Talk:Gall–Peters projection/Archive 1

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Archive 1

old talk

An example of this one would be great. I'm familiar with the Mercator projection, but can't imagine what this one would look like. --KQ 18:09 Aug 8, 2002 (PDT)

Here are some samples of various projections (copyrighted page, so we can't steal them): http://www.geog.ouc.bc.ca/physgeog/contents/2a.html --Brion VIBBER
Here one can find PDF versions of MANY projections: http://www.ilstu.edu/microcam/map_projections/index.html and it says at the bottom "Graphics as of 12/24/2004, created and released into the Public Domain by Paul B. Anderson pbander@yahoo.com (A member of the International Cartographic Association's Commission on Map Projections)" --
Oh... those. I've seen those. I don't think they'd be too hard to "reverse engineer", actually--just take a PD Mercator projection and use the GIMP or Photoshop to squash it at the top and bottom. I'd try it now except I have to pack for a trip. Anyway, thanks. --KQ 18:19 Aug 8, 2002 (PDT)
I think (and I might be wrong) that what you've suggest would not work. The Peters map is not just a stretched or squashed version of Mercator. In fact, I think you'll find it's stretched N-S at the equator (but squashed E-W there, relative;y speaking) but at the poles it's the other way around. Anyway, I don't think simple manipulation of a Mercator in GIMP will give you a real Peters, though maybe you could created something that looked a bit like one.

Where can I get data showing the outlines of the continents? With that I could code up the map projections (I have code for some stashed away somewhere, and Gall-Peters is pretty easy) and draw them. -phma

FTA: Within geography more generally, some commentators see the cartographic controversy over the Peters world map as a sign of immaturity in the cartographic profession regarding the fact that all maps are political.

Perhaps I've been drinking the koolaid for too long, but there are technical reasons for some map projects. Or perhaps it is just a coincidence that routes on a Mercator projection are a straight line!

Some commentators may think that all maps are political. I don't doubt that some commentators think that all maps are a conspiracy against flat earthers. :D

I'm unhappy with the wording of the quoted sentence. Perhaps we need a pro/cons section of the article?

--Dasunt 23:26, 5 February 2006 (UTC)


It's impossible to eliminate an "agenda" from a map, since the map has a purpose. All maps distort. You must choose what to put on and what to leave off a map. The agenda, and the decisions that go into fulfilling it, are argued to be "political". While that may be true (depending on definitions), it would be an unfounded leap to claim that the political aspects of most map carry significance for their audience. Therefore I think rather dimly of the unjustified politicization promoted by some commentators, but I don't question the fact that all maps are (at least faintly) political.

Strebe 05:51, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

2021

Yes. No "perhaps" about it. It's astonishing that, in the article about that unprecedentedly-popular map, there's no pros/cons, advantages/disadvantages discussion.

Have we been overzealously editing?

That lack will soon be fixed. -- 22:14, 31 July 2021 97.82.109.213

NPOV

The section entitled "the controversy" needs some serious NPOV work and should have citations. WP doesn't say things like "All of those claims were erroneous", even if such is true, without attributing the statement. – Jonel | Speak 13:12, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I can't find any citation to justify the claim that Peters finally acknowledged the prior art of Gall. I wonder if he really did.

Strebe 05:40, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

the 'controversy' section says, in part, "Faced with his notoriety, by 1980 many cartographers had turned overtly hostile to the problematic claims many viewed to be truculent, exaggerated, or outright erroneous." wow. there's a serious pov issue here, not to mention a prose so purple it borders on ultraviolet. anyone want to take on a rewrite? frymaster 20:16, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Frymaster, could you describe precisely what you think is wrong with the point of view, rather than just accusing the prose of having a "serious pov issue"? The passage reports that some cartographers viewed the claims a particular way. That's completely neutral. As for your complaint about the prose color, is it the use of capital letters that blinds you, or was it just the hardly-exotic-words you don't happen to know?

Strebe 23:28, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Jonel and Frymaster that there is a NPOV issue here, the text generally reads as pretty harsh on Peter. Tomgreeny 23:45, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Disagree. The entry is as balanced and NPOV as can be expected from a narrow but highly controversial subject such as this one. It would be POV to downplay the controversy, particularly as the PP has been repeatedly and convincingly rubbished (strong though that may sound) in the literature (quite a bit, though by no means a large fraction, of which has been cited in the article).Brockle 10:40, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I would like to contribute this NOPV discussion by describing how I ever found this Gall-Peters map: All my life I've seen only two maps; the round globe with a lamp inside (you know, the familiar sphere) and the mercator map in every book I've read. Everytime I saw different kind of map (For example centered on Antarctis) I couldn't relate it to these two maps. I saw the world as a Mercator even though I didn't know its name! I _knew_ that Greenland is not that big but couldn't say how much it was wrong. Then I stumbled on this Gall-Peters kind of map at wall of a hostel. I just couldn't get my eyes from it. Africa was big. Greenland small. It was totally fascinating.

I spent my time searching the map from the internet, and then found this page. It was a total disappointment. I mean, the guy who opened my eyes to the world was seen as an amateur and no-good man in this article. If this is an encyclopedia, I would like to point out that what that man did, made a difference to an ordinary man like me. I don't really care if the map is not mathematically correct or you can't sail with your ship to a another country. I mean.. Now I really understand why Africa countries are so divided. They have a desert as big as Europe!

And finally, my humble proposition to correct this NPOW issue. You could move all the dispute to the Peters' personal page, if that exists. There it wouldn't be such a big NPOW, because if you stumbled _there_ you would like to know the personal battles of that man.

62.142.198.159 10:17, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that the Controversy section is simply too long and too relevant in this voice. in effect moving it, making a voice apart or make a synthesis would be more effective.
for example what Peters did or not did in relation with cartography associations should figure under his personal page and if there are a evolution in the consideration of this type of map it should be listed as this, or if there is a "Peters question" in the cartogrphists community it should be listed under its name.
80.104.141.45 13.34, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't quite grasp what "too relevant in this voice" means. The Gall-Peters projection is largely defined by the controversy and its history. There probably wouldn't even be a Wikipedia entry for the projection without the controversy. Hence I'm not sure trying to move that section somewhere else would benefit the article. Peters's actions in the affair belong in the discussion of the projection and certainly within the discussion of the controversy. Don't they?

