Hi all -
Has anyone looked into or heard anything about a map-based complement to the Wikipedia?
I am looking at putting something together that would be targeted at K-12, but might have some nice tie-ins.
The plan is to deliver an easily searchable repository (content & searchable clearinghouse) of quality map content to cover the entirety of human history. Along with it would be a freely distributable, open source map player. People could then link their existing maps, add modifications, build new map content, etc.
There are a lot of reasons why a text-based search metaphor doesn't work well for map-based data and why a lot of the maps on the web fall short of current technologies potential for delivering better map-based experiences.
I am hoping to base this loosely on what the folks at TimeMap and the ECAI have already established, but their current tools, setup, and content would need to be modified and expanded to be useful for K-12 education.
Naturally, it would be great to provide contextual links to related web resources... like the Wikipedia.
Anyway, if anyone has heard of something similar, or has any suggestions, please let me know.
Thanks, Jeff
jeff@gwhat.org www.gwhat.org
On Feb 26, 2004, at 6:05 PM, Jeff Meyer wrote:
Has anyone looked into or heard anything about a map-based complement to the Wikipedia?
Could you please explain what you mean by 'map'?
Peter
-- ---<>--- -- A house without walls cannot fall. Help build the world's largest encyclopedia at Wikipedia.org -- ---<>--- --
Hi Peter - I'm thinking of maps as any sort of data that is described with correlation to some geographic background. Could be a totally geo-based map, like terrain information, or thematic, political, etc. maps. Does that help? - Jeff
"Peter Jaros" rjaros@shaysnet.com wrote in message news:D3C3E072-68C6-11D8-930E-000A27B3913C@shaysnet.com...
On Feb 26, 2004, at 6:05 PM, Jeff Meyer wrote:
Has anyone looked into or heard anything about a map-based complement to the Wikipedia?
Could you please explain what you mean by 'map'?
Peter
-- ---<>--- -- A house without walls cannot fall. Help build the world's largest encyclopedia at Wikipedia.org -- ---<>--- --
On Feb 26, 2004, at 9:27 PM, Jeff Meyer wrote:
Hi Peter - I'm thinking of maps as any sort of data that is described with correlation to some geographic background. Could be a totally geo-based map, like terrain information, or thematic, political, etc. maps. Does that help?
Yes, I see. It would be nice to be able to dynamically generate some of that out of wiki-edited xml (or other data format) content.
Peter
-- ---<>--- -- A house without walls cannot fall. Help build the world's largest encyclopedia at Wikipedia.org -- ---<>--- --
Jeff Meyer wrote:
I am looking at putting something together that would be targeted at K-12, but might have some nice tie-ins.
The plan is to deliver an easily searchable repository (content & searchable clearinghouse) of quality map content to cover the entirety of human history. Along with it would be a freely distributable, open source map player. People could then link their existing maps, add modifications, build new map content, etc.
There are a lot of reasons why a text-based search metaphor doesn't work well for map-based data and why a lot of the maps on the web fall short of current technologies potential for delivering better map-based experiences.
If you have a way to do this, or get it started, by all means start adding high-quality maps to Wikipedia! If it's specialized content that doesn't fit in Wikipedia, you can start a Wikibook as well.
I for one would love to see maps of the Roman Empire's extent every 50 years through its history, to name just one example, and possibly these could be put into an animation of some sort as well (though to keep things flexible for technologically-impaired browsers and possible printed versions, we should probably have map snapshots illustrating the article as well as a link to the animated map).
Is that the sort of thing you had in mind? If so, it's something I've been looking for for a while, but I have no idea how one would go about creating that sort of thing.
-Mark
Hi Mark - You've sort of hit the nail on the head of what I'm envisioning.
While the tool I'm thinking about might need to be a fat client or a heavy Java plug-in, I agree that it would need to be able to provide output to tech-challenged browsers.
Side note: the interesting thing about picking a fixed interval for animations is that a lot of weird stuff can take place in that gap, but that's a problem for a little further down the road.
If you're looking for a cool application that comes close to what I have in mind, check out: www.timemap.net.
As for Wikipedia integration, I think there are some challenges to working with map-based data that would make just contributing maps to Wikipedia a partial solution. That said, hopefully we can get a more sophisticated solution to generate maps and linked objects for the Wikipedia and then crank out what we need as content is contributed. - Jeff
"Delirium" delirium@rufus.d2g.com wrote in message news:403EA598.8060706@rufus.d2g.com...
If you have a way to do this, or get it started, by all means start adding high-quality maps to Wikipedia! If it's specialized content that doesn't fit in Wikipedia, you can start a Wikibook as well.
I for one would love to see maps of the Roman Empire's extent every 50 years through its history, to name just one example, and possibly these could be put into an animation of some sort as well (though to keep things flexible for technologically-impaired browsers and possible printed versions, we should probably have map snapshots illustrating the article as well as a link to the animated map).
Is that the sort of thing you had in mind? If so, it's something I've been looking for for a while, but I have no idea how one would go about creating that sort of thing.
-Mark
Jeff Meyer wrote:
Hi all -
Has anyone looked into or heard anything about a map-based complement to the Wikipedia?
I am looking at putting something together that would be targeted at K-12, but might have some nice tie-ins.
The plan is to deliver an easily searchable repository (content & searchable clearinghouse) of quality map content to cover the entirety of human history. Along with it would be a freely distributable, open source map player. People could then link their existing maps, add modifications, build new map content, etc.
There are a lot of reasons why a text-based search metaphor doesn't work well for map-based data and why a lot of the maps on the web fall short of current technologies potential for delivering better map-based experiences.
I am hoping to base this loosely on what the folks at TimeMap and the ECAI have already established, but their current tools, setup, and content would need to be modified and expanded to be useful for K-12 education.
Naturally, it would be great to provide contextual links to related web resources... like the Wikipedia.
Anyway, if anyone has heard of something similar, or has any suggestions, please let me know.
Yes it's been looked into, see the wikitech-l discussion in September 2003, subjects "software for making maps", "map software", "Colors for maps" and my own minor contribution "GRASS ( was: map software)".
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2003-September/thread.html
-- Tim Starling
Jeff Meyer wrote:
Anyway, if anyone has heard of something similar, or has any suggestions, please let me know.
Here's a few links I forgot to put in my last post:
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maps http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_generator http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_data http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipediatlas
-- Tim Starling
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org