User blog:Jpearson/Everything You Need to Know About the Interactive Maps Update

Hey everyone!

We’ve made more updates to Interactive Maps and we’re excited to share what we’ve been up to. The creation of Maps across Fandom’s platform has been on the rise. Over three thousand Maps have been created and featured on over fourteen hundred wikis. We’ve seen tremendous growth since April of this year when we released the Visual Editor. This made Maps editing easier and more accessible to users of all skill levels, which encouraged wikis across all verticals to start using Maps in extraordinary ways.

Since then, we've added HIGHLY requested features based directly on user feedback. From beginning to end, Maps has evolved through multiple iterations, and the feedback we gained throughout each stage allowed us to directly tailor Maps to what users like you needed and expected. In comparison to the old Wikia Maps, which saw little adoption due to missing moderation features, this time around we wanted to make sure communities had all the tools necessary to ensure their Maps are of high quality and properly moderated. Here’s a quick overview of some of the major updates we’ve made:


 * Categorizing Maps: Just like standard wiki articles, Maps can be assigned categories to group related Maps together and provide better organization and navigation for users.
 * Linking to markers: Map markers can be directly linked through a marker ID so you can easily and conveniently point users to an exact marked location on a Map.
 * Wikitext support: The description field of marker tooltips fully supports the use of wikitext, making it possible to add links, images, and other standard wikitext formatting within markers.
 * Custom category markers: Wikis are unique, and we wanted markers to be able to reflect that. Users now have multiple different options for customizing category markers to align with the theme of their wiki and help distinguish different marker categories more clearly. Options include changing the background color of the marker, using an emoji or single character that displays within the marker, or adding a fully custom image to replace the default marker icon altogether.
 * Map descriptions: This is a short text description that displays above your Map in the Map namespace to tell viewers what your Map is about and how it fits into the context of your wiki. This also allows Map namespace pages to be crawled by Google, thus improving Map discoverability and SEO.
 * Marker reporting: Logged-in users have the ability to report markers that are problematic or contain vandalism. We also created a dedicated feed for mods and admins to easily view, address, and dismiss marker reports.

Most importantly, all editors now have the ability to create and edit Maps on their communities! We encourage everyone to have some fun exploring new ways to use this feature. From locations to timelines to character guides to diagrams: there’s so many unique ways you can use Maps to enhance the way you document your fandoms!

In fact, we wanted to celebrate a handful of communities that are using Interactive Maps in different ways. If you haven’t had the chance to create or edit a Map, or if you’re not sure where to start, check out these featured Maps as inspiration!

Wookieepedia
Wookieepedia does a great job of using Interactive Maps unconventionally. They’ve marked different characters that inhabit Jabba’s Palace and even include a description of their roles!





Warriors Wiki
Warriors Wiki took a different approach and created multiple  timelines for the book series. How cool is that?!





Starlancer Wiki
Starlancer Wiki used an unorthodox Map to label a diagram of a Coalition spaceship. What an awesome idea!



Need for Speed Wiki
Need for Speed Wiki was one of the first communities to make use of ALL our new Maps features like custom category markers and map descriptions. They take full advantage of Maps to support the locations represented in the game.





Pillars of Eternity Wiki
Pillars of Eternity BY FAR made the most Maps of any community (almost 200!) Incredible work! We have to admire that level of dedication.



Want to see more examples? You can find them here.

What’s Next?
We are still working on fixing bugs that were reported and minor polishing, but this concludes the bulk of Maps work for now! We do recognize that there is still more work that can be done to improve Maps in the long run, but we are so happy to deliver this version to you all. Throughout the last months, users have sent a lot of amazing feature requests our way that we'd love to incorporate in the future (and rest assured we have taken note of ALL of them), but now we’re looking ahead to Mobile Theme Designer! Based on community feedback, the lack of mobile theming has been a pain point for the last couple of years. Broader user research and surveys confirmed this was at the top of users’ wishlist. We look forward to updating you on the progress of that initiative later this month!

Thank you to everyone that provided helpful feedback for Interactive Maps! We greatly appreciate your help and could not have built this feature into what it is today without your valuable input. We hope you enjoy this feature as much as we’ve enjoyed building it! Remember to share your feedback with our Wiki Representatives, contact the Customer Support Team, and reach out to us on Discord! We also encourage you to take a look at the Interactive Maps help page!

Until then, stay tuned for more updates about creator tools!

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