User talk:Ty's Commons

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-- Wikimedia Commons Welcome (talk) 18:00, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

History maps

Hi Ty, I couldn't help but notice your participation in "Maps of Yth-century X" (like "Maps of 14th-century England" and so on). There have previously been talks to move all such categories into "Maps of X in the Yth century", which would mean less misunderstandings and also a harmonization because "Maps of England in the 14th century" would be a subcategory of "England in the 14th century". The proposed category structure would also enable a template to connect all maps of (major) countries in the same century. See here: Template_talk:Subject_by_century#Allowing_a_prefix-suffix-combination?. This idea has not moved forward for some time, how is your opinion? Best, --Enyavar (talk) 20:09, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Hi Enyavar, thanks for your note and for reaching out. I both agree and am happy to help to the extent that I can. A principal interest for me has been to try to facilitate what I think many users can benefit from with respect to historic maps, which is to first focus the category on the subject (i.e. what is being depicted in the map), and then secondarily on when it was produced. So, for example, if my interest is to learn about and be able to show what the territory of Belgium looked like at a particular period in time, the category should ideally reflect that, e.g. the territory of present-day Belgium as it was in the 16th century. That's of interest for Wikimedia and Wikipedia for sure - as well as for other projects I assist such as WikiTree, which is attempting to connect all people (including descendants of Belgians and other Europeans) to a common genealogical database - which very much depends on knowing time-appropriate location information in order to enable research and appropriate description.

As we know from this and many other examples, however, the first issue is that a map actually produced in the 16th century would have had a different name and in fact combinations of names (since Belgium wasn't yet organised and called that). The second issue is that while overview maps might show the history of Belgium, they're often so generalised that they're of little use if the interest is Belgium itself and/or its localities rather its large-scale history or borders. The third is that the placing of maps into many different narrow "drawers" - especially when it's by their date of production rather than depiction - makes it even worse: the seeker of a basic map of the Belgian territory as it existed in the 16th century would not normally think to (and shouldn't have to) search through many categories of 17th-, 18th-, 19th- and 20th-century maps in order to find (if they happen to be both persistent and lucky), that the 16th-century Belgium map they're looking for happened to be filed away in a category of "maps produced in the 1910s." So I've tried to improve on that while also following the general guidance of first trying to get a sense of the "lay of the land" - seeing for example how the British Isles have been handled to date - and then build in something very close to what you're suggesting.

Putting both of those principles together, I've tried to adapt to the existing pattern of "Maps of Yth-century X" (which seems most common) - and added succession categories and cross-links so that one can easily go from "Maps of 15th-century England" to: 1) Maps of 14th-century England and 16th, 2) Maps of 15th-century other countries (since they show in the box), 3) England in the 15th century (linked), and 4) 15th-century maps of England (also linked). The key objectives are to facilitate focus on the main subject (by rescuing at least key maps from obscure drawers), while also providing links to related categories of potential interest.

Your suggestion of a new unified terminology such as "Maps of X in the Yth century" is also consistent and makes fine sense. I would suggest two things to minimize potential disputes and facilitate searches. Firstly, continuing our Belgian example, I would suggest something along the lines of what I've been doing which is to indicate that the maps are showing the territory of the present-day country of Belgium as it was in the Yth century - which tracks exactly what many if not most people are looking for - but doesn't offend the historian who notes that "Belgium" didn't yet exist as a country per se at the time (even though the territory of Belgium clearly did exist and can be depicted as such - to the benefit of many interests and uses).

The second suggestion, which I've also already tried to reflect, is that when average users are looking for maps of Belgium as the territory existed in prior times, it would be most helpful if the subcategory - such as "Maps of 16th-century Belgium" (or in your proposal "Maps of Belgium in the 16th century") - belongs to at least the two most relevant parent categories: 1) "Maps of Belgium by century" and 2) "Belgium in the 16th century."

As for the choice between "Maps of 16th-century Belgium" and "Maps of Belgium in the 16th century," I think either can be very clear, especially with an explanatory note that it's the territory of present-day Belgium as it was in the 16th century. The former standard seems more in line with what's already been widely used on Wikimedia Commons - but if you think there's a strong reason for shifting it could well be worth the effort (I tend to think both are fine with appropriate explanation).

Hopefully that's helpful, and you'll also have experience with how best to implement - in particular whether it's reasonable to adapt and improve the current approach or if we should try to change it. No doubt the former is easier - but I'm happy to brainstorm, and more importantly, to help further!

Best in return from your partner cartophile - and presumably fellow history buff, Ty Ty's Commons (talk) 23:40, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

True to both the cartophile and the presumptive history buff (I wouldn't actually call me that "buff" myself). The whole proposal was intended to make the difference more clear between "16th-century maps of Belgium" (i.e. produced back then, topic is 'Belgium') and "Maps of Belgium in the 16th-century" (from any period, topic is 'Belgium in the 16th c.'). That is the most important distinction in my eyes. The "Maps of 16th-century Belgium"-pattern was also what I found existing, it seemed not too bad to me and I then contributed on top of that, creating probably more than twice as many categories following that pattern than I originally found. I have since come to the conclusion that the pattern may not be bad, but at least flawed and inconsistent with the "Belgium in the 18th century" pattern that exists outside of the maps.

