Wikivoyage talk:Mapmaking Expedition
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Map testing
[edit]Hello: I have been experimenting with maps recently - Let me know if any interest in the following:
- Placed an icon next to a city listing/marker that will open a map of the area (circled) and using the capability to hide maplinks from appearing on a page - created pointers for that new map related to or specific to that location. (kept all original city/vicinity markers that appeared on that page's mapframe) - Approx. 15 extra maps were created and approximately 4-15 maplinks each.
- In addition, I managed to create a map containing all the city,vicinity markers as well as the hidden maplinks. I also added a special maplink that when selected pops up a list of names (map links) that when clicked opens up a new map pertaining to that link. (ie. special maps or regional maps found in a different article etc.)
- This gives the possiblity to go to page links for some point of interest if available as well as map to map traversing.
- Recently - click on a Point that will open a popup menu allowing you to move to that new location on a map
- Looking further to see if some streamlining can be done to create these types of things because of what is involved and any other issues as I find them.
Cheers! -- Matroc (talk) 08:15, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
Attractions map
[edit]- Swept in from the pub
The attractions map that I saw at Backpackers(Taiwanese travel forum site), It is the location of the person and the surrounding listing. When the traveler clicks on the placemark(listing), the listing of the placemark will be listed Information; I think this will be a good feature.
I think Wikivoyage can emulate this, the purpose is to make it easier for travelers to find nearby attractions.--✈ IGOR / ✉ TALK?! .WIKIVOYAGER ! 20:21, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
- Have you tried Special:Nearby? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:17, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
- Yes, I have use it. Backpackers have show to map and listing.--✈ IGOR / ✉ TALK?! .WIKIVOYAGER ! 16:19, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
Maps instability
[edit]- Swept in from the pub
There are ongoing issues with the sliding maps at the moment. Site administrators are working on it. Until they are resolved, those maps may take more time to load or fail to load completely. Thank you for your understanding and sorry for the disruption. More info available on the linked ticket. --JCrespo (WMF) (talk) 09:30, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
- Thanks for the note, JCrespo (WMF). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:15, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
- Wow, that takes quite long, JCrespo (WMF). Any news?--Renek78 (talk) 20:49, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
- FYI, I noticed that the maps work well if the zoom is set to 14. Anything else and they don't render properly. For now, I'm setting zoom to 14 even where it is not totally appropriate. --RegentsPark (talk) 20:59, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
- Wow, that takes quite long, JCrespo (WMF). Any news?--Renek78 (talk) 20:49, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
GPX export useless with the Wikidata approach
[edit]- Swept in from the pub
Now that we are converting city listings to only using the Wikidata reference, and also support Wikidata-only listing for sights, due to the on the fly addition of Wikipedia and GPS, the GPX export does not function properly anymore. This is because it does not derive GPS for these simple Wikidata-only listings.
Should we tackle this issue? Could we maybe use the approach from German Wikivoyage, which can properly handle such simple listings?
If this topic was discussed before, please refer. But it seems still to be open, considering the GPX export issue.
Cheers Ceever (talk) 09:02, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
- Fully agree. Furthermore it would be a huge addition, if GeoJSON paths for itineraries (e.g. E11 hiking trail) are also exported.--Renek78 (talk) 08:38, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
- "Discussed" several times, actually... see Mapframe and Marker discussions... -- andree.sk(talk) 06:06, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
- Well, should we fix it then and use the German approach? In favor ... Cheers Ceever (talk) 20:08, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Offline maps
[edit]- Swept in from the pub
I think that User:RexxS has a flexible system that could help us deal with the dynamic-vs-static maps dispute in terms of offline (Kiwix) readers. This was tried for a different purpose over at the English Wikipedia a little while ago, but I think it might be even more useful here.
The basic idea is that when you have content that can't be displayed offline (such as a dynamic map), you can add a replacement that is only displayed offline. Think of putting something like {{show-me-only-in-kiwix|File:Static replacement map.jpg}}
in an article – the linked map wouldn't show in the article if you're reading online, but it would show if you were using an offline reader that doesn't support dynamic maps (or whatever kind of content is wanted for the offline user).
