Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Lithuania physical map

Lithuania physical map
This map took long several months of work and now it illustrates Lithuania and Geography of Lithuania. It is a huge map, one of the best (if not the best) maps online. Created by User:Knutux using Inkscape. SVG source is also on commons. If any map is worth FP, this is it.
 * Nominate and support. - Renata 11:55, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Totally support. - eLNuko 12:09, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Support, especially considering that it was created by a wikipedian. It looks very professional. --Janke | Talk 12:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. An example of Wikipedia's best work. -- bcasterline • talk 15:02, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment very impressive, but why not just nominate the SVG version? chowells 15:09, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Answer because in many computers svg does not render correctly, for example mine. Renata 16:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
 * That's a fault in your computer, not the SVG format. ;) --Dante Alighieri | Talk 18:18, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Symbol comment vote.svg|15px|Comment]] Comment Actually, I'm pretty sure the only browser that supports raw .SVG files is Opera. But, that shouldn't matter because Wikipedia servers convert all .SVG images into .PNG images when the that image is requested. The .SVG image of this map is Image:LithuaniaPhysicalMap-Detailed.svg, but the image seems to be corrupt. — Black and White (TALKCONTRIBS) 19:42, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Konqueror and the new Firefox also support it. In that spirit violently oppose PNG, weakly support SVG. It is amazing to me that people are still discussing about this no-brainer. Concerning this very map, the height scale bothers me, why clip away such a big rectangle? --Dschwen 17:49, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Almost any browser can display SVGs with Adobe's SVG Viewer plugin installed... &mdash;Vanderdecken&there4; &int;  &xi;  &phi;   11:15, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Symbol comment vote.svg|15px|Comment]] Comment The file was not corrupt (downloading svg shows it correcty), there were some mediawiki rendering problems. I have re-uploaded the file and now it is rendered, but incomplete renderer does not support some features (for example, specifying system language), so does not render correctly. Knutux 04:14, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Northern border of Lithuania pierces the edge of the map. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 15:11, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Support If The overflowing border is really disturbing. If anyone can photoshop it, or even better, figure out the error in the XML in the .SVG file and edit it from there, I will support it. — Black and White (TALKCONTRIBS) 19:53, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Neutral. I'm alright with the overflowing borders, since numerous maps have done this throughout history. My only problem is that the text naming plains and plateaus is nearly unreadable. &mdash; 0918 BRIAN &bull; 2006-06-01 21:19
 * Are you alright with slavery since numerous cultures have condoned it throughout history? ;) Seriously though, what reason is there to have the borders overflow the edge in that manner? --Dante Alighieri | Talk 21:51, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I just don't see any problem with it. &mdash; BRIAN 0918 &bull; 2006-06-02 05:19
 * Could you describe just a bit more the unrreadable part? It looks just fine (just not on a thumb size, of course) to me so I am not sure hopw one could fix it. Also, please bear in mind that the text is transparent so not to shadow smaller names of cities and rivers and lakes which, if bigger, could not be crammed onto the map. Renata 01:20, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I know why it's transparent; it's just too transparent to be readable unless you already know what the words say. &mdash; BRIAN 0918 &bull; 2006-06-02 05:19


