Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Maps/Archive 2011

Need help with template code
I need some help with this: Template:Location map Netherlands ABC islands (Lesser Antilles). The link to "ABC islands" is directing to the disambig page, instead of to ABC islands (Lesser Antilles). I can't figure out how to fix it. Thanks, --Funandtrvl (talk) 22:21, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

mysterious black rectangle
I just uploaded File:South_America-en.svg and a small black rectangle appeared under the word Ecuador. It doesn't show up when I edit the file in inkscape. Can anyone tell me what's going on? Any other thoughts on this map would be welcome. I decided to cut out all Caribbean countries, including Trinidad & Tobago, for the sake of simplicity. - TheMightyQuill (talk) 18:46, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I was able to get it - I don't know why it wasn't showing up in Inkscape, but I found it via a text editor - a tag at the very end of the file. Kmusser (talk) 14:05, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Wonderful. Thanks Kmusser! - TheMightyQuill (talk) 20:28, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * This is a dead map showing a secret waypoint beacon to Point Nemo. walk victor falktalk 00:52, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Missing topic: cartographic censorship
It seems that we're missing a subject that Harley and others have discussed in some surprising depth. Uncle G (talk) 03:07, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * We do, it's at Censorship of maps, although it could certainly use help - and I like your title better. Kmusser (talk) 03:37, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not my name for the subject. It's Harley's, from Maps, Knowledge, and Power.   Mark Monmonier uses the same name.  So you probably like it because it's in the literature on the subject rather than being something that I just made up on the spot myself.  &#9786; Uncle G (talk) 11:43, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That's synonyms. Wikipedia is more popular, and have its own naming usage, we usually follow the literature' names, but we can also adapt. Native English speakers: it's up to you to choice ! Yug (talk)  16:53, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

best practice for animal range maps?
Has anyone written guidance or an essay or had a good talk on the best practice for animal range maps?

Would like to know some good dos and don'ts in terms of getting good output, either commissioned or by myself. Also, IANAMM, so if you can point to helpful tools, much appreciated.TCO (talk) 17:52, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Hello,
 * A start point is summarize there but I was not free enough to do it. So this field is waiting someone to create a set of best practices. Yug (talk)  11:15, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

A reference showing a map icon
HI've added a reference to a reliable source to the articles Ljubljana (No. 28) and Sava (No. 4) and an earth icon to a map appeared next to the reference in the 'References' section. First of all, I didn't intend the reference to include the link to this map. Second, even more important, this map shows the location correctly in the article Ljubljana but at the wrong place (somewhere in the Atlantic near Africa instead of in Slovenia, Europe) in the article Sava. What is the cause of the problem? Is there any way to fix this? --Eleassar my talk 11:01, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The Earth icon is automatically added for any Geopedia link with params set, for example, try this vs. this. The popup map is showing the correct location for me in the Ljubljana article, but not here? Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  01:24, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It has been fixed. --Eleassar my talk 20:58, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Citing sources
I have added a section regarding the citing of sources and/or methodology as a shocking number of maps, including those used VERY widely across wikis, such as

do not cite their sources or methodology at all. In the former case, the author admitted the sources were over 75 years old and has pledged to re-work the map this year incorporating additional sources (however, this means leaving this incorrect map live on 27 different wikis for over a year!), and in the second case (just located now) the source used has not yet been identified. prat (talk) 11:36, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

maps-for-free.com
Hello map people! I need help. I am about to add maps to some lake articles. This example is great, but I would like to use MSPaint and add that line that's at the bottom of maps showing how long a km is etc. How can I find out the scale of the example map? Thanks!!!! Please answer really, really, really fast, because I'm very excited about this and want to get started right away. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:05, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You could take two points (preferrably far apart) in the map and measure their distance (in reality) using something like google earth or extract their distance from a paper map/atlas. All you need to do then is to scale it to get a round number for the length bar. Please note that this only makes sense for maps covering relatively small areas. Generally for world maps, etc a centimetre on the map will correspond to different distances depending on where you are on the map. bamse (talk) 10:41, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Good plan. I will try it. Many thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 10:46, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Need better template for citing topographic maps
The Cite map template doesn't adequately reference topographic maps or perhaps other serious maps. It leaves out scale, publication date, language, map type (contour, shaded, outline etc.), series name, index for the specific sheet, lat/lon range, projection, geoid, accuracy. LADave (talk) 05:45, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ Discussed and resolved here: Wikipedia_talk:Citation_templates
 * LADave (talk) 18:23, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * LADave, I'm suddenly thinking about GIS data, such ETOPO1. We will need a citation template for that ! I'm considering to create a such GIScitation template but first ask your opinion : ] Yug  (talk)  05:01, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

