Template talk:European Union Labelled Map (blue)

Font size too small
In the current version, font size is too small for "Member states", "Candidates", and "Croatia". In mac browsers, the text degenerates. —Tokek 13:54, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Abbreviations
The style for text is not applicable to images, where space and design considerations need to be taken care of. Take a look at Template:World Labelled Map and Template:United_States_Labelled_Map, for example, they each use scores of abbreviations. This is a map of the European Union, and your version makes a very small candidate country its most prominent feature. It is absurd, on a clickable map, where everyone can get an explanation of the acronym in a second by just clicking it or hovering over it.

The fact that you are not doing anything about the abbreviation "Lux." on the same map clearly demonstrates that your concern about the style guide is less than sincere. sys &lt; in 21:36, 16 May 2007 (UTC)


 * "Lux." is an abbreviation; it's not an acronym. "FYROM" is an acronym, and for most (non-Greek) people an unfamiliar one; it needs to be spelled out. This is fundamentally different from the abbreviations for US states, which are taught to every American from school age onwards. Your own motives in repeatedly opposing this are plainly to do with the rancid ultranationalism that you've persistently demonstrated on pretty much every other article to do with the Republic of Macedonia; it's blatant POV-pushing and it needs to stop, now. -- ChrisO 06:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * [] talks about "Acronyms and abbreviations", so your distinction is purely artificial and highly insincere. And the world map I mentioned before has many acronyms not immediately familiar to everyone. In any case, this is a map of members of the European Union, and your edit looks like a label, turning it into a map of one little country with others around it. sys &lt; in 06:54, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I must say Chris has a point here. Lux. is not the same with FYROM. A reader easily understands that Lux. is Luxembourg, but outside Greece readers are unfamiliar with "FYROM". What Chris did was just to explain what FYROM means: he explained the acronyms, and presented the official name of the country, with which it is recognized by the EU ("former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"). I oppose the initial edits of Chris, when he replaced FYROM with "Macedonia" (because for the EU no state with the name "Macedonia" exists), but I do not understand why it is a bad thing to spell out the acronym "FYROM". After all, this is the official name with which EU (and Greece as well) have recognized this country. And I also agree that an acron. and an abbrev. are not exactly the same thing.--Yannismarou 09:19, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * If you hover your cursor over FYROM, or click on it, the explanation will appear in a second or two. As a user interface, this is always much preferable to an asterisk pointing somewhere else in the map. This is the web after all.
 * If you look at Template:World Labelled Map, for example, many countries are simply represented as a dot, for similar reasons, while acronyms such as USA are also in use, even obscure ones such as PNG.
 * I have no political objection to spelling out "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", I use this form too, (I just did!). If this was a large-scale map where the words could fit without obscuring the entire Balkan peninsula, I'd fully spell them out. Under the constraints of a quarter-screen map, an acronym or abbreviation is highly reasonable.sys &lt; in 10:09, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Most people have a valid point here. How about placing a legend noting something as "for full view, mouse over the acronyms and abbreviations" or similar? After all there's always a possibility that a person would not be familiar with a country (or country’s name) so even an abbreviated form might cause some ambiguity. --10:49, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I think that's fine!--Yannismarou 10:55, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Every underlined word in Wikipedia is clickable, and, if the user has the appropriate browser & settings, mouse-over enabled. Underlining non-linked words is strongly discouraged. Therefore there is no need to explain this concept on every single page/map. I am not reverting your edit, but I suggest that you do so, as it ruins the presentation of the map, and it is not needed. Regards, sys &lt; in 11:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I see what you mean. I was referring however to shortened names as "Neth." (for the Netherlands) which, in my opinion, is not exactly a standard abbreviated form by any means. No prob though, I will revert. --11:17, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * You peeps can always consider it as an option though, even if it feels like an over-kill. --11:23, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Candidates and presentation
Why aren't the candidate countries shown on this map any more? And why do I seem to see double when I look at the template page? Caveat lector 13:10, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Czech Republic
I just noticed my edit unwittingly reverted the last editor and feel I should give some explanation. The thing is, I'm not sure the naming is inconsistent. All countries are given their conventional short forms: France is the conventional short form used for the French Republic; Ireland is the conventional short form (and only official name) of Ireland. The conventional short form used for the Czech Republic is the Czech Republic. Czechia isn't really standard at all. --Lo2u (T • C) 00:42, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

The Greek islands?
Looking the map even with a magnifier, I have a difficulty to find the Greek islands, especially those of the Aegean. So, I was wondering: Don't they belong to the EU?!