Strebe 01:09, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

See, I knew the Gall-Peters map also without knowing Peters name and absolutely not knowing this polemics history.
now it isn't that in this way the voice isn't comprehensible and maybe now I'm more informed on academic diatribes then before, but the voice is about Gall-Peters map that is a quite widely knowed kind of map, different from other Gall projections.
I'd rahter find relevant an explanation on why the rectangles on the Gall-Peters are not regular squares. wich now I don't know, but I know how this kind of map that I find on my textbooks some year ago have been welcomed 30 years ago.
80.104.141.45 11:37, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm surprised the NPOV issue seems to be more or less settled when I found the controversy section still quite subjective. Phrases like "crusaders for new projections" and "well-intentioned, zealous, but poorly informed predecessors" in particular slant the article towards a hostile stance against Peters and his arguments in favour of his projection. What about discussing the merits of his arguments more? Wikischolar1983 (talk) 09:57, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

cru•sade (n.): an organized campaign concerning a political, social, or religious issue, typically motivated by a fervent desire for change.
It is hard to imagine a more accurate description of the activities surrounding the promotion of the Peters projection. It is also hard to believe Peters or Edwards would not characterize themselves as "crusaders". The word does not carry an innately negative connotation by the dictionary definition or in most people's minds. c.f. "Crusader for peace," or "Crusade against poverty".
With respect to "zealous" and "poorly informed", did you read the citation that went with it? Do you doubt the cited author? Do you doubt there are such predecessors? Or do you object to juxtaposing them against Peters? Would you prefer "sometimes poorly informed"?
How does one discuss the merits of an argument that has no verifiable merits? The technical claims are discussed and dealt with. They fare poorly. The single non-technical claim – the psychosocial rationale for the projection – is conveyed under "Peters world map". There is little more that can be said about that claim without speculating, for the simple reason that no one, including Peters, has ever conducted a study that could inform a debate about whether map representation of land sizes would ever influence a person's perception of a country's importance. Meanwhile the only published apologists that I know of are cited – and even they did not endorse Peters's thesis. They merely argued it might have some truth to it or commented on the reactionary cartographic community.
If there were any peer-reviewed literature supporting Peters's argument, of course it must get cited. There isn't any. The fact that Peters met with considerable successes in promoting his map and its ideology does nothing to change the fact that it's all founded on false claims and a single unverified (and doubtful – c.f. Monmonier) thesis. The usual term for this sort of promotional activity is "quackery", but peer-reviewed commentators have (just barely) fallen short of outright using the word.
If you object to the tone, then please clean it up.Strebe (talk) 21:07, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
The problem I have with those phrases is that they inject subjective opinion - no matter how much evidence might be in their favour, they're a subjective description when wikipedia should really be just about the facts. Whether crusade is positive or negative in particular depends on how you view his arguments; if you think that what he said did have merit, then crusade gives the impression that he was hot-headed and had not thought over the substance to his claims, when I think that he most sincerely did. I think there is merit to his argument that Mercator projections were so prevalent because they exaggerated the size of the industrialised, western countries. This might not be verifiable from a strictly cartographic point of view but it still is a valid (ie, reasonable) point to make. The overall tone of the controversy section seems to condemn him for that. Wikischolar1983 (talk) 09:06, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
You claim that dictionary-accurate phrasing and commentary from cited sources is "subjective opinion". You claim "crusade" connotes "hot-headed", when no dictionary implies any such thing and no one I talk to thinks so – and the point seems particularly weak when the term is not even being applied to Peters. Then you are saying you "think" there are merits to his arguments and that they should be discussed, but with no published material to cite. I do not see how following your recommendations would do anything but change a factual description of the controversy into an opinion piece. The article airs Peters's claims. It is beyond the scope of an encyclopædia to speculate on their merits in a vacuum of literature to cite. Strebe (talk) 22:13, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
(Sigh) Why do I get the impression I'm dealing with someone who doesn't know what bias is? It doesn't matter what the dictionary definition is, it doesn't matter whether the author of the cited works uses those words or not, the simple fact is the phraseology for an encyclopedia article is too descriptive and subjective and conveys a negative impression against Peters. I don't dispute any of the points raised against PP but in the way it's been worded and that it downplays Peters's own arguments entails a violation of NPOV, particularly when this article is supposed to be on Peters's very projection. Over and out. Wikischolar1983 (talk) 09:46, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

2011

You can make the controversy clear without using such value-loaded terminology.74.240.51.240 (talk) 07:25, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
The Peter's projection isn't mathematically incorrect.74.240.51.240 (talk) 07:27, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
No map projection is absolutely "incorrect", as long as it's self-consistent and well-defined. Nevertheless, the Gall-Peters projection has features (such as shape distortion) which seriously compromise its usefulness in its main intended uses. The only true advantage is that it's equal-area, but there are plenty of other equal-area projections to choose from... AnonMoos (talk) 19:59, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
Precisely. This projection is no more and no less than any other cylindrical projection: unfit for representing the world due to the extreme shape distortions. I still wonder how its proposal got so much attention! Alvesgaspar (talk) 22:46, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
Yep, me too. I don't have an opinion on the Gall-Peters projection and its relative merits and drawbacks compared to the Mercator; I was drawn to the comments section because the article seemed unusually hostile towards the GP projection and used several sweeping phrases to characterise response that seemed, at the least, a bit rich. "The cartographic community met Peters's 1973 press conference with amusement and mild exasperation" is not an NPOV phrase. "In the ensuing years, however, it became clear that Peters and his map were no flash in the pan" is not an NPOV phrase. "The 1980s saw a flurry of literature directed against the Peters phenomenon. Though Peters's map was not singled out,..." - so who exactly decided that the "flurry" was directed against Peters specifically? Wikipedia is meant to be a repository for fact, not a vehicle for contributors to exercise nascent storytelling skills; unsupported (indeed, unsupportable) rhetoric has no place in the article. 220.239.203.208 (talk) 01:41, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
Peters was motivated by the best of intentions, but he seems to have been completely cut off from any real knowledge of mainstream modern cartography, or direct personal contact with professional cartographers or geographers, until after he had already launched into his public PR campaign. Sometimes such isolation can be a good thing (allowing for fresh perspectives, see Ramanujan in mathematics), but in this case it was mostly a bad thing -- since Peters almost literally reinvented the wheel (inadvertently independently rediscovering an 1855 map projection), and he seems to have had some kind of idea that Mercator was the stifling unquestioned orthodoxy among geographers, when in reality many professional geographers hated Mercator just as much as he did. And his map projection just wasn't very good -- it was certainly equal-area, but there are a lot of equal-area projections around, and a number of them have fewer disadvantages than Gall-Peters. The discrepancy between these factual realities and Peters' grandiose claims and sweeping rhetoric generated widespread negative opinions in some circles, and we can report on such opinions in the Wikipedia article (as long as they're sourced, relevant, etc.)... AnonMoos (talk) 04:32, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Citation needed ?

The paragraph about the names given to the Gall-Peters projection is crisp clear and absolutely neutral. In its last period it is said that, in recent years, the designation Gall-Peters “seems to prevail” . Why is a citation needed to justify this statement? Is there any published study revealing a systematic counting of all written and spoken occurrences? If not, better to accept the fact that, in specialized literature, the name Gall-Peters is indeed prevailing. Of course, I took off the “citation needed” tag. Alvesgaspar 08:31, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Given that Peters is a highly controversial subject and the camps for and against it highly polarised, I agree that the tenor of this article is well balanced, fair in how it represents both sides of the arguments, and as much NPOV as possible. Peters has been roundly criticized, not only by stodgy cartographers, as some of Peters's defenders would have it, but by a broad range of geographers, including many with interests or involvement in the sorts of broad social and development issues and movements alluded to in the article. Brockle 10:31, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Individual points needed

It would be nice to have a list of the individual points the map aims to address. That is, the fact that the equator is placed in the middle, the Greenland v.s. Africa problem, North v.s. South , europe v.s. Africa and so on. Those are found on the web site and on the actual printed maps as well.

