Wikimedia Maps/2015-2017/Conversation about interactive map use

The Maps team of the Discovery department it working to figure out how to create tools for using interactive maps in Wikipedia articles. There are many things we want to include, and plan to in due time. For this current work, we'd like to keep the focus on how maps can be used on maps for articles where the map shows general location information.

Rational
Maps provide a way for visitors to discover and learn about a place or an event. Making these maps interactive, where visitors can zoom, pan, and interact with points of interest, can further enrich the way visitors learn about the world.

Inspiration and ideas for discussing these conventions came from the English Wikipedia WikiProject Maps conventions.

Current Focus

 * What types of articles will use interactive maps?
 * How do these articles differ in their requirements?
 * e.g. an article about a city or a disaster location may have very different requirements than the article about deforestation in Amazon forests or articles about animals and their habitats
 * Are there any classes of articles whose map styling requirement is fundamentally in conflict with other article classes, thus requiring multiple styles?

Use cases

 * An editor wants to easily add a map to a Wikipedia article without leaving the Wikipedia site.
 * A reader wants to zoom and pan a map in a Wikipedia article.
 * A reader wants to see a zoomable, pannable map immediately when they click geo-coordinates on an article.
 * An editor wants to add geographic information about the location where they currently are.
 * A reader wants to navigate articles with an atlas (instead of typing a page name or URL, zoom and pan a map, and click pins)
 * A reader wants to browse Wikimedia Commons images on a map.
 * A reader wants to visualize geospatial data (country and city outlines, river courses, habitats for animals etc.)
 * An article shows interactive historical maps for certain areas. The map can contain annotation layers, POIs, routes, data layers etc. to illustrate the article topic. An editor wants to create these maps. (Taking part: Susannaanas (talk))
 * A historical map file can be displayed overlaid on a slippy map in the file display (file page / media viewer). Wikimaps design doc. (Taking part: Susannaanas (talk))
 * A reader/Commons user/editor wants to find scanned maps by selecting the area on a slippy map. Wikimaps design doc. (Taking part: Susannaanas (talk))
 * A reader can explore complex shapes (highways, geographic borders etc.) inside the infoboxes much better by using a slippymap than a static image. (need support for: kml, geoJSON, topoJSON)
 * An editor wants to add and edit maps using VisualEditor. We already have some proof of concept code so we just need some API endpoints. ESanders (WMF)
 * User Mey2008's WikiVoyage dynamic maps, such as POI Map, Art Map, and Monument Map (RU).
 * Show Raster imagery of earth, e.g. from Natural Earth, and other planets/celestial bodies. Overlay them with useful info.
 * An editor want's to add coordinate information to a photo on Commons or wants to easily justify it.
 * An editor wants to specify a map on wikidata so it can be reused on any of the wikiarticles associated with that wikidata item. One wikidata item may have multiple associated maps - location map, current borders, historic borders (start date =?), etc. each with a specification stored on wikidata. These specifications specify what layers are to be used, from where (OSM or OHM or other) but probably don't include the map data.
 * An user of Wikivoyage want to have a strong combination of an article and a map as a travel guide.
 * An editor want to create a complex, individual map to show relations of objects that are mention in a article, see UMAP.
 * A user want to see the map in a language that he can read, see OSM:Multilingual_maps_Wikipedia_project.
 * An editor wants to display data from OSM in an article (for example city limits or a river from source to sea)

Examples
Here are a few randomly selected wiki articles that could potentially benefit from interactive maps. Included are the first two static maps that appear on the article currently, and an example interactive map.

Lyon, France
The first two static maps (one is collapsed by default) in the article for Lyon, France. Both show current boundaries, at different 'zoom levels'. The last map is dynamic that may replace them.

Glossary
When talking about interactive maps (and maps in general) we use words to describe features of the mapping tools.
 * Style: how to draw the map - colors, line thickness, fonts, etc.
 * Tiles: square image that represents a portion of a map at a given zoom level
 * Tile data: the data contained within a set of tiles (park benches, tree locations, house numbers, park names, building type (churches, government etc.)
 * Zoom level: At what level of detail are we looking at a particular area on a map? Imagine this as "How high above the map am I looking" Often measured as a number (zoom level=12).

Future
These are features and map types we're aware of, but don't have a solution for.
 * Historical (how borders have changed as an example)
 * Multilingual (one interactive map of a region with labels shown in the visitors preferred language).
 * See more at: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Maps/Future_Plans

Pros and Cons of interactive maps
Where, and when, should they (not) be used?)

Pros
 * less work to create for people not knowledgeable with GIS and mapping technology
 * scalable to more folks creating maps!
 * less work to update (map tiles are updated when data is updated)
 * interactive - gain further context by panning and zooming within a map
 * zoom - visibility and legibility of small labels

Cons
 * data is optimized for street maps, not territorial maps (in many cases OpenStreetMap's territorial borders are bad or outdated)
 * more limited in what you can create
 * may not translate well to non-digital formats (you only get the default view which may be too limited or too cluttered)
 * may change in unexpected ways (not static)
 * takes longer for changes to go live

Benefits of interactive maps

 * More interesting maps in our articles
 * Make it easy to add and modify these maps
 * Make it easier to update maps

Questions
What types of articles will use interactive maps?

(Button to Talk page section goes here)

How do these articles differ in their requirements? (Button to Talk page section goes here)
 * e.g. an article about a city or a disaster location may have very different requirements than the article about deforestation in Amazon forests or articles about animals and their habitats

Are there any classes of articles whose map styling requirement is fundamentally in conflict with other article classes, thus requiring multiple styles?

(Button to Talk page section goes here)

Other Maps Services

 * OpenStreetMap - the source of our data tiles and a large open-source community
 * Mapbox - a gallery of styles using Mapbox (on top of OSM tile data)