QGis lesson 1: Create a topographic background

 * If you are nearby London, there will also be some 'free*' GIS/QGis courses. (* = £15 for food/facilities)
 * http://www.faunalia.co.uk/en/courses
 * 12th July 2011 - Beginning Computer Mapping (Dauntsey, Wilts, UK)
 * 19th September 2011 - Quantum GIS (Reading, Berks, UK)
 * 20th September 2011 - Advanced Quantum GIS (Reading, Berks, UK)
 * Would be nice if some of us go there. Yug (talk)  16:24, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

PLEASE ANSWER THERE : Wikipedia_talk:Graphic_Lab/Map_workshop Yug (talk)  16:36, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Request for Deletion notice
Moxy (talk) 16:31, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Australia/New Guinea Map
I've been creating some range maps lately, and I was interested in creating a map showing a range that is across both Australia and Papua New Guinea. To do this I'm going to need a range map that shows both countries, but I'm having trouble finding one. I did find, but I'd prefer if there wasn't that slanty-curve on it. I'm looking for a map that is grey, blank without labels, such as (but showing New Guinea also).

Does anybody know where a map like this is? Or is there some place where I can crop it from? JamesDouch (talk) 01:50, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

South Sudan
Tomorrow the Republic of South Sudan will become a nation, and all world maps, and maps of Africa will be incorrect. Obviously, a new world map needs to be prepared for use in templates. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.239.134.231 (talk) 12:36, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Greetings folks, we've been discussing maps at the South Sudan WikiProject as well (right there in the very first topic). This is one of our primary concerns with currently available maps of Africa, and they all need to be changed now.  Let's work closely together on this one, it is beneficial to both projects.  CycloneGU (talk) 14:17, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you know some GIS file with South Sudan's borders ? Yug (talk)  16:24, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I think I have something ;), come later to confirm Yug (talk)  18:58, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I hate that Google hasn't even updated yet. That is an annoyance.  CycloneGU (talk) 14:38, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * What link with us ? you use google to draw wikimaps ? there are some free data, I'm interested to know more ; ) Yug (talk)  20:38, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * someone else mentions trying to get involved in a south sudan map here

I went ahead and created commons:Category:Maps needing South Sudan political boundaries. Feel free to add any maps that need updating to it, or look into it if you're looking for maps to edit. If the map shouldn't be overwritten by the new file, just add something like at the top. -MissMJ (talk) 21:28, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Afar triangle
I've been trying to sort out the 2011 Nabro eruption page and the sources show the local authorities mentioning regions and places that I can't locate. I'm aware that spelling is an issue as the transliteration from the ethiopian character set doesn't match well (so for example Sireru and Seriru may well be the same place), but nothing even close shows up on a wiki or web search.

this map (left) is interesting and pretty good (though I think the shading that seperates eritrea from the areas outside the border seems to alter the apparent altitude on the border by about 200m ;)

this map (right) is more useful but doesn't show any of the names I've been looking for - in order to improve the nabro eruption article.

