Wikipedia:Top 10 myths about the Wikipedia Syria war map
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Here are the top 10 myths about the Wikipedia Syria war map.
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Myth 3: The map is great and everyone likes it. The article ancestor of the map (List of areas currently held by Syrian opposition) was deleted a week after it was created. The map was deleted an hour after it was added (inside an article) for the first time with the edit summary “absolutely not”. It was deleted again with the edit summary “not even remotely practical; no consensus to use it”. After this, it was deleted a total of 5 times. The associated template was nominated for deletion in 2014 and the associated article was nominated for deletion in 2015. Finally, a prominent arbitrator (and top 100 Wikipedians with the most edits) once commented on the map by writing: “It looks awful... The legend is overcomplicated, there are blinking gifs, I can't figure out what's what. There seems to be some sort of floating image in the center of the map; I don't know what it is. How is this map good? And that's not even taking into account the matter of sourcing, which is not up to snuff with WP:RS.” All this reminds us not to take anything for granted and to keep in mind that the map will stay on Wikipedia only as long as we respect the rules. |
Myth 4: if I see a good map online that has different colors from our map, I can just make the change on our map. Copying from maps is ”strictly prohibited” (see Wikipedia:Top 10 reasons why copying from maps is strictly prohibited on the Wikipedia Syria war map).
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Myth 6: If I find 2 reliable sources about a town saying different things then I can choose to use the one I like the most. No. Both sources should be taken into account and synthesized. |
Myth 7: The map has nothing to do with sex or Las Vegas. A prolific editor in the area of Syria war once commented after seeing the first version of the map that it had more flashing lights than the city of Las Vegas and that the military base icon looked like a phallic symbol! |
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Myth 10: Town size on map is based on the appreciation of the editor in terms of the actual size of the town. Dot size for cities & towns is based on the population number in the 2004 official census (see here for more details). |