That would be fine, but not in a vacuum of cited analysis. Those points were all red herrings. Strebe (talk) 22:24, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Explicit formula?

Could someone please add the function that relates a point of the Earth's surface to the point on the map under hits projection? Tompw 16:43, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Here it is: x = cos(45)*long; y = sin(lat)/cos(45) (lat = latitude, long = longitude) Alvesgaspar 21:45, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Looks about right, I TeXified that and put it in; also included the alternate form of cos(45) for the sake of it, it's a bit nicer-looking I think. --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 11:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps this is nit-picking, but I think the formula mixes radians and degrees. As it stands, using degrees, the map would be 180 sqrt(2) units wide and 2 sqrt(2) units tall, an aspect ration of 90:1 rather than the (pi/2):1 it really is. Is it easier to clarify that the lat and long are in radians or to convert the 45s to pi/4s? 81.129.214.254 (talk) 13:30, 28 June 2008 (UTC) Kensson

New image

I've replaced the old line drawing with a projection of a satellite view of the Earth. The black bars on each side may be "disturbing", but it needs to be noted that this is part of a larger series of images of projections I have prepared with a common image size to ease comparisons. For example, view this article in one window and you can "blink" compare with Winkel Tripel or Goode homolosine projection and so forth in another window. Of course, if this is insufficient rationale, feel free to revert and I'll leave this article all by itself. mdf 14:40, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Confused

"the surface area of a sphere and area of the cylinder containing it are equal." --area is a 2D concept and a cylinder is a 3D figure, I truly don't understand what this could possibly mean (& "containing it" is a very vague term)

I'm confused by your confusion. Earth's surface is a 3D object. Are you saying you don't see how the Earth's surface could have area, either? A cylinder has a surface. Any surface has area. The exterior surface of the minimal open cylinder containing a sphere has the same surface area as the sphere it contains. The text expresses the notion correctly and concisely, albeit not pedantically completely. Strebe 23:21, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

no the text says "surface area" of a sphere and "area" of a cylinder, it should say "surface area" of a cylinder but it should also define "containing it" such that the two surfaces are tangent at however many points but do not otherwise intersect, I'll fix this just felt bizarre doing it when i have no idea of the truth of the statement

... & don't patronize me 140.247.47.139 03:37, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

This is ridiculous

There is scarcely any connection between the land area of any given state and its population, political system, economy, and foreign relations. How exactly is this projection a "social justice" issue?

Really? As far as population, 3 of the 5 largest countries in the world by size are the largest in terms of population. 3 of the five smallest by area are the smallest by population. I would guess that monarchies are more likely to occur in your Monaco's and Lichtenstein's than in your Russia's and China's. Economy? I'd far sooner face an embargo from San Marino than I would with Brazil. And if you don't think the big, populous countries don't have more weight to throw around in foreign policy, you're kidding yourself. It sure seems like a "social justice" issue to me.--YbborTalk 00:18, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, really. You chose 3 of the 5 largest countries when the two largest don't suit your argument at all. There is some correlation between land area and population for the simple reason that a bigger country can hold more people. The correlation is weak, though; so weak that the largest by area doesn't even make the top 5 in population – and you're the one who arbitrarily chose "top 5" to make your point. The second-largest hardly ranks at all. What sense does it make to demand an equal-area map to represent PEOPLE when the correlation is so low? You go on about correlations with political systems and economies, but again neither of those correlations is perfect or even strong. You're the one kidding yourself with sophistry. A perfectly equal-area map is no better than a compromise projection for "social justice" because the association between population and land area is so weak. And in any case, there are, and always have been, an unlimited number of equal-area maps to choose from.
The only reason this projection is a social issue is because a small group of loud people have adopted it as their symbol. It has nothing to do with the objective merits of the projection. Strebe 20:05, 1 October 2007 (UTC)


Absolutely not ridiculous. In the typical Mercator projection tropical cuntries are very reduced in size in comparison with sub-artic ones. Europe seems doubly large than it is while Africa or India look terribly smaller than they actually are. It's not a matter of population (that may evolve) but of real areas.
Even in a map of Europe for instance, Spain looks smaller than Sweden, when it's a lot larger. Or, again in the global map, Australia looks smaller than Greenland. That's the problem with Mercator projection or raher with the widespread use of this (otherwise useful) projection in nearly every sort of maps.
Peters projection solves this quite well.
The problem is that some "loud people" prefer to see Greenland several times its size strenagely enough. But, well, Wikipedia is not a forum. Let's stay focused. --Sugaar (talk) 03:29, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
What does Mercator have to do with anything? Everybody already agrees: we should not use the Mercator projection for general reference world maps. It's not about Mercator. It's about Peters. Perhaps YOU should stay focused. Strebe (talk) 17:33, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Shrinking a country, in comparison to the other countries, on a world-map, is offensive to the population of that country, regardless of how much an area is correlated with a population or an economy, etc.
It's reasonable to want a map of the Earth's surface to show accurate area-proportions, & there are applications for which that's useful or necessary. Conformality--scale the same in every direction at any particular point--is useful, relevant & desirable too, but obviously not possible on the same map.
A cartogram could have areas that represent population, economy-size, etc. But there's obviously a special relevance for a region's area on the map to represent its area on the Earth. 2600:6C55:7900:2B8:B9C3:432B:9DCC:28BB (talk) 03:04, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Gall-Peters? Aren't both "projections" different?

According to this site (admitedly apologetic of Peters' work and ideas, but also showing clear knowledge of the issue) Peters' "construction" (sic) is not Gall's projection, even if they may have some similarities in aim.

In quotes:

The difference between the Gall's Ortographic Projection and Peters-Map is:

  • Rev. James Gall assumes the earth as a sphere and projects his grid trigonometrically with the standard-parallel of 45°.
  • For his construction Arno Peters assumes the earth as an ellipsoid and he develops his grid geometrically on the basis of area computations. The latitude of no distortion (standard-parallel) results from the method of construction and varies with the selected ellipsoid.

The world maps of Arno Peters and Rev. James Gall are very similar but they are not identical. A Peters-Map can only be such which has been designed using his method of construction. Any other map which has not been designed using Arno Peters method of construction can never be a Peters-Map.

There is more: the Peters method (not any simple projection but rather a construction) in whole detail, etc. While the results may be apparently similar, Peters' product seems to be a true equal area map, while Gall's is only an approximation.

