User:Moabdave/Map RFC draft

RFC on using maps and charts in Wikipedia articles

Maps are used as references in 32,000+ articles. From time to time questions about their use are raised in venues such as WP:GAC,WP:AFD and WT:OR. Policy and guidelines about sourcing and verifiability do not directly address nontextual sources. This RFC was started to answer some of those questions. I feel the Wikipedia community would benefit if we have some codified guidelines about their use to avoid having to continually revisit these topics.

Proposal 1: original research

Should the following text adapted from WP:CALC be moved into the policy Wikipedia:No original research#What is not original research?

Source information does not need to be in text form—any form of information, such as maps, charts, graphs, and tables may be used to provide source information. Routine interpretation of such media is not original research provided that there is consensus among editors that the techniques used are correctly applied and a meaningful reflection of the sources.

Proposal 2: What can be cited to a map?

Conditional to Proposal 1 passing, should the following sections be added to Wikipedia:No original research#What is not original research?

Proposal 2a: reliable sourcing

Maps cited in articles should follow the Wikipedia:Reliable sources guidelines. When dynamic map applications (such as Google Maps or an ArcGIS website) are referenced, and when supported by the application, the URL used in the citation should link directly to an overview of the relevant object(s) rather than to the main page of the application.

Maps should only be used to cite statements that can be verified using the map. For example, contour lines on a topographic map can be used to reference statements about topography, but a statement such as "Washington D.C. is the most populous city on the Potomac" cannot be fully verified using a map that does not contain any information about population.

Proposal 2b: image layers

Satellite layers (i.e. on Google Maps) can be used to reference statements about elements such as ground cover that can easily be verified.

Proposal 3: history

Conditional to Proposal 1 passing, should the following be added to Wikipedia:No original research#What is not original research?

It is allowable to cite historical maps to refer to how artificial geographical features appeared on them at a specific point in time.