This proposal is a larger suggestion that is out of scope for the Community Tech team. Participants are welcome to vote on it, but please note that regardless of popularity, there is no guarantee this proposal will be implemented. Supporting the idea helps communicate its urgency to the broader movement.
Problem: Mapframe uses the Cartesian coordinate system, which works well across most of the globe. However it breaks down at the poles, displaying a lot of whitespace and massively distorting the lowest/highest latitudes. For a live example, see commons:Category:South Pole Telescope
Proposed solution: Re-render maps that are close to the pole (say, anything above or below 80° in latitude) by rotating them to the equator before displaying them
Who would benefit: Users/editors working on topics that are close to the north or south pole
More comments: I proposed and withdrew this in the 2019 survey. At the time I was thinking of different projections, but a simple rotation avoids this. There is still the issue that editing the map on OSM at the poles is difficult, though.
As some images locations are having different projections in the lower coordinates and poles, I think we should leave it here, like in google maps/earth, after 85 degree north and south it changes to different projection that works on the pole. Thingofme (talk) 01:24, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Mike Peel: Not with our current technology. Instead, if we were to switch to using vector tiles clientside, we can just switch the projection there. Mapxbox has a demo of that available. Vector tiles client side requires integration mapbox gl js, openstreetmap tiles and an vector stylesheet providing the render details for the client. This is a significant amount of work, but would give us all much more flexibility. The static tile rendering we have right now as a fallback however, might not be able to make use of another projection like that. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:41, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hello and thanks for taking the time to write this proposal. We have discussed this proposal as a team, and have identified this is out of scope for our team due to technical complexity but an idea that's valid nonetheless. I am therefore moving it to the Larger Suggestions Category. Thanks again! Regards, NRodriguez (WMF) (talk) 00:40, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@NRodriguez (WMF): OK. That's surprising, since I didn't think this had too high technical complexity (tricky, sure, but on the timespan of a year I thought). Would be interesting if you have any feedback on why you think it's so high complexity. But anyway, does this mean this doesn't count towards the limit of 5 proposals, and I could submit another one? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 07:34, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Mike Peel: I think the limiting factor here is the Wikimedia maps infrastructure, rather than the technical problem of reprojecting map data. Two probable solutions seem to be to a) serve vector tiles which can be reprojected by the client (although there are issues with this for people with low-powered devices), or b) serve a new set of raster tiles rendered in a different projection. Both are quite large undertakings, when they need to happen at Wikimedia's scale and with our audience. As far as I know the whole maps project is in maintenance-only mode and to extend it with new features is too much at the moment, and definitely too much for our little team. SamWilson02:16, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Displaying the map on a 3D interactive globe is probably the best option as it actually shows everything to scale and is inclusive of all regions. Using CesiumJS to do this is an option. Lectrician1 (talk) 21:16, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Lectrician1 (talk) 21:57, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
