3w ago

Lake depths and heights

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47 comments

Why bother making this at all if it's not to scale? Sure, nobody expects the horizontal scale to be the same as the vertical scale. Vertical exaggeration is common when displaying profiles or cross sections, but those are generally still considered to be at a particular scale. But, if the vertical scale isn't consistent, then what even is the point of the graphic? Just list some numbers in a table. Putting this in graphical form without a consistent scale is just lying and lazy.
- You don't seem too enthusiastic about this map.
  
  No metric either, and only 2 non-american lakes.
  
  The world doesn't only revolve around the rest of the world you know!
  
  If the map was titled properly like "Great lakes vs deepest and highest elevation lakes", I wouldn't mind.
  
  One of the lakes had normal units, but everything else was in fantasy units.
- It looks like these are two separate graphics spliced together, everything on the right seems to be to scale (or reasonably close to it)
  
  I didn't break out the ruler or anything, just going off of the pixelated disclaimer at the bottom.
  
  The disclaimer doesn't say it's inconsistent, though. Just exaggerated, which is good because otherwise everything except maybe Baikal would be a horizontal line.
  
  It says "not to scale", which in the world of mapping means very specifically that the scale is inconsistent. An exaggerated vertical scale would not include the disclaimer for "not to scale" and is very common, as I already said. It's common for maps showing vertical reliefs like profiles or cross sections to have a horizontal scale of something like 1:20 while the vertical dimension has a scale of 1:5 or 1:10, which would still be considered "to scale". If you still can't fit everything on a single sheet, you can add a break line or a jog to indicate a discontinuity, but the map would still be "to scale". This map is "not to scale" because it says so, so the only real information we should be able to glean from it are the connections between things; size, angles, and lengths as are meaningless because that's what "not to scale" is specifically warning us about.
  
  I think we actually have to get out a ruler here. In the world of infographics, "not to scale" usually just means one dimension is at a different ratio from the other(s).
  
  This is a map enthusiast community, not a lying with statistics and graphic design community.
  
  Then go yell at OP about posting a non-map.
  There's no lie here, nobody thought lakes are actually finger-shaped in cross-section.
  
  Strawman arguments aside, it seems you've already forgotten how this comment chain started. Just let it go.
  
  You're the one being randomly aggressive in an otherwise-friendly conversation.
  I had forgotten the cross-sections were already mentioned, that's true. I mentally boiled down what you wrote to "not to scale means inconsistent scale". My point was that if there isn't any inconsistency in vertical scale - which is what I suspect - there's no "lie".

47 comments