Google maps doesn't show much extra, I wondered if any of you chaps had any suggestions for a source for a more detailed map of the region with more stuff labeled? EdwardLane (talk) 10:38, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * If they are older places names, here's an old Defense Mapping Agency map that might help you out. http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ams/africa/txu-oclc-6589746-sheet15-7th-ed.jpg Kmusser (talk) 14:12, 8 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks very much - don't know if the info is on that map yet but it certainly looks like it might be useful.EdwardLane (talk) 17:43, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Help needed at Point Loma, San Diego
Please see the discussion at Talk:Point Loma, San Diego. Point Loma is a peninsula geographically, and is a neighborhood of San Diego politically; the neighborhood is basically contiguous with the peninsula. The map on the main page is not a good representation, because it shows the entire Point Loma area, with a pushpin located way down at the extreme southernmost tip of the peninsula. Several of us have agreed that the pushpin is misleading because it suggests that only the tip of the peninsula is Point Loma, when in fact the whole peninsula is. At the very least, Point Loma is everything south of a line connecting the river mouth with the bay; many would consider it to be everything south of the river, north of the bay, and east of I-5. That area is too big (on the scale shown) for any pushpin to be accurate, and we are leaning toward simply deleting the pushpin. None of us knows how to do that! Any help or knowledgeable advice appreciated. --MelanieN (talk) 05:12, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Oops, maybe I was supposed to ask this at the Graphics Lab page. I'll copy it over there. --MelanieN (talk) 05:35, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Pin removed, they could do with a shaded region on their map. EdwardLane (talk) 10:24, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Modified Robinson world maps
Tomchen1989 on Commons has raised concerns over the use of script-processed modifications of the Robinson world map, or those that discard the world outline. Two such maps which are heavily utilised and built upon are File:BlankMap-FlatWorld6.svg and File:BlankMap-World6, compact.svg. Since both are non-standard projections, should their use be discouraged? Attempts to use File:BlankMap-FlatWorld6.svg as a push-pin map (as suggested by the file description) would likely result in broken locations, since it isn't properly equirectangular, while File:BlankMap-World6-Equirectangular.svg exists but doesn't seem to be used anywhere. (Why is it framed anyway?) As for File:BlankMap-World6, compact.svg, since the Robinson projection is properly used for world maps, are such modifications (Antarctica removed, etc.) acceptable? I note that its use is suggested in this project's Conventions page.

I'm asking here because the original post didn't generate much discussion, and I couldn't find a place for centralised discussion on maps at Commons. If there is a more proper place for this please point me there. --Paul_012 (talk) 09:05, 17 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't have a problem dropping the outline and/or Antarctica, but he's right in that script-derived maps, and push-pin maps based on Robinson are going to be messed up. I think BlankMap-World6-Equirectangular.svg should be de-framed and preferred over BlankMap-FlatWorld6.svg. Kmusser (talk) 00:01, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Articles on early western maps and cartographers
In doing my regular cleanup of the cartography categories I came across Zuane Pizzigano, which turned out to be an article about what is now under Pizzigano Map. User:Walrasiad came to my user page to remonstrate on this. I can see some of his points but disagree on some others, and it's clear that some sort of systematic approach needs to be taken.

The problem essentially is that the maps tend to be the main if not sole evidence for the existence of the cartographers who signed them. It's therefore very difficult to write real biographies for them, and in a lot of cases the biographies consist to no small degree of lists of works and speculation about whether the person who made this map is the same that person who made this other map. However in many cases (such as was originally the situation in the presenting case) the only article about the map is contained in the article about the cartographer.

My feeling is that we should in almost all cases have articles on the maps. This presents naming issues (e.g. there are several candidate "Pizzigano maps" if only because there are multiple Pizziganos). I think this could be resolved with a good naming convention and some strategic redirects. I would prefer to redirect cartographers to the corresponding map if it is their only work and there is not really anything else that can be said about them, but I am open to having stubby articles on each cartographer. What I object to is articles supposedly on cartographers which are really only about their works.

I've brought this here because this needs to be addressed on a level above a discussion/dispute between two people. Mangoe (talk) 20:47, 9 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I have given the bulk of my arguments in Magnoe's talk page, and I shall only discuss the essence of them here. I suppose our fundamental difference is whether the links should be primarily made to charts or to authors. I believe linking to authors is always preferable, if it can be done (i.e. the chart is not anonymous). It avoids arbitrary chart naming problems and confusion.  Moreover, I believe treating the charts per author is a more compact, pedagogical and useful, esp. in the case of an author with multiple charts (as, I think Mangoe's comments above might agree).