I'd suggest that the cartographers around take an in-depth look and proceed to split (and clean up) the article accordingly. --Sugaar (talk) 03:20, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

You seem to assume, because the article you cite describes both the ellipsoid and the Peters projection, that Peters must have based his maps on ellipsoids. He didn't. His own written description of his method do not discuss development on the ellipsoid; nor is there any reason to because the difference between the spherical Gall-Peters and the ellipsoidal Gall-Peters is negligible. Gall's projection is perfectly equal-area. It is also a "construction", like almost all projections in actual use.
These distinctions you strain to find between the Peters projection and the Gall are no distinctions at all – and even if they were distinctions, the distinctions would have no meaning because they would be imperceptible. You are reading far, far more into the science of Peters's projection than Peters himself put into it. He was all about the big struggle, not struggles so tiny that you have to argue whether they even exist. I think he'd be embarrassed to have someone defending the uniqueness of his projection by resorting to splitting microscopic hairs. Strebe (talk) 18:02, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, it does seem they are different methods. I know Peters never made an issue of it but in any case, it does seem that the people defending they are one, are ignorant of Peter's system.
Additionally there are several Gall projections, the one similar to Peters' being (if I'm not wrong) the stenographic one. --Sugaar (talk) 00:02, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
No, the Peters projection is the same as the Gall orthographic – read the Wikipedia article, at the very least. There is no "Gall stenographic"; there's a "Gall stereographic". There is no controversy over whether the Peters projection is the same as the Gall orthographic. It is the same. There are people who have actually studied this stuff, if you can imagine, and they are well cited in the Wikipedia entry. One of them (Snyder) was the dominant map projections expert of the 20th century. This is not a productive conversation. Strebe (talk) 20:26, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
      • Nice to meet you here, daan! Still struggling with the Peters projection? Maybe a new religion will be created soon; and then, it will be a matter of faith and no rational arguments will be allowed any more! Regards, Alvesgaspar (talk) 00:18, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


My, there seems to be plenty of heated discussion on this page - I had no idea the Peters projection was so controversial. What an interesting read! I agree that given the strong feelings displayed above, the controversy section is neither too long, nor misplaced in this article. I also feel that it could be reworded to clarify who thinks what and why. Right now it reads a bit like a specialist's argument with other specialists - so to a relative novice on the subject, it's confusing. For example, in this phrase: "Mercator's inappropriate use in world maps..." Marcato's inappropriate use of what? And why is it inappropriate? Or rather, who thinks so - Peters himself? Maybe the experts or the original author could help us out on these things. Ah, and on that note: I don't understand the relevance of the middle paragraph in the "Peters World Map" section; why does it matter if there was a discrepancy between his text and the description? [Does 'description' here mean 'image'?] Obviously it must be important to somebody, or it wouldn't be included, but from the lay-perspective it's quite confusing. Please help? Thanks! Isocephaly (talk) 00:35, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I agree that some of the verbiage could be simplified. You have changed the meaning in some places, so I hacked at it a bit more. Take a look at the revisions to see if you think it's improved. Strebe (talk) 20:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)


is it Peters' or Peters's?

The Wiki article on use of an added 's' after a possessive apostrophe indicates that it should be dropped where the 's' sound makes including it difficult to sound. Now is Peters' easier to sound that Peters's? I think it is. But whoever wrote the article has committed the 'sin' of repeating Peters's so many times that I have only amended it where it first appears - and I would leave to the consensus view to decide whether to change this throughout. But to me it looks and sounds all wrong. —Preceding unsigned —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.141.230.187 (talk) 15:29, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

And to me it looks all wrong not to add the apostrophe "s". All of the journals I have written or reviewed papers for require the added "s". The Wikipedia style guide mostly wants consistency throughout the article. I will note, however, the style guide's comment: "Most respected sources require that practically all singular nouns, including those ending with a sibilant sound, have possessive forms with an extra s after the apostrophe. Examples include the Modern Language Association, The Elements of Style, and The Economist. Such sources would demand possessive singulars like these: Senator Jones's umbrella; Mephistopheles's cat." A very few exceptions are generally agreed upon, and Peters is not one of them. Strebe (talk) 23:19, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
I will also note there is no audible way to distinguish between Peter's (the name is Peter, and he's got something) and Peters' (the name is Peters and he's got something) if you do not pronounce the second as Petersez. The English possessive comes from the archaic usage "noun + his", as in, We ogled Peters his map a long while. Contracted, that is pronounced Petersez, not Peters. Hence there is no historical justification for eliminated the added "s", either spoken or written. Strebe (talk) 23:25, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
That's not historically correct -- see English possessive#History... AnonMoos (talk) 15:39, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Interesting. Apparently I've read too much Elizabethan literature. The usage was in fashion then. Strebe (talk) 19:23, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

The Real Deal

From Bob Abramms, Peters Map publisher for North America: "I interviewed Dr. Arno Peters on videotape for over 25 hours during October of 2001. I can clarify some of the misconceptions that abound in the above exchanges. (1) Peters did acknowledge the existence of the Gall projection, but he only discovered it some time after the cartographic community took him to task for allegedly plagiarizing Gall's work. Gall's work was mathematical in nature as are nearly all map projections. (2) Peters initial work to create his projection was a cumbersome, laborious hand-drawing of the world, taking each quadrant of the graticule and stretching and squeezing the landmasses to fit a rectilinear map. (3) Only after his projection generated intense controversy with his exaggerated claims, did he turn the cartographic duties over to Terry Hardaker at Oxford Cartographers in Oxford UK. (4) Oxford Cartographers then took Peters “construction” and transformed it into a map based upon mathematical formulae. I argued with Arno Peters at length attempting to get to him modify some of the exaggerated claims printed on the right side of his wall map. It was to no avail. When I discussed this with Terry Hardaker at Oxford Cartographers, even Hardaker admitted he didn’t fully understand or agree with Peters claims. But Peters was a bit stubborn, and he refused to modify the map surround text to accommodate either Hardaker or myself. I recognized from a very early point that Peters’ overblown assertions were hurting the credibility of the map. Only after Arno Peters death was I able to revise the map text to make it more accurate. I believe it currently is cartographically accurate and entirely defensible. My documentary film, based on the Peters interviews in Bremen Germany, is now complete (Arno Peters: Radical Map, Remarkable Man). Bob Abramms www.ODTmaps.com 413-549-1293

˜˜˜˜Denis Wood

Denis, now that ODT's DVD is published I added a citation. But I don't see that the DVD narrative contradicts the Wikipedia text as it stands or demonstrates any "misconceptions" or even adds anything relevant. Of course you or Bob Abramms or anyone else is free to edit as you see fit. Strebe (talk) 05:53, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


It seems Peters rediscovered the cyclindrical equal area map and the notion of standard parallels. The standard parallels make it eurocentric (ironically) but they also make it a viable map. The standard cylindrical equal area turns Europe into a roadkill. I don't see why anyone should try to insist that cylindrical maps should not be used for the world. Sure it has bad distortion but that is unformly oriented- unlike Mollweide-type that bend continents in a funny way-usually Australia suffers worst.

Jay Jackson

the entire class of equal-area cylindric projections

I see that Gall–Peters_projection#Discussion lists a bunch of slightly different equal-area cylindric maps.

My understanding is that this entire class of maps -- the entire class of equal-area cylindric projections -- has been named Lambert cylindrical equal-area projections.[1] Each map in that class has a width/height ratio of where is the particular standard of latitude picked for this map.

In particular, the Gall-Peters projection is a special case of the Lambert cylindrical equal-area projection with a standard latitude of 45°.

Is there a more specific name for the special case of the Lambert cylindrical equal-area projection with a standard latitude of 0°?

