Project Mowrossih

Project Mowrossih

Overview

Mowrossih is an initiative centered around Wikipedia, dedicated to combating the absence of visual content in geographical articles through the production of top-notch illustrated and scanned maps. By focusing on creating high-quality visuals, the project aims to bridge the gap and enhance the reader's experience. Mowrossih leverages the power of volunteers and skilled editors to design and integrate accurate and visually appealing maps into relevant Wikipedia articles. Through this collaborative effort, Mowroshi contributes to the enrichment of geographical content and promotes a more comprehensive understanding of geographic locations within the Wikipedia community.

Background

When writing an article about a particular district, city, or area, a map is essential to provide a clear understanding of its location to the audience. While Google Maps is a popular choice, it cannot be used in Wikipedia projects due to licensing restrictions. OpenStreetMap, on the other hand, is an open-source platform where all maps are freely available under a copyleft license. Many editors rely on OpenStreetMap for their articles. However, OpenStreetMap is not always reliable as it is developed and supervised by volunteers, which may result in occasional errors. Additionally, using OpenStreetMap in articles requires the use of special wiki texts, which can be challenging for new editors.

In this context, illustrated maps offer a better option. They eliminate the complexity of using special wiki texts to add images to articles and are created by experienced editors who combine reliable base maps with their graphic design skills. This approach reduces the chances of errors, and if any mistakes are identified, they can be easily corrected. Furthermore, illustrated maps are kept up to date.

Why Mowrossih

While there are individual designers working on maps for Wikipedia, their capacity to bring significant changes to the overall scenery is limited. Project Mowrossih aims to gather various skills under one umbrella to fulfill its goals. By utilizing the expertise of volunteers in a systematic manner, the project aims to design and provide illustrated maps for Wikipedia articles.

Presently, Mowrossih is predominantly focused on developing maps for articles centered around India and Bangladesh due to resource constraints. However, there exists a strong intention to expand the project's scope to encompass other countries in the future. To kickstart the map design process, thorough research and analysis are conducted to identify articles in need of maps. A comprehensive list of relevant places is compiled, followed by the collection of base maps from sources such as Google Maps, OpenStreetMap, and scanned maps. Designers leverage their graphic design prowess to fashion the maps into suitable formats for Wikipedia, such as JPEG, PNG, and SVG. Once the final map is meticulously crafted, it is uploaded and seamlessly integrated into the appropriate articles.

In certain instances, designing maps with specific themes necessitates the application of mathematical skills. Parameters like consensus or population density must be accurately calculated to create informative and data-rich maps.