Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Map projections

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Description[edit]

This project will standardize, improve, and round out the topic of small-scale map projections on Wikipedia.


List of important pages and categories for this project

Many dozens of pages on individual map projections also exist.


List of WikiProjects currently on the talk pages of those articles

Some of the individual map projection articles are tracked by Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs).


Why do you want to start a new group, instead of joining one of these existing groups?

This project’s scope has little overlap with other WikiProjects at time of proposal. Other projects are listed on talk pages, but there has been practically no activity around the topic.

Map projections comprise a bit of an orphan domain: They are specific to geographic maps, as opposed to the theoretical and far more general construct of a “projection” in mathematics. They also have nomenclature and symbology sometimes distinct from mathematics. On the other hand, they are too mathematical and often too theoretical for most geographers and cartographers to be comfortable with. We see these dynamics in the attention that the topic has not attracted from the Mathematics, Maps, and Geography projects. That’s perfectly reasonable, but it means that those who are specifically interested in map projections need to tend better to these articles. With this project, we hope to collaborate with better structure and goals than we have applied as free-ranging editors.


Support[edit]

  1. Strebe
  2. GeogSage

Discussion[edit]

  • About 3.5 years ago, the proponent of this proposed WikiProject engaged in excessively combatant WP:OWN behavior at Talk:Map projection#No geometric meaning in which he strongly pushed a highly WP:UNDUE weight meaning of “geometric”. I therefore oppose the creation of this as a separate WikiProject because I feel that, especially with the narrow interest, that such OWN behavior will become more prevalent.—Jasper Deng (talk) 12:11, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I read the discussion. It looks like an expert in the field provided five sources to defend a word choice and you didn't agree with them, but provided no sources to back your reasoning. They didn't back down to your unsourced opinion and you took offense, and attacked them for being, as you said, "ignorant of the math of projections," which didn't look very civil. Four opinions of editors on the internet can be wrong, and if one person has a strong conviction and sources to back up that the mob is wrong, they are obligated to discuss it. Wikipedia is not a democracy after all, one source is better then 1,000 editors opinions. If the 1,000 editors ignore a source, then they are the ones at fault.
    If a WikiProject for projections is made, I'd expect it to be open to anyone interested, and if that became an issue it could be brought up then. I'd also expect the internal Wikipedia discussion and standards on projections to conform to the outside literature in the strictest possible way. This project can help combat bad cartography, which is a serious problem in the world today. Some heated discussion in a talk page over the correct use of the word "geometric" in 2019 shouldn't stop a project from being formed by an editor who is not banned in 2024. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 04:09, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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