I think we could set this up here. Is this something that you all are interested in? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:06, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
- Sounds great. But there is already a key for that, which could be used: "staticmap". Example:
{{Mapframe|37.75|-122.43|height=420|width=480|zoom=12|staticmap=San Francisco districts map.png}}
- --Renek78 (talk) 05:38, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
- I think this is a great idea, whether it's implemented with a parameter or with a dedicated template. —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:02, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Too Many Requests on loading complex dynamic maps
[edit]- Swept in from the pub
In the recent days, when I open pages with multi-region maps like Vienna or Budapest, the dinamic map fails to load. It tries to load GeoJSON for each regions, but some of them are rejected by the server 'maps.wikimedia.org' with response '429 Too Many Requests'. So it seems that the rate limiting configured on the server too low. Can somebody fix it? --City-busz (talk) 10:50, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
- City-busz, Vienna's dynamic map loaded for me. Are you still having problems? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:58, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
- Yes, it's still not loaded for me. I can see only a static image. --City-busz (talk) 17:01, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
- Would you mind clicking on https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Vienna?action=purge (and agreeing to purge the cache), and letting me know if that improves things? If it doesn't (my guess is that it won't help, but that it's worth a try), then I think it would be useful to know a bit about your internet situation, like what country you're in, what kind of device you're using, and what your web browser is. You can send me e-mail if you'd rather not post that information in public.
- The other thing that would help a lot is if anyone else could check Vienna#Districts and post whether you're getting errors/not seeing the dynamic map. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:15, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
- Yes, it's still not loaded for me. I can see only a static image. --City-busz (talk) 17:01, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
- Purging the cache does not help. I'm from Hungary, and I get the same results using Firefox and Chromium on Linux desktop either when I logged in or not. Also, when I click on a maplink like Vienna#/maplink/20, I can see only an empty map (white background). --City-busz (talk) 17:31, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
- The map loaded slowly, a maplink map empty (white with controls). Firefox on old Ubuntu laptop, DSL, Finland. Maps from other articles seem to load as usual --LPfi (talk) 21:30, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
- I can see the dynamic map at Vienna, but the controls don't work—I can't zoom in or out or move the map. Firefox on Mac OS 10.14.6. —Granger (talk · contribs) 22:30, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
- Granger, if controls don't work, it means that you see the static snapshot of the dynamic map, and the dynamic map is not loaded properly due to server rate limit. This is my problem.--City-busz (talk) 23:13, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
- Maybe the page needs a rethink. The dynamic map does appear to have too much shape data information being plotted. --Traveler100 (talk) 07:34, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
- Seems to me the article doesn't need a dynamic map. Just use the static map and save dynamic maps for the district articles. I think we have a policy somewhere that double maps should be avoided when possible. —Granger (talk · contribs) 09:32, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
- The static Vienna map is close to useless in my opinion.--46.223.219.75 22:24, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
- Seems to me the article doesn't need a dynamic map. Just use the static map and save dynamic maps for the district articles. I think we have a policy somewhere that double maps should be avoided when possible. —Granger (talk · contribs) 09:32, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
- City-busz, isn't that the issue, which is ongoing for quite some time already? JCrespo (WMF) was informing about it but nothing really improved since then (see Wikivoyage_talk:Mapmaking_Expedition#Maps_instability).--46.223.219.75 22:24, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
- I think it's something different, because the tiles are loaded correctly, just the mapshape requests are rejected by the server. --City-busz (talk) 23:32, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
- Paris#/maplink/22 is still empty for me. The Paris page tries to load mapshapes for each districts individually. It means that the browser sends 20 requests at once to the server, and the map server usually reject some of them.--City-busz (talk) 23:32, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
- Vienna works for me, but not Budapest. OhanaUnitedTalk page 02:23, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
- Maybe the page needs a rethink. The dynamic map does appear to have too much shape data information being plotted. --Traveler100 (talk) 07:34, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
- Granger, if controls don't work, it means that you see the static snapshot of the dynamic map, and the dynamic map is not loaded properly due to server rate limit. This is my problem.--City-busz (talk) 23:13, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