 * For cases where an author has only chart, then they are effectively interchangeable. But in such cases, I believe we should default to author.  I accept that for famous or iconic maps which have long-standing names (like the Catalan Atlas), then the chart name should be the title.  But in all other cases - esp. when the name of the chart is really just the name of the author with the word "map" after it, as in the Zuane Pizzigano case - then there is really no gain here. Other than that we have now go make a stub bio saying simply "Zuane Pizzigano made the Pizzigano map.  He might be a relative of Domenico and Francesco Pizzigano.", which is, frankly, all we know about him. I find this overkill. IMO, it is more efficient to simply link to "Zuane Pizzigano", mention his possible relatives, and then give an exposition of his chart on the same page. Two birds, one stone. Walrasiad (talk) 23:10, 9 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Sounds to me a bit like a catgories vs list issue - with the category being equivalent to the cartographer, and the list being the list of works. In these instances wikipedia seems to suggest that both approaches can be used in conjunction with each other. Not sure how to resolve that in terms of the particular issue here, but perhaps that's some help ? EdwardLane (talk) 13:45, 12 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I suppose I'd like to see a more explicit norm, or guidelines, agreed upon here. This affects scores of cartographers & their charts. In my contributions on Medieval portolan charts, I have developed my own system, but as it can be (as has been) challenged, I'd like to first achieve some agreement here on guidelines before I proceed. Walrasiad (talk) 04:35, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Problem with a new map template
I tried to create a new map to highlight areas locally. I created File:USA_California_Southern_location_map.svg then went off of Template:Location_map_USA_California to create Template:Location_map_USA_California_Southern but the page that I created isn't turning out as expected. What did I do incorrectly? EDIT: Never mind, it must have been a cache problem. Banaticus (talk) 00:55, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Maps banner
Hello, hello :) I notice that most wiki projects have a nice   type template. Which usually shows links to the project, and can be tagged onto articles that relate to the project - in this case various things like - cartography, astronomy, mercator projection, mappa mundi, cartesian coordinates, maybe even mind maps and flow charts come under the scope of this project?

I think (I may be wrong) that no such template exists for WikiProject Maps, so I started thinking about making such a template. I also had a quick chat here about how to go about it and for a moment enthusiastically started creating it here. It's currently commented as I ran into a minor stumbling block (which should be easy enough to get sorted) I hadn't created all the various categories and sub categories that would list them as stub/start/good articles etc.

Anyway as a result of that momentary block it occurred to me that as I only 'like maps' rather than go round making them - I wasn't sure whether having the banner would be of interest to the active WikiProject Map folk? And maybe there is a banner out that you are already using for this task - and that I just have not spotted it?

So, if I (or you) do go ahead with the banner it asks whether there is a parent project or not. I personally think WP Maps is an independant WP with overlap with Geography, geometry, astronomy, history and probably quite a lot more. But there is the option when creating the template to have geography as the parent project. What do you think?

Anyway I'm going to watchlist this page for a while - so please drop feedback here. EdwardLane (talk) 18:20, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Well I've now created the template - and but I've not applied it to anything yet, and I've not created the categories, but it seemed the easiest way to begin. EdwardLane (talk) 08:30, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Articles creation / expansions
I've been thinking about this for a while now, I think what I proposed above would be expanding the scope of this project to include improving articles on cartography, and maps. Perhaps it should be a related WikiProject Cartography ? But if people would be happy to have improving articles on maps and cartography within the scope of the project then we could start slapping the banner on various pages - which would increase awareness of wikiproject maps and perhaps increase the size of the wikiproject membership - which is presumably useful? EdwardLane (talk) 09:43, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Definitively, YES : we should dig in academic researches, be bold, set up a to do list and planing, and push forward those core articles such as Cartography, History of cartography, GIS, Chartjunk, Inkscape, GRASS, QGIS, etc. I think an good looking portal about those encyclopedic articles is welcome, BUT the talks and other tools should be redirected here (WikiProject Maps) to avoid a time costly dispersion. Yug (talk)  07:51, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmm which do you mean, 1 or 2 ?