On the example of Belgium, that is an interesting subtopic: should we use historical territory names or the current ones? In case of Belgium, for example, I don't think I have seen many history maps earlier than the 16th century showing "Belgium" (under any name) as its own geographical entity. There are maps for example of "Flanders", "Luxembourg", "Holland" or (zooming further out) of "the Low Countries" as the wider area. Only with the 16th century, there were "Spanish Netherlands" vs. "United Provinces" etc. See for example Category:Maps of the Roman Low Countries, most maps there also include modern North France and German Rhinelands into the depicted area. I think that care should be applied to all historical areas that once had different names, and that categories should be as neutrally descriptive as possible. And that includes to shift terminology in some cases. To me it seems more straightforward to say that "Belgium was called Spanish Netherlands in the 17th century" (and so we call the history category "Belgium") than to insist on "There was no Belgium back then, only Spanish Netherlands", which leads to a multitude of historical territory categories, that are only understandable to history buffs. From your response, you seem to agree with that. But the sparse history maps of Belgium previous to (~) the 80-years war, I would still prefer to categorize under "Maps of the Low Countries in the 12th century".

Now that you put this is on the table, I'm uncomfortable for having created Category:Maps of Benelux by Gerardus Mercator. The man himself called it "Belgii inferioris" (or also "Inferior Germania") in his Atlas, and I found both terms unfitting to group the ten map designs by Mercator, so I went with "Belelux". I am aware that the term "Benelux" is just a convenient modern term that one can retroactively apply to maps showing the whole Low Contries area, but now I think that "Maps of the Low Countries by G.M." is more appropriate. Right? --Enyavar (talk) 11:54, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree re the importance of the distinction and I think the pattern generally works. Many average users (who won't be either locals or historians) simply want to see or find out what a country looked like at various times in the past. Such users often wouldn't know all of the various names, historic entities and prior borders that for most countries changed and evolved over time (especially in Europe but also elsewhere). And even current locals are often interested in seeing maps showing the territory of their own country (along with historic names, key towns, borders, neighbouring territories etc.) at various periods in time.

The great thing is that our maps, if organised in a few complementary ways, can not only easily provide that info but can also help educate by cross-referencing and often depicting the historic entities in roughly chronologic order. That's of course also helpful for parallel uses such as Wikipedia articles, as well as research uses such as for WikiTree and the like. And the most helpful maps could also be added to the corresponding atlases - some of which have large gaps.

I raised Belgium since it's a somewhat more complex case (vs. Ireland for example). But it seems that the basic organisation can still be applied: making it clear that one set of maps is tracking the territory of the present-day country going backward in time - and including time appropriate cross-refs to associated territories (so for Belgium: Gallia Belgica from Roman times, then parts of the Holy Roman Empire / Spanish Netherlands etc., to modern Belgium). I think your idea of cross-referencing as one of the Benelux countries (or Low Countries) also makes sense - since the territory itself often crossed over in the past and some users will think of the three together, as they are in Benelux.

So far I've continued with the same basic pattern. One advantage is that a parent category can combine the various maps in an orderly sequence: maps of the territory backward in time, old maps of the territory, and the constituent countries, as in: Category:Maps of the British Isles by century. I've also started to organise country maps so that they link to the other countries forming the group, and display at least key maps showing the territory in something approaching chronological order, to make it easy to both find and learn from the history, as in: Category:Maps of 19th-century Scotland (in progress). That's as far as I've gotten but I think it's consistent with the pattern already started - and seems helpful from multiple perspectives.

I'll actually be "off-grid" for almost 3 weeks but will back in when I return. Best till then, Ty Ty's Commons (talk) 14:40, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi Ty, I've been doing a lot of reshuffling of categories, and moved most of "Maps of 1Xth-century country" into "Maps of country in the 1Xth century" for the region of Europe. While doing that, I found out that you also uploaded some history maps yourself, and did fine work with "enhancing" them. Pretty neat! Some things for you to consider for future uploads:

Even if you brushed them up digitally - you're not the author of Droyen's, Shepherd's and Johnston's history maps: Please credit the original authors of old maps, give the original publication date, and license their maps under "pd-old" (or other licenses for material that is in the Public Domain because of age). You're certainly not the first to make that error, but I want to point it out.

I also hope that you didn't manipulate the maps other than cropping and color correction. There are a few uploaders who did do some research and began changing the borders that Shepherd/Droysen/Johnston & Co. got wrong a 100+ years ago. Using photoshop to change the content of the original maps, I kid you not. I don't think you ever did that, but I just wanted to mention it before it ever happens. To create more accurate maps based on newer historical understandings, we must make new maps, not retouch old ones.

Also, there is this great cropping tool here on commons. You can upload a complete map, and then crop details out of the map into new files. This has some advantages: It is super easy and you don't need external programs like Gimp of Photoshop. The tool automatically links the new files and the original file (like here in the image description). The tool also copies the whole original file description into the new cropped map, too; so you only need to change parts that are different. I noticed that you did this whole thing offline with File:C. 1650 Europe.jpg, and I had to manually create all these links.

(I have to say though, that I'm not a big fan of cropping too many detail frames out of any map, unless you have an immediate practical use for the new crop in some articles: The cropped details are usually lacking some context. But that last point is just an opinion.)

Anyway, keep up the good work! --Enyavar (talk) 19:10, 23 October 2024 (UTC)