Talk:Vasco da Gama

Article Checklist for "Vasco da Gama"

Workgroup category or categories	Geography Workgroup, History Workgroup [Categories OK]
Article status	Developed article: complete or nearly so
Underlinked article?	Yes
Basic cleanup done?	Yes
Checklist last edited by	Petréa Mitchell 12:54, 5 May 2007 (CDT)

To learn how to fill out this checklist, please see CZ:The Article Checklist.

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Great article

Say, this is a very strong article! Congratulations! I was wondering, though, whether a map or map might be a worthy addition, to help illustrate da Gama's accomplishments. With that, it could almost be ready to be nominated for Approval -- do let me know when that time draws near, and I will be glad to assist. Russell Potter 20:25, 17 June 2007 (CDT)

Hi Russell, thank you for the feedback. Yes, I think a map is necessary for Vasco da Gama's first voyage, as the text mentions the route and the reader probably doesn't know exactly where those places are. But I can't find one we can use here and I don't know how to draw maps. This can't be use [1], because the real name of the author is unknown. Something like this would be nice [2], it's more complete, but the map is in Portuguese. Some details on the article need to be better worked, more information can still be added; also, I must say I'm a bit concerned about the narrative coherence of the article, as it can get difficult to describe journeys without writing thinks like "on xxx he arrived...", etc --José Leonardo Andrade 05:41, 18 June 2007 (CDT)

Whew, José, you are right -- a good map seems almost impossible to find! I tried everywhere, Library of Congress Map Room, downloaded two books on Da Gama from archive.org (neither one had any maps!), did a Google image search, tried the National Library of Canada -- nothing! Maybe, if that Portuguese map is indeed available, you could either paste in a few English tags with Photoshop, or include a translation of the key names in the image caption? That might be the best for now. As to explorers and journeys, it's true -- but what can one do? I've been working on Sir John Franklin for ages; the lucky thing with him is that, since he got lost, there's more to say about him than if he'd just sailed and returned safely! All best, Russell Potter 09:09, 18 June 2007 (CDT)

I don't have Photoshop, what I have is a program called "Fastone Image Viewer" (it's free!) which has some "edit image" options. I tried to write the names of the places in English over the Portuguese ones, but the result was not that good... I had to make these little rectangular boxes with the names that don't look very nice. Maybe a friend can help me to create a map. I will also continue to work with this program that I have. Thank you for the suggestions, they were helpful --José Leonardo Andrade 10:20, 21 June 2007 (CDT)