[Foundation-l] Proposal for a new project: Wikipedia Historical Atlas

Sun Jul 3 00:01:27 UTC 2005

There's a great idea.  Simply finding a way to identify which set of
historical maps to animate together would be interesting; a default
naming scheme identifying the region and year?   I will add that there
is already some kind of web-based software for wiki-style 'modifying
path-segments' on a line-sketch, which is used on a geo-wiki I visited
recently (I can't remember which one; it was based in London I
believe).

See also Magnus's work : http://magnusmanske.de/wikimaps

Developing image-manipulation software that stores the edit history to
an image, and lets anyone open and modify its borders and fill-colors
-- and add text -- via a browser, would be a fascinating project.  I
would be happy to see such a project begin with low-resolution,
light-weight images and simple shapes...

Menchi, I see you added this to the list of proposed projects on meta;
perhaps you can help put it into the context of the other map
proposals.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_project_proposals_group#Geography

SJ

On 7/2/05, Menchi <ashibaka at comcast.net> wrote:
> I realize that we get a new proposal about once a week, so I'll make
> this simple and clear. I think it would be extremely helpful and a great
> innovation to create a wiki-based historical atlas.  Here's why.
> 
> An historical atlas would be useful: it would provide viewers with
> visual portrayals of political and cultural change that Wikipedia cannot
> explain in the most long-winded history article.
> 
> An historical atlas would be innovative: as far as I know there has only
> been one previous computer-based historical atlas, and its price kept it
> out of the reach of viewers. Paper-based atlantes lack the animation
> that a Web or software-based atlas could provide. Additionally, unlike
> any paper-based atlas, you could cross-reference map keys to Wikipedia
> entries.
> 
> An historical atlas would be an active project: Like Wikipedia, it
> provides immediate results-- you can see your changes on a map. You
> can't copyright facts of history, so any contributor could take
> information from a paper atlas and mark it up.
> 
> An historical atlas would supplement Wikipedia, making it easy to
> generate standardized maps for any country at any point in history.
> 
> Here are some previous atlantes individuals have compiled:
> http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/20centry.htm
>   This site demonstrates how useful an historical atlas can be.
> http://www.clockwk.com/
>   This $90 software is something like what I hope the project could
>   become.
> 
> The only obstacle to this project is actually writing the software. I
> would think this would require a standard vector-based format and
> process used for a website, which can be downloaded as offline software.
> Changes to the map would also require some sort of user-friendly vector
> setup.
> 
> I welcome any comments or criticism.

-- 
++SJ