- The processing of mapshape external source I believe is the costly culprit. Actually I found the request limit to be around 15. (creating Points limit on the other hand is close to 300+). Kartographer as applied does not allow chaining of external requests as well. Supposedly there are future developments to be had that may resolve the issue (javascript?). To get around the issue, I believe that one might be able to hard code the regional coordinates separately. -- Matroc (talk) 05:13, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
- I cannot speak for your particular case, but I can throw some light regarding the error. 429 HTTP Error is a measure that too many requests have been received by the server. As a protective measure, site operators rate-limit the number of requests a single client can do without causing performance problems. As you may be aware, the Wikipedia servers have been the target of (D)DOS attacks in the past, and that is one of the measures put in place to prevent the service (the site) from having performance issues or going down after a limit that is believed no healthy user, client or bot should achieve (I cannot say how many request exactly that is, as I am not in charge of traffic security, but even if you reloaded the browser on a normal page as fast as possible, you wouldn't reach it, it has to be something programmatic). The idea is that, when you receive a 429 Error (temporary) you should stop and or slow down doing requests because they are too fast, as it could be damaging the server performance- it is a time-based limit, so not a permanent error. So my guess here is that maybe the javascript handing the map loading is, erroneously, doing too many requests, too fast. If you believe that, without extra gadgets and custom js, and the map is not showing to legitimate users, please report it on Phabricator so the map code maintainer can optimize it so it doesn't do so many requests that it gets itself blocked. For example, while map tiles could be loaded in parallel for faster load, it should not go overboard with the number of connections as to consider legitimate users as "damaging". As you may imagine, not many of you should have not encountered 429 errors, as the limit is quite generous. It is true that certain services could override such limit and set it lower if it cannot handle so many requests, I also don't know if that is the case here. Please contact the js implementor/maintainer of the functionality to fix the connection pattern. Editors and readers should not, for the most part, change its desired behavior because there is a bug on code- if 2 maps are desired by the community, 2 maps should be supported- just the bug reported and code be fixed. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/How_to_report_a_bug Feel free to CC me on the ticket for help. PS: The previous problem I reported should be fixed long time ago, if you found new issues, please report them on Phabricator, too. While we get notified immediately if a site is fully down, small amount of errors on smaller communities may go undetected due to its small percentage compared to the total of all sites requests. That doesn't mean they are not equally important. --JCrespo (WMF) (talk) 09:52, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
- Thanks for the clarification. Now I opened a ticket here: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T241644 --City-busz (talk) 11:16, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
- Thank you, I have (hopefully) added the right group tags so it should be handled by the right development team. Please be patient these days as several WMF developers are on vacations. Cheers, and sorry for the inconveniences, hopefully it has an easy resolution, --JCrespo (WMF) (talk) 12:33, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
Hosting official subway maps
[edit]- Swept in from the pub
Is there any way for us to host them without running into copyright issues? I know a lot of work must have been put into creating our custom ones, but they're just not as good as the official ones in most cases, and they're at an automatic disadvantage since they don't correspond to what travelers will be seeing in the field. Sdkb (talk) 00:27, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
- These are almost certainly under a copyright (tho not if they were produced by certain governments, such as the American federal government or California's government). Did you have some kind of alternative in mind other than scanning and uploading? It's possible that some official maps are so basic that they don't meet a threshold of originality but that seems unlikely to me. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:32, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
- Maybe a case by case basis. I had a look at London https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/London#By_Underground and that map is pretty useless but on Commons Wikimedia there is https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:London_Underground_Overground_DLR_Crossrail_map_zone.pdf which may or may not be official or 100% but is massively better than what is used here at present. I assume that as it's published on Commons it can be used here i.e. the copyright has been considered by others and decided on (unless it's a clear oversight in which case maybe it should be raised and dealt with on Commons rather than WV). I have no idea what the "policy" is but as Sdkb says, WV corresponding to the map people might have printed or see on a poster much better and it will never be possible to do every subway or public transport system but do the best possible where possible. PsamatheM (talk) 02:47, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
- That's not an official map, but I agree it's way better than the one we use.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 08:26, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
