Voilà, Fandom's latest Interactive Map feature, now open to editing: Special:AllMaps.
Contents
Introducing Interactive Maps
What is an Interactive Map?
An Interactive Map is essentially an image that a reader can zoom in/out and shake it all about pan/move around. Any part of the image can be populated with "markers." Each marker is a label which, when clicked upon, displays a little box that could contain some text and one link. Individual markers can be reported by any logged-in user, and reports would show up on the new Special:Reports feed, which on Wookieepedia can only be accessed by administrators. (For more details, see this Fandom help page). Aside from being standalone items of curiosity, these maps can be embedded in pages as well, and links to a specific marker in a map can be added to pages. What exactly Wookieepedia decides to do with the tool is up to us.
Possibilities. So many possibilities.
So, let's discuss what could and should we do with Interactive Maps.
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Obviously, maps of locations. Be it a map of a city or the entire galaxy, there are plenty of location cross-sections and star maps in Star Wars. Maps can also be used to identify characters within a film still or photograph, or even used as a schematic diagram for the manifold equipment inside Artoo. It goes without saying that the inclusion of markers to give brief descriptions and links of various subjects seen in an image could help readers get a better sense of everything. In addition, there are various other suggestions in this Discussion thread in relation to the use of maps on Wookieepedia. Braha'tok enthusiast in particular brings up the idea of having maps in place of some images on articles, as well as having galactic coordinates link directly to specific markers on a galaxy map. For instance, this takes you straight to Gonda, while this takes you to a little somewhere called Coruscant.
Considerations to be addressed
I think it also goes without saying that should Interactive Maps be adopted to articles on the wiki, our lovely Layout Guide will have to include them and put down some limitations regarding their usage. For instance, it seems that technical limitations mean Interactive Maps would have to display, at the least, quite a bit larger than the typical widescreen 300px thumbnail that you'd see on a modern status article. Also: do we want maps to have more or less equal standing with images, in article bodies? Would a status article nominator be responsible for any embedded maps as well? Must maps be added at all?—Because anyone can literally use any image and add labels and call it a "map," regardless of its contents, where do we draw the line between a "relevant" or "useful" map? What is a map?
Personally, I'd say we shouldn't worry about putting anything to policy at the moment; there isn't anything to codify as yet. I'd also advise against embedding Interactive Maps to articles for now (the code can be found above and in the Fandom help page), but I encourage folks to experiment with the maps themselves and try embedding them in different ways on personal user subpages. As we figure out how we want to use Interactive Maps together, it'd be really cool to have discussions together, so finally here we have the discussion segment of this Senate Hall thread:
This is a big topic, so to keep things as organised as possible, I've got two discussion sections down below. One is for additional considerations for potential Interactive Map usage that I wasn't able to cover above, and another for further discussion about everything Interactive Maps. OOM 224 16:20, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
Additional questions
Discussion
- Exhibit 1: Interestingly, links and references can be added to the markers using standard source code. Redirects will not show up as orange, which is a win since each marker's text field is limited to 300 characters, so if we want links then we've got to be economical. Also, references. Do we want them in map labels? OOM 224 22:06, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
- Looking at the ones with references, I think the reference is an unnecessary use of space there, I don't like the look of it at all, especially when there's an image under it. Braha'tok enthusiast Hello there 18:40, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
- Regarding links: I don't mind them being there, but with the amount that can be covered about the location, it might be better for the reader to just view the article if they want to delve in that much. Braha'tok enthusiast Hello there 18:44, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
- Yeah, we shouldn't really be in the business of creating mini-articles upon maps. Imperators II(Talk) 19:04, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
- I've done some tinkering the the map making (Map:Moddell sector) and have a couple things to note for consideration. One is using "See article" for the article link: For pretty much all the icon I've seen the linked article uses the same name, making it redundant to mention it again. Another is hyperspace routes: Obviously an icon isn't the best visualiser for a route (noting its bounds in the icon description will be the best remedy for that) and for maps like the big galaxy map, noticing the icon for, say, a very long and unlabelled route like the Triellus Trade Route is like finding a lightsaber buried in the Dune Sea, especially if the icons are set to cluster in numbered groups. Braha'tok enthusiast Hello there 21:36, 3 September 2022 (UTC)