Excuse me for the wording. I do not want to belittle those creating this nice animated map, but I would like to have some comments on this particular issue. Is there something wrong with my vision? Am I missing something? Do I fail to understand something?--Yannismarou (talk) 23:36, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Shrug. It was probably created from some blank map (can't identify which exactly, there are several at commons:Category:Blank maps of Europe), and the creator of either the blank map or the derived one didn't bother about such details. Several of our blank maps there are not very good about islands. It's not extremely important for the purpose of this particular application, of course, but sure, at least Rhodes and Lesbos are large enough to make their omission something of an oversight. You can always go and grab some of the other maps and re-do the animation on that basis (File:Blank map europe.png or a cropped version of that would work.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:16, 7 April 2009 (UTC)


 * It also doesn't show the Aeolian islands, many of the Hebridean islands or the Lofotens. I don't think anything POV is meant by that omission, it's probably just a matter of small land masses not being visible at the map's current scale. -- ChrisO (talk) 07:52, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I did not say that there was a POV intention, but the omission is a fact. Now, I am not a specialist in maps (this is a problem!), but with some guidance and instructions I would like to have a look and see if indeed the islands are not visible in the map's current scale. For instance, Zakynthos is visible. Why not Lesbos, Chios, Rhodes and Corfu as well?--Yannismarou (talk) 08:04, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * No, they are obviously really not there, in this electronic file. It could be an effect of the software that scaled down the coastline from some larger model and ironed out small items in the process, or it could have been a manual intervention of the editor, who felt those spots were too small to bother coloring them. Who knows. Note that most Aegean islands would have been hardly more than one or two pixels, and with the coastline contour drawn around them there would be no visible space left to fill in a colour. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:16, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Confusing at first
I found this map confusing at first because I didn't notice the year number in the corner and did not realize it's an animation. To clarify this, could someone change the single year number to a timeline of year numbers? This would make it very clear that it's an animation. Here is my ASCII art depiction of my recommendation for clarity:

<..*......*....*..*.*.*.>          ^         1973

The year indicator moves horizontally as the map animates. Tempshill (talk) 17:59, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Different colors
I see the names of the countries written in different colors. Switzerland, e.g., green, the EU countries black, many others blue, and Serbia orange. Does it show like this also for others, or is my browser freaking. T om ea s y T C 15:11, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Writing formatting
What is the purpose of the italics and the blue links? I don't see any particular relationships between each type of formatting. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 17:28, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Italics are non-EU states, I would say. No idea why some are blue. The colors should be unified if there is no reason to have a difference. T om ea s y T C 20:20, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Cyprus
There is a great error as far as Cyprus is concerned. The entire territory of the Republic of Cyprus is part of the EU, not only the free one. Please fix the map so as the northern turkish-occupied part of the island (where only the application of the acquis communautaire is suspended) to be seen in blue. Thank you in advance.87.202.139.116 (talk) 00:31, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

^ this - I was browsing and seeing the error on the shading of Cyprus was annoying for me. It's been 18 months since this was pointed out, is no one looking at the talk page? 195.97.38.145 (talk) 13:31, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

This is so true! Regardless of political stallmate, "North" Cyprus de jure is an EU soil. Please correct it. --131.220.35.29 (talk) 12:44, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Why is no one doing something about this? This is a disgrace to everything that the EU and International Law stand for. Fix this map! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.5.53.52 (talk) 05:54, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

B&H link
I'm not sure how this works, but B&H isn't clickable, perhaps due to size, please if you have the know-how do something about this... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.36.175.70 (talk) 01:10, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Faroe
Where is the Faroe Island!!? - User:Liturin 13:11, 18 January 2014


 * Hi Liturin. Welcome to Wikipedia. If you have questions or comments about an article or template, please add it to the relevant wp:talkpage and not to the article or template where it might be visible to the public-at-large.
 * The Faroe Islands are on the map but given the area covered by the map and the size of the islands they only occupy seven pixels. They are also coloured grey as they are outside the European Union which obviously make them harder to see. — Blue-Haired Lawyer t 16:36, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Algeria and Greenland
Would it be possible to change the chronology so Algeria leaving the EU at the 1962 independence is included? As it is now, one gets the impression that it left in 1973.

Also, would it be possible to change the geographical area covered so the map could show (a corner of) Greenland joining with Denmark in 1973 and leaving in 1985 (after the 1979 autonomy)?

With those changes it would be perfect. --Thathánka Íyotake (talk) 23:30, 1 February 2014 (UTC)