- Media published at Commons can be used here, yes. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:46, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
- I think as a general matter more effort should be put into putting the urban rail lines on the dynamic map and keeping them updated as needed... We've got a lot of missing lines there, especially in the light rail department... Hobbitschuster (talk) 05:28, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
- Where good static maps already exist, it's not a case of either/or; both can be present in an article. FWIW, I don't find those coloured lines on a dynamic map all that special. Where no static map of the system is available, they're better than nothing, and they are also good for seeing at a glance which lines pass through a given neighbourhood. But other than that, their practical use for planning and executing a journey are limited: they don't show stations, service patterns, interchanges etc. I don't know why anyone would use them as an alternative to an official map when the likes of Google Maps have a brilliant real time public transport overlay.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:52, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
- I think as a general matter more effort should be put into putting the urban rail lines on the dynamic map and keeping them updated as needed... We've got a lot of missing lines there, especially in the light rail department... Hobbitschuster (talk) 05:28, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
- Maybe a case by case basis. I had a look at London https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/London#By_Underground and that map is pretty useless but on Commons Wikimedia there is https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:London_Underground_Overground_DLR_Crossrail_map_zone.pdf which may or may not be official or 100% but is massively better than what is used here at present. I assume that as it's published on Commons it can be used here i.e. the copyright has been considered by others and decided on (unless it's a clear oversight in which case maybe it should be raised and dealt with on Commons rather than WV). I have no idea what the "policy" is but as Sdkb says, WV corresponding to the map people might have printed or see on a poster much better and it will never be possible to do every subway or public transport system but do the best possible where possible. PsamatheM (talk) 02:47, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
Bad maps
[edit]- Swept in from the pub
Maps look very strange if an area is located on the 180th longitude. Is this a known problem? I spotted this problem because I happened to look at the article about Chukotka and found that the map was close to useless. --Stefan2 (talk) 00:26, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
- note:Yes it is an issue... I remembered this issue being discussed 2 years ago! https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help_talk:Extension:Kartographer. The answer I noted reading some time ago was to divide the polygon into 2 parts down the meridian 180 (which may work)-- Matroc (talk) 02:32, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
- I agree. I filed a ticket on similar issue last summer and they treated it as a "feature request" rather than a bug. OhanaUnitedTalk page 04:54, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
- A workaround would be to use two maps, one for either side of the dateline. Lat/long and zoom would need to be added to each map. As a starter try: 67|175|zoom=5 and 67|-175|zoom=5. Not a neat solution, but better than the current world maps.
- It would also be better to add the actual the actual lat/long to the markers in the article, rather than just getting them from Wikidata, as this then works with the full page map (from the icon at the top right of the article), which doesn't have a problem with the dateline. AlasdairW (talk) 20:09, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
- And where a region straddles 180, in the Antarctic Islands my workaround was to mark the Balleny Islands as west-of-west at long=-196, rather than +164 east which detached them from the others. Grahamsands (talk) 09:37, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks Grahamsands. I have combined the two "fixes" on Chukotka and it looks better, but the map shape doesn't cross the date line. AlasdairW (talk) 22:13, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
- Just a thought, could the issue be caused by the type of projection used (Albers projection) in making the shapes mentioned above? (thus the split) -- Matroc (talk) 04:44, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks Grahamsands. I have combined the two "fixes" on Chukotka and it looks better, but the map shape doesn't cross the date line. AlasdairW (talk) 22:13, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
- And where a region straddles 180, in the Antarctic Islands my workaround was to mark the Balleny Islands as west-of-west at long=-196, rather than +164 east which detached them from the others. Grahamsands (talk) 09:37, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
Possible way to generate static maps
[edit]- Swept in from the pub
Recently I was bored and stumbled into a static map generator. It calls itself a "fantasy" map generator, but you can also import static maps and add labels, and even rivers and provinces/countries, as desired, and then export to JSON, SVG, JPG, etc. I thought perhaps this would be a better (and faster) way to create static maps than the current method. However, I'm not sure that using the website to create maps used on other website, under our license, would be allowed.
