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by KUMIKO YAMAZAKI on September 15, 2008 • geoweb • 1 COMMENT

This is the post where I admit my cartographic knowledge is being influenced by what is generally defined as neogeography.

Neogeographers may or may not be experts in geography or cartography but they are fast. New data comes along and they (we?) race to produce the first map. Competition is good but unfortunately many of these maps are ugly as sin.

The web is filled with such awful maps. They can range anywhere from having the absolute wrong color scheme to a mashup that serves zero purpose. This constant exposure lowers people’s standards for web mapping but I also understand that writers and editors felt similar outrage when the blogging world took off. Suddenly everyone had a blog whether they had any writing skills or TypEd LiKe THis.  But blogs now are being embraced by people all over.

I suppose the lesson here is to embrace the GeoWeb and appreciate the efforts of neogeographers, but like any other field, just ignore what you don’t like.