Principles for a revisable map
A systems map makes selections: what matters, what belongs together, what came before, and what a connection means. The Necessary Tangle treats those selections as claims that readers should be able to inspect and challenge.
State what a map is for
A diagram is an argument made for a purpose and audience. Record its boundary, omissions, date, author, and intended use.
Let traditions overlap
Systems thinking, complexity, and cybernetics have overlapping histories and diverse internal positions. Do not turn a convenient region into a closed disciplinary border.
Explain every relationship
A line might record citation, teaching, collaboration, a formal dependence, or an author’s interpretation. Direction, evidence, and scope must travel with the line.
Keep alternatives inspectable
Readers should be able to change focus, filters, scale, and representation without losing their place. A textual account must remain available alongside a visual one.
Treat inheritance as a responsibility
Attribution is more than attaching a famous name. Attend to translation, borrowing, exclusion, recovery, and the conditions under which a practice is shared.
Distinguish absence from unimportance
Coverage reflects access, languages, source selection, and editorial effort. A sparse region is a research question, not proof of a peripheral tradition.
Compare without flattening
A shared word or similar shape does not establish equivalence. Keep domain-specific meanings and disagreements visible; justify each proposed correspondence.
Keep a map revisable
Expose corrections and uncertain interpretations. Preserve source maps separately from the atlas claims that further evidence may justify.
Sources for these editorial principles
These principles are the atlas’s editorial commitments, informed by the following discussions. They do not adopt every historical judgement made in those sources.
- Why I hope we could do better than the Castellani complexity map | Systems Community of Inquiry
- Bringing together some recent and old threads on #systemsthinking is #complexity is #cybernetics | Systems Community of Inquiry
- Lineages of Systems Practices - School of System Change
Inspect the inheritance and its unresolved questions · Explore the map