 * Neutral - as per Brian0918 - it's too hard to read some of the features. But it's a pretty good map.  I also don't know why the key to the countours is so large. - Hahnch  e  n 22:18, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment. Perhaps the names of the cities should have round dots like most maps to show exactly where the location is? Without the dots and the fact that it is italicized, it was hard for me to distinguish that they are cities, and not regions or something else. Swollib 06:10, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
 * In fact, that was my only negative response, too. The "overflow" is so common on maps that I didn't even react to it, originally. --Janke | Talk 07:05, 2 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Weak support Support The map itself is very good, and the border overflow is only very slightly disturbing. I do think it could use some typographic work though, as not everything is easy to read. City "dots" sounds like a good thing as well. erikD 16:18, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I just can't justify the northern border. As well as there is some difficulty reading some of the names.say1988 03:55, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
 * oppose. Boring. a map shouldn't be featured pic.211.30.199.85 07:09, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
 * (New user, whose only edits are on FPC, --Janke | Talk 07:27, 3 June 2006 (UTC))
 * Oppose. City names but no dot to indicate exact location?! - User:Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:25, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Too many different text styles, often overlapping, make it difficult to look at (as well as the dot issue).--ragesoss 23:08, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Symbol oppose vote.svg|15px]] Oppose Not a big fan of maps as being FP's and can't see this one as particularly outstanding anyway. --Fir0002 style="color:#C6CACC; background:#F8FCFF">www 10:14, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Any reason why maps shouldn't be featured pictures? Especially this map, as it is of high quality, high resolution(infinite with SVG), certainly is of Wikipedia's best work(you don't find much high quality, free, SVG-maps around) and is highly useful. In fact, on the only account that I can see it failing the featured picture criterias is that it is not as pleasing to the eye as it could be. I think there are several reasons why it could be better. 1: Due to it's semi-transparency the grey/white pattern shines thourgh when looking at the medium size version. This could probably be remedied by simply adding a white background. 2: The map tries to do a lot at once. As such, when viewing the smaller versions, it will look cluttered. However, if you put a designer to work on the colours and the type, that should help a great deal. One change that would help would help is changing the colours in the height-map from going from green to red to going from green to brown, and using colours with low saturation. That way the rivers will stick out better and one could use red for cities. When speaking of cities, smaller cities should probably have icons rather than differently sized and differently coloured dots. For the terrain names like "Southeastern Plain" one should probably use a smaller, heavily letter-spaced serif font. City names should probably also be placed consistently. It's been some time since I've used InkScape, and I've never been an expert, but if noone else is up to it I can try to do some work on the map when the most recent changes find their way over to the SVG version. erikD 15:03, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
 * On recent edits to address common complains:
 * City dots were darkened
 * Legend added
 * Dim plateaus removed (they should not have been there) Renata 11:10, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. Extremely nice work. No reason why maps should be excluded from being featured. Valentinian (talk) 21:55, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Support M.K. 00:42, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Support Juraune 16:39, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Neutral, with comments. I'm hesitant about this one because I don't think any of us is qualified to say whether it's accurate or not.  Is User:Knutux a cartographer?  What source was used to create the map?  If it was another map, and that map was copyrighted, then this is a copyright violation, even though it was created and licensed by a Wikipedian.  In other words, it is a copyright violation to draw a map if the way you're doing it is by looking at another copyrighted map. -- moondigger 19:18, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
 * AFAIK, you can freely redraw a map without infringing copyright. The data on a map is factual, not "artistic", and facts cannot be copyrighted. The coloring, typography and other details can be, so a specific map (or map style) can indeed be copyrighted. But, a caveat: IANAL... --Janke | Talk 20:44, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
 * You can't copyright national borders. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 00:12, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Let me explain what I mean about the copyrights to maps. Many cartographers (at least those in the U.S.) insert a few fake features into their maps in obscure areas.  They do this so they can more easily prove copyright infringement against publishers who make maps by copying theirs.  If a given feature doesn't actually exist, how can a publisher claim they DIDN'T copy from a competing publisher's map, containing the fake feature?  I admit I am not a lawyer, but I am fairly certain that (at least according to U.S. law) you cannot copy a map (by hand or otherwise) unless the source you're copying from is in the public domain or is under a free license. -- moondigger 01:38, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

FYI: IANAL and TINLA. Maps (other than those produced by the U.S. Government) are copyrighted, and may not be reproduced by any method without explicit permission of the publisher. Map copyright infringers are subject to the same copyright infringement penalties that apply to copyrighted writing. This is U.S. law, and may not apply in other countries. I found several references to this, including one that summarizes the issues pretty well here.
 * Comment Spikebrennan 16:49, 8 June 2006 (UTC) The intersections of international borders are a little sloppy.

I don't know how this particular map was produced, and am not making any accusations. But because we don't know from the description how the map was made, it is worth considering. -- moondigger 02:20, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Even if .png is thought acceptable for a map, it's still only 8/6 not counting Black & White's conditional vote ~ Veledan • Talk 10:59, 10 June 2006 (UTC) ~ Veledan • Talk 10:59, 10 June 2006 (UTC)