Is there any reason not to move most of the general discussion of this class of maps out of this Gall–Peters projection article and into the Lambert cylindrical equal-area projection article? --68.0.124.33 (talk) 07:59, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The map projections literature nomenclature generally assigns "Lambert cylindrical equal-area projection" only to the case where the standard parallel is the equator. The more general name is "cylindrical equal-area". The redirect from "Cylindrical equal-area projection" to "Lambert cylindrical equal-area projection" is not good and needs to get fixed.
This article discusses how the projection is constructed and its relationship with other projections so that the reader can reach "his" own conclusions on how significant a development the projection is and can grasp the arguments in play in the controversy. There is no reason the information could or should not be repeated in the article on the cylindric equal-area projection, but I do not think the fact that it appears there argues that it should not appear here as well. Strebe (talk) 19:39, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
I agree that cylindrical equal-area projection should link to an article that discusses the general mathematics that apply to all cylindrical equal-area projections to that article.
The current version of the Lambert cylindrical equal-area projection article leads me to think that "Lambert cylindrical equal-area" is a synonym for the entire class of "cylindrical equal-area projection". Can we improve that article so that people like me understand that Lambert is the specific "standard parallel is the equator" case?
I'm a bit confused -- you mention "the article on the cylindric equal-area projection", but as far as I can tell that article does not yet exist.
Are you referring to the "cylindrical" section of map_projections#Cylindrical or list_of_map_projections#Cylindrical?
Or are you suggesting that Wikipedia ought to have an entire article that covers all the cylindrical equal-area projections?
That other article would be analogous to Weisstein's Cylindrical Equal-Area Projection article.
Should we create that article by WP:SPLIT this Gall–Peters projection article into two articles -- an article that covers the general mathematics that apply to all cylindrical equal-area projections, and this Gall–Peters projection article that covers Mr. Peters and the history of his specific map, repeating some of the information from that other article? --68.0.124.33 (talk) 19:27, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
"Cylindric equal-area projection" = "Cylindrical equal-area projection", which presently redirects to Lambert cylindrical equal-area projection. "Cylindrical equal-area projection" and "Lambert cylindrical equal-area projection" articles ought to get split into two. The former should contain information common to all cylindric equal-area projections, including listing the specializations. Lambert is a specialization. It needs only information specific to the specialization.
I do not favor removing the Gall-Peters projection#Description section from Gall-Peters. The information in its Discussion section should be repeated in the cylindric equal-area projection article, but the latter ought to provide much more information about the entire family of projections. Strebe (talk) 01:18, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
 Done. As you suggested, I built up the cylindrical equal-area projection article (formerly a mere redirect) by copy-and-paste from a few Wikipedia articles (see article history for details).
I thought it would be easier to copy big chunks from those articles and then edit it down, rather than build it up a line at a time.
Like all Wikipedia articles, I hope later editors will continue to edit and improve it. --DavidCary (talk) 19:38, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Map artwork

I agree a new illustration is needed. The processed satellite imagery used in many of the map projection illustrations throughout Wikipedia are not suitable because the dark color of the terrain obscures anything else that might be needed on the map. Hopefully we can move to something similar to what is on the Transverse Mercator page, for example, although a good deal of discussion should precede any such move. The image User:Tjic has twice inserted is unusable, however.

I only found two projection pages that use political boundaries.

Neither of them had illegible text, or any text at all. There is good reason to put both a physiographic map and political map on a page, but not one with illegible elements. Illegible elements are confusing, visually disruptive, not informative, not cartographic, not æsthetic, not professional, and not precedented. Strebe (talk) 19:34, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Replace low-contrast images

Sample of new image style

I will be replacing images on the various map projection pages. Presently many are on a satellite composite image from NASA that, while realistic, poorly demonstrates the projections because of dark color and low contrast. I have created a stylization of the same data with much brighter water areas and a light graticule to contrast. See the thumbnail of the example from another article. Some images on some pages are acceptable but differ stylistically from most articles; I will replace these also.

The images will be high resolution and antialiased, with 15° graticules for world projections, red, translucent equator, red tropics, and blue polar circles.

Please discuss agreement or objections over here (not this page). I intend to start these replacements on 13 August. Thank you. Strebe (talk) 22:39, 6 August 2011 (UTC)


Circles -vs- Spheres

"Maps based on the projection continue to see use in some circles." -- shouldn't that be "in some spheres"? Xardox (talk) 01:48, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Cute… but confusing. :-p Strebe (talk) 20:54, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

West Wing details

(Moved from User:Strebe's talk page.) I would argue that a 180-degree rotation is quite a relevant difference. Furthermore, the article opens the door to explaining the reasoning behind the use of that specific map by stating that "prominence to countries in less technologically developed parts of the world that are otherwise underestimated". Finally, while I understand that you strive for editorial cohesion, the strength of Wikipedia lies in the non-linear connections made between various articles, rather than being just a straight forward encyclopedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.217.20.146 (talk) 20:56, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

I have reverted your edit again. No scholarly articles bother to mention the West Wing appearance; the entire West Wing paragraph is already unsourced trivia constituting WP:OR and lacking WP:NOTABLE credentials. It’s also too detailed already even allowing for a little trivia. The fact that the map is south-up is not important to the article in any sense: regardless of any spherical coordinate rotation, the map projection is the same. I don’t follow your other justifications. Meanwhile “affective associations between vertical position and valence of traditional maps” sounds like buzzword babble and an over-the-top attempt at intellectualism, which fails in this article since it is unexplained and means nothing to anyone who hasn’t read Meiers et al, who made it up. Claims like this have to be sourced—but but in some other article where they are relevant. Strebe (talk) 07:58, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
If the map's South-at-top nature is as important as its Gall-Peters nature in trying to shake up things that are commonly taken for granted, then I don't see any harm in mentioning it (though not discussing it at any length)... AnonMoos (talk) 18:45, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
Again, mentioning the West Wing appearance at all is dubious, as is the whole “In popular culture” section, since nothing in it is sourced. I have restored mention of south-up, but I reiterate its irrelevance. The article is about the Gall–Peters projection, not about shaking up things that are taken for granted. Strebe (talk) 19:02, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Irony

The word "irony" should almost always be avoided because it is so often misused, as it is in this article. In the 'Controversy' section it states that "Several scholars have remarked on the irony of the projection's undistorted presentation of the mid latitudes, including Peters's native Germany, at the expense of the low latitudes, which host more of the technologically underdeveloped nations". That is not ironic so the word "irony" should be removed.