Note: to import a static map go to the arrow in the top-left corner/Tools/Heightmap/Erase data/Erase map/Image converter. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 17:01, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
- I'm not sure how this is supposed to work. It seems to assume anything you import will be a color-coded topographical map. And if you already have a static map you can import, what do you need this tool for? Powers (talk) 18:29, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
- Well, the idea is that you can import an image, such as an outline of a region, and then label it with rivers, cities, roads, etc. and then export it with the new data. Just a thought. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 18:44, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
OpenStreetMap
[edit]- Swept in from the pub
Hi! Could someone help me? I want to create a dynamic map for a multi-route pilgrimage... each route has already been created by someone from the sections (M01, M02, M03, M05, M10, M21), but only 1 item can be specified on the wikida page which I can then use for the dynamic map... someone?... Fauvirt (talk) 15:40, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
- One possibility is to make a separate Wikidata item for each section and then list all the wikidata items in a mapshape template like
{{mapshape|wikidata=Q488813,Q488461,Q488859,Q505417}}
. There may be other ways to do it too (such as combining all the sections into a single OpenStreetMap relation? I don't know if that's possible). —Granger (talk · contribs) 16:55, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
- @Fauvirt: The issue here is that only one of the parts of the routes (M01) has been linked to the whole of the route/network on Wikidata. This Wikidata item also doesn't link back to the OSM relation, so the line cannot be fetched from OSM (sidenote, OSM does not display a line for me to begin with, not for any of the relations linked above, but that might be just an issue on my side). What you can do is make Wikidata items for each part of the route, link those items to the OSM relations and vice versa, and make them all listed as a part (P527) of Via Maria (Q1212209). From there, use
{{Mapshapes|Q1212209}}
to display the whole of those relations. As a sidenote, {{Mapshapes}} is pretty much just used for displaying urban rail networks, but if it fits the purpose, it fits the purpose. That said, the clearer and more detailed version of my explanation here can be found on that template's page :)
-- Wauteurz (talk) 18:40, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
- @Fauvirt: The issue here is that only one of the parts of the routes (M01) has been linked to the whole of the route/network on Wikidata. This Wikidata item also doesn't link back to the OSM relation, so the line cannot be fetched from OSM (sidenote, OSM does not display a line for me to begin with, not for any of the relations linked above, but that might be just an issue on my side). What you can do is make Wikidata items for each part of the route, link those items to the OSM relations and vice versa, and make them all listed as a part (P527) of Via Maria (Q1212209). From there, use
Thank you @Mx. Granger, Wauteurz:! I already started with the M01 on Wikidata (wikidata:Q95735225).. I hope, it works that way! Fauvirt (talk) 19:17, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
@Mx. Granger, Wauteurz, Shaundd, SelfieCity: The hungarian wikipadian Whitepixels have fix it: https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/11154539 - Now it turns out it works ... *excited* Fauvirt (talk) 19:50, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
Persistent problem with dynamic maps
[edit]- Swept in from the pub
The issue Too Many Requests on loading complex dynamic maps is not really addressed, it seems. This leads to some dynamic maps for mayor articles not showing up, e.g. Vienna, Paris or Budapest - not really a great experience for visitors to the site! What could there be done to get this problem fixed? Any ideas? The issue has been discussed at length before. It has been like this for half a year already. Do they care about Wikivoyage at Wikimedia after all? --Renek78 (talk) 07:49, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
Edit: Now suddenly all of the maps mentioned above are loading flawlessly. It's an on-off problem, which should be fixed.--Renek78 (talk) 07:53, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
- Recently I experienced this problem only for those maps, which have many districts and try to load about more than 20 mapshapes. The solution could be to add these maps to Wikimedia Commons, which reduces server load. --City-busz (talk) 17:13, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
New proposal for icons
[edit]Hi all - there's a new proposal to add/update icons and markers for dynamic mapframe maps at meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Miscellaneous/Kartographer icon improvements. ɱ (talk) 14:00, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Mapshape's dark surroundings
[edit]- Swept in from the pub
Hi there
I noticed that more and more articles are fitted with an according mapshape (not the mapframe) for their WikiData ID. While of course this makes it easy to identify the location the article is related with, this leads to the the rest hidden behind a dark grey layer barely usable for anything else.
