10 replies to this topic

[josie]

Hello,

I realize that this is a political issue but I am wondering how people approach mapping areas where there is a conflict of territory. Recently, I was asked to think about Israel and Palestine and became confused about how to approach this . I have never been involved in such as situation and thus I am wondering about other peoples views about this. How can you remain neutral when you make a map? Further where do find unbiased information about what should be the 'politically correct' thing to do?

I know this has been mentioned before in some discussions, however perhaps there are some new ideas?

Perhaps people have some interesting stories or ideas about these kinds of situations?

Thanks,

Josie

[Hans van der Maarel]

I realize that this is a political issue but I am wondering how people approach mapping areas where there is a conflict of territory. Recently, I was asked to think about Israel and Palestine and became confused about how to approach this . I have never been involved in such as situation and thus I am wondering about other peoples views about this. How can you remain neutral when you make a map? Further where do find unbiased information about what should be the 'politically correct' thing to do?

I know this has been mentioned before in some discussions, however perhaps there are some new ideas?

Perhaps people have some interesting stories or ideas about these kinds of situations?

I generally check with the client regarding what they want me to do.

If I get to decide on my own, I tend to favor dashed lines to indicate disputed territories. Taiwan is shown as an independent country, Tibet doesn't get a dashed line, but Kashmir and Western Sahara do.

[josie]

Hey Hans,

Thanks for the reply. I was just thinking...what about for an internet based map that relies on input searches. If someone types in 'Israel', how do you prevent this search returning the wrong results (in terms of what they expect)? In this case dashed lines can't be applied. How do you decide what a user expects to see when they make a geographic search.

Thanks

Johanna

[Hans van der Maarel]

Thanks for the reply. I was just thinking...what about for an internet based map that relies on input searches. If someone types in 'Israel', how do you prevent this search returning the wrong results (in terms of what they expect)? In this case dashed lines can't be applied. How do you decide what a user expects to see when they make a geographic search.

Contrary to what many people believe, I am not a psychic You can't predict with a 100% accuracy what a user expects to see in such a case.

Technically, there are ways of determining where a user is from, by reverse geocoding the ip address, and you could perhaps direct those users from "trouble" spots to a different dataset.

[josie]

Hmmmm...that is actually rather a good idea. Perhaps you are a psychic

[tch]

Technically, there are ways of determining where a user is from, by reverse geocoding the ip address, and you could perhaps direct those users from "trouble" spots to a different dataset.

This approach is used by Google in Google Maps to show the relevant geopolitical view to users from specific countries. See these stories about the Arunachal Pradesh area between India and China:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/174205/

http://worldfocus.or...geography/8021/

[Hans van der Maarel]

There's a bit on this in this article

[ProMapper]

Technically, there are ways of determining where a user is from, by reverse geocoding the ip address, and you could perhaps direct those users from "trouble" spots to a different dataset.

This approach is used by Google in Google Maps to show the relevant geopolitical view to users from specific countries. See these stories about the Arunachal Pradesh area between India and China:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/174205/

http://worldfocus.or...geography/8021/

Yes that is very true. But can we not just show the region in the disputed category, rather than conning people like politicians. Well, how ironic, the discussion is on politics in maps, and I remember the famous song, "There's a hole in the bucket". So just fix it, anyhow.

[François Goulet]

Yes that is very true. But can we not just show the region in the disputed category, rather than conning people like politicians. Well, how ironic, the discussion is on politics in maps, and I remember the famous song, "There's a hole in the bucket". So just fix it, anyhow.

True, but as it is mentioned in Hans' article, there's sometimes laws in countries to represent the boundary as they want. It's not conning in that case.

[tch]

There's a bit on this in this article

There's actually a great quote in that article:

In principle, the name given to a place is not absolute but is an attribute of the individual or group giving the name.

true for humans as well as places...

[josie]

I agree that it is not finite and we are not ourselves politicians. However, for me that is exactly the point I would like to put across in the maps I make...