Ciao for now! FillsHerTease (talk) 08:52, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

It’s not helpful to proclaim something is wrong without explaining why. On the face of it, that is a correct use of “irony”. New Oxford American Dictionary: “A state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects.” Strebe (talk) 11:02, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
Hi. Sorry for the delayed response AND for not explaining why it isn't irony. In the first place you have pretty much covered it yourself with your definition from the New Oxford American Dictionary. There is nothing "deliberately contrary to what one expects" in a distorted two dimensional map projection. All two dimensional map projections are distorted in one way or another. The reason it is being referred to as ironic is that this particular projection makes Peters' native country appear larger than others. That simply isn't ironic, it's just a coincidence. The best example of irony I have ever heard is that when there was an assassination attempt of Ronald Reagan, none of the bullets which were fired hit him directly. However the car he was about to get into was bullet-proof and as a result one of the bullets ricocheted - which wouldn't have happened if the car WASN'T bullet-proof - and hit him. That is ironic! In that song 'Ironic' by Alanis Morissette, none of the examples she sings about are actual examples of irony. The fact that a song entitled 'Ironic' attempts to give examples of irony but fails to do so does in fact make the song ironic after all. Now THAT'S ironic! One of the examples she gives is an old man who wins the lottery but dies the next day. That is not ironic, it is just a terrible coincidence. Much the same way as the map projection distorting Peters' home country is a coincidence, not irony. If an old man played the same lottery numbers every week for 50 years, then finally gave up because he decided he was never going to win, then his numbers came up the next time around, then THAT would be ironic. Does that all make sense?FillsHerTease (talk) 02:32, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
The reason it is being referred to as ironic is that this particular projection makes Peters' native country appear larger than others. No, it’s an equal-area map, so everything is precisely the correct size, and there isn’t any particular illusion in play to make it seem larger. Unlike most of the world, Germany is correctly shaped. Given that Peters’s intent was to eliminate the “favoritism” he saw in the the Mercator representation of Europe and North America, the fact that his map represents those areas more favorably than the regions he purported to “empower” illustrates the very definition of irony. I don’t care to speculate on whether the effect of Peters’s choice is coincidence or deliberate, and if deliberate, why he did it. Those considerations are irrelevant to irony, the definition of which I will not debate any further beyond suggesting that the constraints you put on the definition are not generally accepted. The complete definition (#3) from Oxford English Dictionary says, “A state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what was or might be expected; an outcome cruelly, humorously, or strangely at odds with assumptions or expectations.” Strebe (talk) 06:48, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
There are many definitions of irony available, including one on Wikipedia itself, which clearly show that the definition used in the article is incorrect. What you would call ironic, but which isn't, is the fact that the very definition you provide yourself flies in the face of your own statement. The word 'deliberate' appears in the definition and yet you completely ignore it, immediately after stating that you "...don’t care to speculate on whether the effect of Peters’s choice is coincidence or deliberate, and if deliberate, why he did it. Those considerations are irrelevant to irony...". I obviously have no hope against that level of determination so I give up! :-) FillsHerTease (talk) 11:34, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
No, sorry; the article on Irony defines the word in the lede, and that definition matches the usage in this article. But that’s irrelevant. You could simply have registered your dissent by saying you disagree with the word “irony” encompassing situational irony, and I would have said English has long since expanded beyond the word’s etymology, and the conversation would have been over unless you had tendered some better proposal—but of course you cannot, which is why the meaning of the word “irony” has expanded over the centuries. In particular it is disingenuous to keep calling “incorrect” that which is accept by modern usage, by any modern dictionary, and by the blessings of many modern scholars. Strebe (talk) 20:25, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
Well ... as I said I obviously have no hope arguing against a level of determination which keeps referring to definitions which prove me right but then claims the opposite. Once again, you would call that 'irony' but it isn't. The lede in the 'irony' article very obviously shows that the usage in this article is wrong. Exactly the same as the one from the Oxford English Dictionary that you provided. There is no definition of irony which fits the article and there are no modern scholars who would agree that it does so, no, I'm not being disingenuous at all. What is happening here is that you are defining irony to mean coincidence, just as many people do (e.g. Alanis Morissette, as described above). The fact that many people don't understand the correct usage does not mean the definition has changed and the incorrect usage does not have the blessing of any modern scholars. There is no modern dictionary definition which defines irony as coincidence, which is all that is being referred to in the article. I do not disagree with the word "irony" encompassing "situational irony", I disagree with using the word "irony" incorrectly, as it is in this article. I thought that my position was clear? My proposal was, from the very beginning, and still is, that the word 'irony' should be removed because it is used incorrectly. However I understand the futility of arguing with someone who wants to be right so badly that they provide definitions which clearly show them to be wrong but insist on the opposite. It's just not that important so I resign, congratulate you on your victory, and bid you good day sir! :-) FillsHerTease (talk) 19:03, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
Naturally you ignored the dictionary definition’s continuation an outcome cruelly, humorously, or strangely at odds with assumptions or expectations because it does not suit your wish for the definition not to exist. Situational irony does not include “deliberate”; that is why it is situational. From Irony#Situational_irony: Situational irony, ... is most broadly defined as a situation where the outcome is incongruous with what was expected, but it is also more generally understood as a situation that includes contradictions or sharp contrasts. That’s precisely how the term is used in this article. Your continued insistence that I define irony to mean coincidence is inexplicable. Firstly, whether or not this particular situation is a coincidence is unknown, and secondly, it does not matter if the situation is the result of coincidence in order for it to constitute irony. From that section of the article on irony, Hinckley’s bullet striking Reagan as a consequence of the automobile being bullet-proof was a coincidence, but the outcome was ironic. In Gift of the Magi, the fact that both husband and wife sold their most precious possessions at the same time is a coincidence, but the outcome is ironic. Hinckley did not deliberately fire at the vehicle in order to strike Reagan. Neither the husband nor the wife in Gift of the Magi intended to derail each other’s gift-giving. Not just any coincidence is ironic, so no, I nor anyone else defines coincidence to mean irony. I really do not understand what you are not getting here, but at least we agree this conversation has lost any value. Strebe (talk) 23:54, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
FillsHerTease -- I would not personally insist on the word "irony", but whichever word one chooses to use, there's a glaring discrepancy between Peters' sweeping grandiose rhetorical claims that "his" projection was more South-friendly than Mercator in every single way, and the reality that in one very prominent respect the Gall–Peters projection favors mid-latitudes (including much of Europe and most of North America) over tropical/equatorial regions (including most of Africa). Some (including myself) would be inclined to use even less flattering terminology. By the way, just yesterday I saw in a used bookstore a sociology textbook published in 2007 which had a world map using the projection (and it was just as ugly as it always is...) AnonMoos (talk) 11:38, 5 September 2014 (UTC)


Could be a polite way of saying "hypocrisy", considering Peters' sweeping grandiose claims that his projection was the greatest thing since sliced bread in every way, and especially in being South-friendly... AnonMoos (talk) 18:16, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
It could simply be an innocent failure to notice the effect of his choices. Since irony is in the eye of the beholder, it’s not only polite, it doesn’t come with the risk of being wrong. ;-) Strebe (talk) 22:51, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

The "In popular culture" section seems worthless to me

Neither seem interesting or notable to me, I think it adds little apart from clutter.Halfhat (talk) 22:34, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

There is a reference to this map projection type in the XKCD comic http://xkcd.com/977/ 104.12.204.201 (talk) 02:52, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Saw that, but not sure that it's relevant to anything but Munroe's personal opinions... AnonMoos (talk) 18:36, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
Has it been referenced by any notable 3rd parties? HalfHat 02:11, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
The West Wing mention crops up frequently in diverse quarters. Really, I’d just rather get rid of the whole section. It’s a magnet for trivia. Strebe (talk) 06:06, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

File:Gall–Peters projection SW.jpg to appear as POTD soon

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Gall–Peters projection SW.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on December 15, 2015. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2015-12-15. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:48, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Gall–Peters projection
The Gall–Peters projection, named after James Gall and Arno Peters, is a specialization of a configurable equal-area map projection known as the cylindrical equal-area projection. It achieved considerable notoriety in the late 20th century as the centerpiece of a controversy surrounding the political implications of map design; Peters promoted it as a more faithful representation than the Mercator projection, which inflates the sizes of regions farther from the equator and thus makes the (mostly technologically underdeveloped) equatorial countries appear smaller and therefore, according to Peters, less significant.Map: Strebe, using Geocart
Archive – More featured pictures...
As usual, all good, Chris Woodrich. Thanks! Strebe (talk) 05:36, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

New subsection for adoption by UNESCO, Boston Public Schools?