While I understand that at the moment of article visit the location's area is the central point of the viewer, I feel that being an interactive map it is kind of contra-productive to mostly hide everything else. I think travellers will also want to see things not just inside the administrative boundaries of that location, e.g. where travelling next or often even POIs are outside of these boundaries.
Can I therefore suggest that we somehow make the non-article related area only slightly less accessible and more useful for the interactive map when using the mapshape template? We could even just highlight the location's area with a light color like I did for Kyrgyzstan.
Does this make sense? Any suggestions to achieve this globally, maybe applying a random color?
Cheers Ceever (talk) 11:31, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
- Hi, Ceever. Guilty as charged. I just added {{mapshape}}s to every Portugal article. To turn these off, one can open the map in full screen mode (clicking the square icon on the upper right), then hover over the stacked squares icon and uncheck the items with "geomask" in the descriptions. Not ideal, but handy in those instances when the traveller needs to view details outside the borders of the destination. --Nelson Ricardo (talk) 12:10, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
- The point I am making is not that mapshapes are bad, but that in their current form they deter readers and undermine the interactivity feature ... wonderfully proven by your description. ;-) Cheers Ceever (talk) 14:58, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
- If you know or have the coordinates for the polygon - you can use a "maplink" or "mapframe" and define the properties (ie. shading outside of the shape, color etc.)... Matroc (talk) 01:01, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
- I know, but it would just be better practice, I believe, the default mapshape shading to be in a way we all agree on and not just in a way the original developer decided on without consulting our advice. Cheers Ceever (talk) 17:45, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
KwaZulu-Natal
[edit]The map for KwaZulu-Natal province doesn't show its regions. Could anyone help? Thanks. Ground Zero (talk) 11:46, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
- Done. Ground Zero (talk) 22:52, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
The map for this city does not reflect the districts being used. Assistance would be appreciated. Ground Zero (talk) 00:47, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
Trails
[edit]In articles like Nordkalottleden and Urho Kekkonen National Park it would be nice to show the (most relevant/prominent) trails on the dynamic map. I understand it can be done by listing Wikidata identifiers of trail sections in a number of {{mapshape}}s.
For a long trail like Nordkalottleden this probably involves quite some sections, which is a problem in itself. In Urho Kekkonen National Park, I'd like to show also at least one unofficial (but established) route. At least when doing that, there is the additional problem that many trail sections consist of several OSM objects, which in themselves are not noteworthy (other than on a map). They could be combined on OSM in a super-object on OSM, and if I understand correctly, you can use that super-object by linking each sub-object to the Wikidata item of the super-object.
This involves creating a Wikidata item for the trail section, and creating the corresponding super-object on OSM. Am I correct? Is this something that is routinely accepted on both projects? Are there any problems, such as issues in linking an object to several Wikidata trails? What are the attitudes towards people just coming for their own project?
Then there is the work by itself. I am not sure I am going to invest the time needed – I started to look into it hoping there were ready-made objects one could just link, but I suppose we should have instructions on this kind of projects. Is what I outlined above the way to do it? Is there some instruction page I missed?
The other way is of course to create static maps. With such big areas, I think the possibility to zoom is valuable, and offline you should still have paper maps or dedicated map software.
