List of Values by

nestel — 2026-07-21 01:37:57 UTC

Does our representation of the world use graphic devices that reflect our intent?

nestel — 2026-07-21 01:37:57 UTC

How do we control the quality of the information on our maps?

nestel — 2026-07-21 01:37:57 UTC

How do we treat the sources of the information in our maps?

nestel — 2026-07-21 01:37:57 UTC

How do we control the potential harm that our maps might do in the world?

nestel — 2026-07-21 01:37:57 UTC

How do we relate to claims and obligations we have made?

nestel — 2026-07-21 01:37:57 UTC

How do we support the groups we are part of?

nestel — 2026-07-21 01:37:57 UTC

How do we treat our peers and fellow stakeholders?

Confidentiality and disclosure

nestel — 2026-07-21 15:54:43 UTC

With the tools that are available now, locations and people can be unmasked with minimal additional information - even just a few clues about age and gender, and a location, can reveal someone, for example - how can we honestly communicate risks when risks are hard to assess and may change in the future?

Human rights

nestel — 2026-07-21 15:56:49 UTC

How do we protect people who are being marginalized by policies at a national level that are forced onto our institutions? How can these policies affect our maps?

weighing different ethical claims

nestel — 2026-07-21 15:58:36 UTC

Who gets precedence in situations when ethics compete? How do we weigh competing claims? What about competing claims and different standards of practice, in cross-disciplinary work or interdisciplinary work?

Humility

2026-07-21 15:59:54 UTC

This maybe fits with this and data quality and cartographic rep. So, we probably all run with the "all maps lie" trope, and while there are also things we can do re: each of these, maybe the overarching value is also a certain amount of humility about what we make?

Missing source data

nestel — 2026-07-21 16:00:06 UTC

Is there an ethical obligation to protect source data that is being deleted (like the data rescue project?) or may be untrustworthy? It seems like this is what is happening in the US with data brokers ?

Where this would apply (situations)

2026-07-21 16:01:18 UTC

This could occur in ICA events and meetings, and third party events and meetings, in person and digital communications.

Access and power dynamics

nestel — 2026-07-21 16:01:20 UTC

How are we aware of inequities in power dynamics and access to opportunities that inform professional growth and engagement in the production process, map feedback and the wider cartographic community?

Cartographic principles we aspire to

2026-07-21 16:05:24 UTC

We should state the Cartographic principles we aspire to like ethics in general and include each of the topic cards. We can not stop bad cartography (intentional or non-intentional), but we can state a level of expected behavior for those associated with ICA.

Use of AI

2026-07-21 16:05:49 UTC

How do i disclose that AI did some of my work or all of it?

Contextualizing information

nestel — 2026-07-21 16:05:57 UTC

How do we contextualize data (and maybe maps in general) for non-technical audiences?

AI and the appearance of quality

nestel — 2026-07-21 16:07:28 UTC

AI is getting better at presenting the appearance of quality - what does that mean for us? how do we communicate actual human insights?

Harm intent

2026-07-21 16:07:59 UTC

If my map is part of a project involving harm, how do I control that (e.g. maps for military targeting, or for economic competition)

Intellectual Property

2026-07-21 16:08:00 UTC

How do we respect Intellectual Property, for example following Creative Commons and Copyright protection.

Sustainable data/resources

2026-07-21 16:10:03 UTC

How do I assure that the data I am using is sustainable?

AI and algorithms

nestel — 2026-07-21 16:10:26 UTC

I am quite frankly terrified of AI and algorithms drawing from biased corpuses, presenting commonsense (and deeply flawed/biased) answers that appeal broadly and are super harmful. It will only be able to do so in more and more compelling ways. How do we communicate expertise as cartographers and as organizations when the technology is promising things like a 5 million ad campaign for $4k? (a recent advertisement I saw). Yes WE know its garbage but it will just get more and more compelling and better able to manipulate us. I am not sure that being at the steering wheel, or throwing more money at it, is the answer.

acknowledging intent only goes so far

nestel — 2026-07-21 16:12:45 UTC

not abdicating responsibility - I believe deeply that orgs need to take responsibility for what they put out in the world - but how do we acknowledge multiplicity in what maps are, what they do, how they will be read and how they will be interpreted in the future.

Source use and documentation

2026-07-21 16:12:57 UTC

Best effort to use sources that accurately support the information we are communicating in our cartographic products and publications. i.e. treat the topic with integrity so people can trust the map. Transparency in crediting sources used will help with trust with both map readers and source data providers.

How do I prevent AI from producing an ethically problematic map?

2026-07-21 16:14:56 UTC

Spectrum of quality expectations

nestel — 2026-07-21 16:16:13 UTC

Thinking just now about how different levels of uncertainty and different analyses are appropriate in different industries -- for example, there is much more tolerance for working with uncertain and fragmented data in business and in marketing. And certainly many ethics regarding data collection that don't fly in other domains. Just because you can doesn't mean you should -- but does that also go the other way around sometimes?

Special considerations

nestel — 2026-07-21 16:17:42 UTC

Thinking about how data has special considerations. Indigenous data has special consideration and protections. How can orgs respect and promote data sovereigtny?

Capturing Cartographic Decisions

2026-07-21 16:18:30 UTC

Cartography inherently requires many decisions. Many cartographers capture major decisions in notes on published maps or metadata. Some in ICA have proposed capturing decisions as Metadata at the feature level. We should consider at what level ICA recommend to capture decisions.

Infrastructure and maintenance is part of representation and design?

nestel — 2026-07-21 16:19:29 UTC

Little here has been said about protections for the maintenance of the map platform/system, the lifecycle of the map, et cetera. Who is responsible for it? How do these systems need to be designed? So not just UI/UX for public facing but also private facing because we KNOW that non-expert users are going to have to maintain our work once we move onto the next thing. What about really critical maps / infrastructure? I remember what it was like when the gov shut down and we lost access to super important data sources.