The page and the projection have been the subject of renewed interest in the wake of the recent adoption of the projection by the Boston Public Schools (BPS; an article in The Guardian published on March 19th about the switch had over 2,000 comments and 75K shares on Facebook, as of April 17).[1] This development, and the claim that the projection has been adopted by UNESCO, are both featured in the current summary paragraph, but there is no further discussion of either pieces of info, i.e. in the body of the article. These details seem rather more relevant to the core topic than the pop culture mentions, such as they are. Okay to create a sub-section on adoption by UNESCO and BPS? Chicagoshim (talk) 23:02, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Chicagoshim. I don't know of much to say about the UNESCO usage—at least, nothing I could cite. UNESCO publishes maps using the projection. Do you have references to reliable material that elaborates on it somehow, and in a way that aids understanding? As for Boston Public Schools, it made news recently, but Boston is a single school district among tens or hundreds of thousands in the world. The projection is used much more widely in UK school districts, and scattered others around the world. Is the article obliged to mention each one? If so, why? If not, why not, or why is Boston special?
Please remove the sentence about the “Peters World Map”. The map is not the same as the projection. Also, you need to cite “most notably” as applied to the West Wing episode, or else remove it. Some people would claim XKCD is “most notable”; some would claim Oxfam’s usage is most notable, et cetera. I don’t know of any research that justifies calling this or that “most notable”. Strebe (talk) 00:33, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Joanna Walters (March 19, 2017). "Boston public schools map switch aims to amend 500 years of distortion". The Guardian. Retrieved March 19, 2017.

Wildly contradictory claims

The very start of the article reads: "The Gall–Peters projection is a rectangular map projection that maps all areas such that they have the correct sizes relative to each other." Then, the "Controversy" section pretty much completely dismantles this claim. Which is it? Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 23:25, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

@Prinsgezinde:You haven’t established any contradiction. Please juxtapose the statements you believe to contradict each other. Strebe (talk) 17:35, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
Really? That would be easier if it was just one.
"Peters's chosen projection suffers extreme distortion in the polar regions, as any cylindrical projection must, and its distortion along the equator is considerable."
"Several scholars have remarked on the irony of the projection's undistorted presentation of the mid latitudes, including Peters's native Germany, at the expense of the low latitudes, which host more of the technologically underdeveloped nations."
"The claim of distance fidelity is particularly problematic: Peters's map lacks distance fidelity everywhere except along the 45th parallels north and south, and then only in the direction of those parallels."
"No world projection is good at preserving distances everywhere; Peters's and all other cylindric projections are especially bad in that regard because east-west distances inevitably balloon toward the poles."
"Such [rectangular] maps promote serious, erroneous conceptions by severely distorting large sections of the world, by showing the round Earth as having straight edges and sharp corners, by representing most distances and direct routes incorrectly, and by portraying the circular coordinate system as a squared grid."
"The geographic and cartographic communities did not unanimously disparage the Peters World Map."
If anything, claim it tries to have the correct size relative to each other. Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 23:32, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
Really? That would be easier if anything in your list said anything about size disproportion. None do. Peters is an equal-area projection. There is no debate about that. It distorts distances; any projection does that. It distorts angles; any non-conformal projection does that. It has straight edges and sharp corners. It portrays the circular coordinate system as a square grid. You appear not to understand that projections have many kinds of distortions, despite that nothing in your list claims Peters distorts sizes. Strebe (talk) 01:51, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
Strebe: Would you stop removing the tag while the discussion is still ongoing? Not only is it obstructive, doing so repeatedly counts as edit warring. You clearly know more about cartography but you need to remember that not every reader will. Saying all areas have the correct sizes relative to each other very much implies that the map is fully precise. Leaving out the bit about distortion (which changes the size we perceive) will confuse people:
  • "Peters's chosen projection suffers extreme distortion in the polar regions,"
  • "Several scholars have remarked on the irony of the projection's undistorted presentation of the mid latitudes, including Peters's native Germany, at the expense of the low latitudes, which host more of the technologically underdeveloped nations."
  • "No world projection is good at preserving distances everywhere; Peters's and all other cylindric projections are especially bad in that regard because east-west distances inevitably balloon toward the poles."
Equal area projection comes in many forms, and none of the other articles claim to show "correct sizes". Does the Werner projection show correct sizes? I assume your answer is yes, but in practice, we're looking at it in a way that it does not. Same goes for this one. Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 15:14, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
@Prinsgezinde:Would you stop removing the tag while the discussion is still ongoing? Not only is it obstructive, doing so repeatedly counts as edit warring. → Adding the tag back into the article counts as edit-warring. Do you know what is obstructive? Adding spurious tags to articles before discussing them with the page’s editors and then getting insistent about it when you have little knowledge about the topic. Spurious tags undermine reader confidence in the article. They contribute to page churn. They waste reader time by causing potentially unbounded numbers of people to try to figure out what’s at issue and why, when there may be no issue at all. Editors are not obliged to coddle confused tagging. The dispute, if any, can get resolved on the Talk page without disrupting the article.
Saying all areas have the correct sizes relative to each other very much implies that the map is fully precise. → It implies no such thing. That’s a fallacious deduction, and one that apparently few readers make, since no one has ever tried to claim the contradiction that you’re claiming in the much-debated, fifteen-year life of this article.
Does the Werner projection show correct sizes? I assume your answer is yes, but in practice, we're looking at it in a way that it does not. → I have no idea what in practice, we’re looking at it in a way that it does not intends to mean. No. Werner and the Gall–Peters and the sinusoidal and Eckert IV and a bazillion other equal-area projections show correct relative sizes. Period. That’s what equal-area means. This is not a “perception” issue. True, people cannot estimate relative sizes to high accuracy (~5%) between different shapes, but that perceptive imprecision gets drowned out by the other kinds of distortions that Peters (and Werner and any other projection) introduce.
I do not know how to say it any more plainly: There are many kinds of distortion. Correct relative sizes is only one kind of distortion. Therefore, even if you eliminate that one kind of distortion, that still leaves plenty of other kinds of distortion. If you are going to persist in reading distortion to mean only distortion of relative sizes, then you will persist in imagining contradictions where there are none. Strebe (talk) 17:23, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
You're right, which is why I didn't engage you in it, but removing a tag when its discussion is still ongoing serves no purpose and is generally frowned upon. Whether you like tags or not, they're part of Wikipedia (and they're not a badge of shame). Articles like this usually aren't active enough to have someone respond so quickly so they're a way of getting the attention of other editors. Tags show that a contributor has found a problem with a page, one they should usually explain on the talk page, and tags can invite others to engage in the discussion. If it turns out other editors see no such problem the tag will be removed. However, you seem to want the article to be your way without attempting to build a consensus. Seeing the article's history, I'd commend you on your dedication to this article if you were more tolerant of other editors working on this article. It's somewhat understandable if you get annoyed by less knowledgeable people adding incorrect information but in this case (and several mentioned in other topics above) the problem is in how it comes accross. Wouldn't you admit that the average reader sees something like this differently than someone who spends a lot of time studying them? In any case, if we can now carry on with the actual discussion: I don't understand the remark about the "fifteen-year life of this article" because you only added in the part about "correct sizes" a little over 6 months ago. That really is the issue here. Why use this wording at all? It's not used in any other Equal-area article. To put it plainly myself: look at Australia on our images of the Werner and Gall-Peters projections. As you say, this difference is due to distortion. You also stress that every map projection suffers from this distortion. This is not understood by everyone, nor is the difference you keep stressing between size accuracy and controversial distortion. Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 21:42, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
@Prinsgezinde:removing a tag when its discussion is still ongoing serves no purpose. → I explained the purposes. You ignored them. To be more explicit: There was no emergency. The matter was under discussion here, where it is supposed to be discussed. I think they're not a badge of shame is naïve; the general public has no idea what those tags mean “internally”. They simply look alarming.
However, you seem to want the article to be your way without attempting to build a consensus. → I want the article to be correct. If that’s not your way, well… . You set off a pointless fire drill, and you persisted after I clearly, neutrally explained why you were mistaken. Meanwhile, I monitor something like 200 articles. It’s a serious time drain to deal with people who want their pet discovery of nothing to be taken seriously and with full bureaucratic process. Look at how many words have been wasted on this nothingness. Is there some reason you could not have done a little due diligence after I posted this and before you posted this? I was fine enough until that posting, other than your ludicrous condescension in your previous posting with, Really? That would be easier if it was just one. How much time do you think is reasonable to impose on other editors if you’re not even willing to do a little homework? How reasonable is it to call me out for “how it comes across” when you yourself indulged in condescension before I departed from any kind of neutrality?
I don’t understand your continued going on about “correct sizes relative to each other”. That’s not “jargon”. That’s plain, simple English. It’s there as an explanatory introduction to the term “equal-area”, which is jargon! Are you saying it’s better not to explain the jargon? Or… what? When I say no one noticed a contradiction for 15 years, it’s because the projection has always been described as equal-area, which, if “correct sizes relative to each other” is a contradiction, then so would be “equal-area”. Why does the “correct sizes relative to each other” explanation appear in this article? Because this article is far more likely to be visited by the general public than articles on other equal-area projections, and it’s also far longer and therefore explains far more things.
nor is the difference you keep stressing between size accuracy and controversial distortion. → You have utterly lost me here. When did I mention anything about a “difference” between “size accuracy” and “controversial distortion” (when did I use that term?). When did I “stress” this “difference”?
We all want a better Wikipedia. Next time, please consider the burden your actions impose and do some homework, rather than falling back on the infallibility of your own deductive powers. Strebe (talk) 01:13, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Size is not the same as shape. "Equal area" is a property which can be very precisely defined, and which is mathematically true or false for any map projection. Shape distortion is a more complicated matter -- of course, no flat map can be completely free of shape distortion. AnonMoos (talk) 23:10, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