Finnish national parks
[edit]I am trying to make a dynamic map for Finnish national parks, now at User:LPfi/sandbox. It seems I grasped how to do the wikicode, but some areas appear and others do not. I suppose it is about deficient OSM linking or the shapes just not having been defined, but I would like somebody in the know to verify. I might have done any amount of simple mistakes. I will also need help to get forward if that is the problem. –LPfi (talk) 19:08, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
- This seems to be the bug about the database leaking at the servers. The current solution (last I checked) is to just pump content back, but as the servers don't know what has disappeared, some shapes will be missing at any time, until the root cause and a fix have been found. –LPfi (talk) 11:46, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
Including sea in provinces
[edit]Some of our maps seem to show the official borders of states or provinces, colouring parts of the sea. One example is at Southern_Ukraine#Cities. See Talk:East_China#Map_problem? for one that has been fixed. I've seen others, don't recall where.
To me these are an abomination, making it difficult to tell where the coast is and which cities are on the sea. In my view, they should all be replaced.
Other opinions? Pashley (talk) 10:06, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
- @Pashley It's a good idea in theory, but we have little control over it. The database comes from OpenStreetMap, and so the changes will need to be made over there. I do hope eventually there'll be a way to fix this, but until then, that issue can only be done via {{mapmask}} (which takes a tedious amount of time). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:11, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
- Two more are Calabarzon#Provinces and Northern_Mindanao#Regions. Pashley (talk) 08:51, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
- One way to reduce the problem is to lessen the opacity of the region colour overlay. I think it is now 0.5, while 0.2 still clearly shows colours. Where is this controlled? Can it be tweaked in the region list or are the setting deeper down? Including the sea makes sense in many cases, especially when a province includes scattered islands, too small to show a colour sensibly.–LPfi (talk) 11:43, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
- Another at South_Korea#Cities. Pashley (talk) 13:54, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
This map is super-wonky. I've checked the wikidata codes, but cannot seem to get it to work. (I'm trying to learn how to to fix maps.) Could someone take a look? Ground Zero (talk) 14:56, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
- I was able to sort this one out. Ground Zero (talk) 00:23, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
Suzhou
[edit]w:Suzhou#Administrative_divisions has a map that would be useful here; discussion at Talk:Suzhou#Districts.
I copied it into our article & it failed to display, apparently because it uses templates we don't have. I'm not skilled at maps or templates. Help! Pashley (talk) 13:22, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
Third party overlays
[edit]- Swept in from the pub
Hey All, we at Wiki Project Med, built a gadget that pulls in Our World in Data similar to how maps here pull in topography after users agree to a consent popup. Appears some within the WMF have issues with this functionality. The link for anyone who wants to weight in. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:14, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Doc James: This is specifically referring to the Mapnik layer, right? --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 22:44, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
- Basically if you go under layers, we see 6 external options (mapnik is one) which will appear after consent for sharing your IP is given. The ability to do this is under discussion. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:50, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
- I've commented on the discussion in question. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 03:08, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
- So did I. However, the underlying problem, whether we should trust the external site, is complicated and the discussion seems to be about whether the gadget is important enough, and consenting by clicking OK enough, that privacy issues should be ignored. I think the only defendable way forward is to evaluate the privacy issues themselves, which is complicated. –LPfi (talk) 10:00, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
- I've commented on the discussion in question. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 03:08, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
- Basically if you go under layers, we see 6 external options (mapnik is one) which will appear after consent for sharing your IP is given. The ability to do this is under discussion. Travel Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:50, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
The dynamic map here does display the Eastern Townships part of the region. I think that's because the latter is not defined in Wikidata. Can anyone help? Ground Zero (talk) 19:14, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
- This has been resolved. Ground Zero (talk) 18:15, 24 July 2024 (UTC)
I would be grateful if someone could update the static map on this article to reflect the merger of the Commonwealth and Fairview and Northwestern districts. Ground Zero (talk) 00:23, 8 July 2024 (UTC)