, as they generally don’t involve enough specific detail to stand alone, and in my opinion would be clearer in the context of a general article. I would propose making a section of this article for specific parameter choices, and then making subsections for each one that seems interesting / noteworthy enough. We can merge and redirect Lambert cylindrical equal-area, Behrmann projection, and Hobo–Dyer projection, and then also add subsections about the Tobler world-in-a-square projection, and possibly also the Smyth, Edwards, and Balthasart projections if sources can be found discussing their importance. The Gall–Peters projection should also have a section here, but involves significant non-technical commentary that in my opinion is best served by keeping it as a separate article (cf. Summary style), as the whole social/political debate seems out of scope for this article. –jacobolus (t) 20:16, 10 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I support this proposal. Strebe (talk) 20:28, 10 January 2023 (UTC)