True, which is why I was surprised to see Strebe's use of "correct". Calling the sizes correct is actually fine though as long as the lead also explains what its weaknesses are. Most people know very little about map projections and equal-area, which is why articles like this exist. "The Gall-Peters map shows the correct sizes of countries, but it also distorts them. Countries are stretched horizontally near the poles and vertically near the Equator, so although the size may be right, the shape definitely isn’t." This criticism needs to be addressed, as the lead currently barely describes anything from the huge controversy section and very much gives the idea that this map projection is without major flaws. That's not true. Cartographer Rob Lammle wrote: "Both projections are seen as flawed and have fallen into disuse as more accurate maps have been developed. In classrooms now, you're more likely to see the Robinson Projection or the Winkel Tripel Projection. The Gall-Peters map is still favored by some organizations, though many map publishers don't even produce it anymore." Numerous other cartographers said Gall–Peters is just as problematic as Mercator, and they pretty much all agree that better alternatives exist. In short: lead needs to include the negative. Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 14:39, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
It is ·right there·:

The Gall–Peters projection is a rectangular map projection that maps all areas such that they have the correct sizes relative to each other. Like any equal-area projection, it achieves this goal by distorting most shapes.

Strebe (talk) 16:35, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
That's not negative. That's "this thing does this because it has to" without any of the specific criticisms raised against Gall–Peters. Prinsgezinde (talk) 20:10, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
It is ridiculous to criticize a projection for its distortions; that is like criticizing the moon for looking round instead of spherical. The problem started when a charlatan reinvented the projection, gave it his own name, and made wild claims about it. The lede notes that the projection distorts (like any projection) and notes that the projection was the subject of major controversy. The details are in the body, where they belong. Strebe (talk) 20:36, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
Strebe -- it's perfectly legitimate to criticize the use of a map projection for a specific purpose, when the distortions in the projection hinder its usefulness for that purpose. The Gnomonic projection is great for some things, but you wouldn't use it for a wide-area political map. Gall–Peters arguably has distortions which hinder its usefulness as a world map. AnonMoos (talk) 06:55, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
@AnonMoos:Yes, it is, of course, legitimate to criticize misuse of a map projection. However, all map projections have distortions that hinder their use as a world map. The literature recognizes this fact, and hence the bulk of learned criticism of the projection itself (as distinct from Peters’s promotional activities) amount to æsthetics. In other words, it’s merely subjective. Strebe (talk) 06:43, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
The resolution of the "seven North American geographic organizations" against all rectangular world maps implies that they didn't think it was a purely subjective matter of taste that non-rectangular projections could have advantages over rectangular ones... AnonMoos (talk) 12:35, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
@AnonMoos: If you wish to move the conversation to my talk page or some other appropriate venue, I would be happy to discuss the many problems with the resolution, as well as direct you to scholarly criticism of the resolution (which should also be cited in the article). To repeat, the bulk of learned criticism has been about æsthetics. The resolution is not the bulk of learned criticism. Strebe (talk) 21:13, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

"All maps are political"

We currently have a line that states "Crampton sees the condemnation from the cartographic community as reactionary and perhaps demonstrative of immaturity in the profession, given that all maps are political". I'm not keen on the phrasing - I presume that "all maps are political" is part of what "Crampton sees", but it could be read as Wikipedia asserting that "all maps are political" (something that I would dispute, and which in any case would need a citation to support). User:Dasunt raised a similar criticism back in 2006, and while the wording has changed slightly since then, the broader problem remains. Crampton's paper is behind a paywall, so I can't see exactly what they say, but if "all maps are political" is their claim, then I would suggest rephrasing the sentence as "Crampton considers all maps to be political, and sees the condemnation from the cartographic community as reactionary and perhaps demonstrative of immaturity in the profession". Iapetus (talk) 12:48, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

For reference, I found a downloadable PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240804475_Cartography's_Defining_Moment_The_Peters_Projection_Controversy_1974-1990. It seems like the line in question is the gist of hat Crampton is saying, and I think your suggested edit makes sense. Justin Kunimune (talk) 13:16, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
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