[Labs-l] creating a MapStory Labs project

[Nitin Gadia]

Some examples of where there could be very fruitful collaboration between
wikipedia and mapstory:

*An amazing article entitled "Territorial Evolution of North America". The
article has all the information for each change in boundaries of non-native
nations, and an animated gif map that is essentially a mapstory. People in
mapstory can have all the tools to add annotations and increasing detail,
and can create a dynamism that is in the spirit of wikipedia.
- Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_North_America
- Animated map (a good example of a mapstory in wikipedia):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Non-Native-American-Nations-Territorial-Claims-over-NAFTA-countries-1750-2008.gif

*Yellowstone fire. This article has a nice animated map as well, for which
there is already a mapstory:
- Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_fire
- Animation (again, essentially a mapstory):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:This_multi-colored_animation_shows_the_different_fires_that_ignited,_combined_and_spread_throughout_Yellowstone_from_Jun._30_to_Oct._2,_1988.ogv
- mapstory: http://mapstory.org/maps/149

Mapstory is an enormous project that is in heavy development right now.
Mapstories will eventually have smooth playback, with timesliders, and a
large host of functionality.


Nitin

On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 6:13 PM, Nitin Gadia <nittyjee at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> We recently attended Wikimania in Washington DC, where we met Erik Möller<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_M%C3%B6ller>,
> who showed us Wikimedia Labs, telling us it would be a good fit. We're
> interested in helping create a Wikimedia Labs project around serving *
> mapstories*. A mapstory is a type of map that shows change over time,
> which is, like wikipedia or openstreetmap (OSM, www.openstreetmap.org),
> being developed in an online community built on the same standards of
> openness, at *www.mapstory.org* <http://www.mapstory.org>. We are aware
> that wikimedia and openstreetmap (OSM) are collaborating to serve OSM data
> through wikimedia to be seen on wikipedia articles, and would love to do
> the same. MapStory is inspired by both openstreetmap and wikipedia, and is
> being built on the same standards of openness, and intends to be yet
> another companion in the open knowledge community, and is to be governed in
> similar ways by the MapStory Foundation. At the moment, MapStory is
> invitation-based, as it is being developed, but it will be fully open to
> anyone's registration.
>
> Examples of mapstories include:
> *Events: Yellowstone Fire: http://mapstory.org/maps/149
> *Trends: Population Growth: http://mapstory.org/maps/162
> *General historical change: Africa: http://mapstory.org/maps/153,
> walmart: http://mapstory.org/maps/60, NYC subway:
> http://mapstory.org/maps/117/view
> *Large scale mapstories - some mapstories will be enormous, allowing you
> to eventually type in a time, and see the way the world was then. So, a
> user might type in "1900", and see all the roads, buildings, land use, and
> landscape down to very local levels, like you can with OSM now.
>
> The integration of mapstories into wikipedia and other wikimedia projects
> would be extremely fruitful. I can imagine that any article about political
> entities, events, and statistics can, and probably will, have a mapstory.
> I'll reply to this message with some examples in a moment.
> *
> What do we need to do in order for us to establish a MapStory labs
> project, or add ourselves to an existing one? *Unfortunately, I am not a
> developer myself, but we can at least get started while the developers
> crank out the core mapstory functionality.
>
> I've cc-ed Christopher Tucker, the founder of MapStory.
> Please reply-all if you can :)
>
>
> Thanks,
> Nitin Gadia
> Ames, Iowa, USA
> MapStory Foundation
> *www.mapstory.org* <http://www.mapstory.org>
>
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