There is no description or explanation of the bi-polar model on the TFES wiki. (If there is, I couldn't find it.)
If the bi-polar model is the preferred model, having replaced the north polar azimuthal model most associated with flat earth belief, I think this deficiency merits attention. I know it's not my charter to worry about how TFES presents a defense of a flat earth, but it's come to my attention that some of my critiques of "flat earth theory" (if there is such a thing) is based on a misunderstanding of what the Society currently supports.
I've read through some of the older discussion topics that delve into a bi-polar model of a flat earth, but rather than resurrect any of them, I thought it might be better to start fresh. And I've been reading the
Sea-Earth Globe publication that may have been what motivated the Flat Earth Society to elevate a bi-polar model over a monopole one. I also see extensive argument by Sandokahn for his own passionate version/explanation of bi-polarism.
I don't think a bi-polar model is zetetically supportable, but I think both I and TFES might benefit from a discussion about it: the Society so that it can consider drafting an explanation of the model for the public and me so that I know if I'm understanding it correctly and investigate it properly.
Before I had read the Zetetes publication, (and I probably haven't scratched the surface of Sandokahn's writings), I drew this up to start my questioning:
It was impressed upon me in another discussion topic that the bi-polar map(s) found on the wiki are notional and that there is no map. Rather, the bi-polar concept is but a model. So I drew this up without any map characteristics. I don't understand the model mechanism for the sun's shift from a northern hemiplane transit to a southern hemiplane. Here, I have the diamond marking the start of the sun's path on the day before the September Equinox. The sun at this point is slightly north of the equator. It then travels around the northern pole at maximum distance until reaching the centroid, the point at which it intersects with the equator. That is the point of equinox. Then, the next 24 hours it's path is the mirror of the previous day, but now around the southern hemiplane's perimeter, until reach the approximate location shown by the star icon.
That's a 48-hour journey bracketing the point of equinox. And the (angular?) distances above and below the equator are exaggerated, as is the distance from the perimeter since I don't know exactly how that should work. The equator, in particular, is confusing since during day of equinox the sun follows a path along the equator; but in a bi-polar model, that line (if that's what the equator is) is split between the far reaches of the north and south hemiplane. I also just guessed and rounded the corners at the left and right edges of the equator, uncertain how the sun makes that bend...assuming it even is an actual bend.
The document previously linked offers this graphic with accompanying explanation that is, at least for me, rife with problems:
I kind of hope this doesn't wind up being a bunch of round earthers piling on with criticism of these model variants. Not to discourage criticism because that's how ideas are burnished, but this shouldn't be round earthers doing the work to "murder board" and refine a bi-polar model. If there's already an existing articulation of the current, preferred model, point me to it. Else, can we talk it through and see where the model stands?