 * 1) definitively, YES - expand the scope of wikiproject Maps to include 'improving and expanding articles about map making and cartography'
 * 2) definitively, YES - start a new wikiproject Cartography to do that? and then to include articles for related tools/thoughts etc

I'm in favour of option 1 - the only tasklist then is to go round slapping on any articles about maps - about cartography, and  that kind of thing. I can be bold and create the importance=top and class=stub type things too, which means that someone coming along might find an article of top importance that has almost nothing written about it - and decide to expand that.

Option 2 is very similar - but currently there are zero members of that non existant project, making things a bit more of a one man crusade.

Expanding option 1 and assuming the expanded wikiproject 'scope' says it is about making maps, and improving articles on both maps, cartography and related stuff. Then Borders_of_the_oceans and magnetic north and so forth would seem to be obvious inclusions. EdwardLane (talk) 11:22, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
 * We basically say the same things : there is a need, but no active team yet, so we should not create a whole new [lost] project, but a to do list and action plan. The place of this portal page is not very important. But talks and most tools should redirect and stay here, in the ACTIVE map project. The importance/advancement scale is a good idea. Yug (talk)  22:06, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * ok being bold :)
 * 1. Shape: I made this project/portal pages Portal:Khitan/Project or Todo page two years ago. That can be a template. 2. Portal page: When I have some hours, I wish to write an overall introduction based on the fr:Cartographie article. 3. Scope: I think the scope should focus on "Cartography : the creation of maps and associated tools". Geographic notions such as Borders_of_the_oceans contain maps (the result of cartography), but should be exclude since it's quite not the process of creating maps.

IMHO. 4. Article cartography: the article cartography should be the first to benefit from a bold new structure and a serious team work /academic work to raise up its quality and relevance. Yug (talk)  13:48, 1 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I think that 'borders of the oceans' are an arbitrary choice of the cartographer - and are very much a part of the cartographic process, much like deciding which data source(s) to pick, and what to display (similar to the Baltimore problem), I think the number of articles is currently small enough that both individual maps and cartography (and all the related aspects) can probably fit inside the scope, but we can discuss that over time. No hurry to exclude anything yet, I'd suggest adding the template to anything that looks related, and then we may be able to spot articles that might want merging or improving, we can just tag things as low importance if they are only 'at the edges of the project scope'. I do think you're right when you suggest the cartography article needs work EdwardLane (talk) 16:56, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree, Agree. We are 90% similar in our proposition, so no worry if we disagree a bit, we will find a way ; ) Yug (talk)  17:11, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Assessment
Right I was wp:bold and there is now a page WikiProject Maps/Assessment and I got a bot to run and tag a bunch of articles based on the WikiProject_Maps/Categories here - I know that there will be articles with the wrong rating and either tagged incorrectly or not tagged. But that was my best shot after several hours of plodding through the contents of the related categories I could think of. at some point I'll take the time and go through my logic if anyone is interested. Feel free to remove/change the importance on any of the articles - I figured it was better to get as much assessment done by a bot as possible, and then fix things after that. OK I'm going back to work for a bit EdwardLane (talk) 14:04, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Edward, that's really, really cool : ) Yug (talk)  16:10, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Glad you like it EdwardLane (talk) 00:49, 26 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I think we should encourage to push on the Cartography articles first. If someone is willing to make a scholar research and a FA, Cartography is your article ! Yug (talk)  16:10, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes totally agree with that too, I guess we should add that to the task list EdwardLane (talk) 00:49, 26 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Just to mention I created a new category "File-class Maps articles" (which is how all the maps files got listed by the bot) so that should split out most of the NA articles from the row they are in when the category eventually updates. It might take a while for that to filter through, this is all new tech for me EdwardLane (talk) 03:53, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

My Portolan Pages
I'm not very experienced with WP and put the annoucement there. Sorry, perhaps it would better be here. -- Portolanero (talk) 17:45, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

RFC on coordinates in highway articles
There is currently a discussion taking place at WT:HWY regarding the potential use of coordinates in highway articles. Your input is welcomed. --Rschen7754 01:40, 26 December 2011 (UTC)