Add the Datawrapper blog to the canon

Its chart-type "what to consider" posts and four-part color-scale series
cover ground nothing else in the canon does. Adds a backlog entry it is
the leading authority on (stacked columns, where only the bottom series
shares a baseline), and closes the citation gap on the rainbow-color-scale
sin — that one now waits only on our own sequential-ramp validation.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01ULE5RRxdQE1ebwefEd2eCM
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Claude
2026-08-05 16:42:51 +00:00
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@@ -26,8 +26,9 @@ Which references are already doing work, after the first three sins:
| **`huff`** | — |
| **`schwabish`** | — |
| **`ftvisvocab`** | — |
| **`datawrapper`** | — |
Six idle references. Each is an authority we've already endorsed on the canon
Seven idle references. Each is an authority we've already endorsed on the canon
page, so a sin that leans on one is cheap to justify and strengthens the page it
sits on. The backlog is ordered to bring them all in.
@@ -95,7 +96,28 @@ sorted by value.
**Citations:** `schwabish`, `ftvisvocab`, `swd`, `fewpies`.
### 5. The Reversed Axis — *Misleading Scales*, severity 5
### 5. Everything Above the Bottom Floats — *Perceptual Traps*, severity 3
**Poke:** "Only the bottom band of a stacked chart has a straight edge to
measure against. The rest are guesses."
In a stacked column chart, every segment except the bottom one starts at a
baseline that moves from column to column, so readers can compare the total and
the bottom series — and nothing else. The series you actually care about is
usually floating somewhere in the middle. Datawrapper's guidance is blunt about
it: bring the most important value to the bottom, because readers can only
compare values that share a baseline.
Ubiquitous in business dashboards and highly sendable, which is why it outranks
the two below despite a milder severity.
**Charts:** bad = stacked columns with the interesting series stranded in the
middle. Fixed = the same numbers as small multiples (or the key series pulled
out to its own zero baseline), totals preserved.
**Citations:** `datawrapper`, `wilke`, `munzner`, `ftvisvocab`.
### 6. The Reversed Axis — *Misleading Scales*, severity 5
**Poke:** "Down means up. You flipped the axis and the trend flipped with it."
@@ -105,7 +127,7 @@ support overlaps almost entirely with sins we've already published.
**Citations:** `callingbullshit`, `howchartslie`, `junkcharts`.
### 6. Squashed and Stretched — *Misleading Scales*, severity 3
### 7. Squashed and Stretched — *Misleading Scales*, severity 3
**Poke:** "Same data, twice as tall. Aspect ratio is not a styling choice."
@@ -127,10 +149,12 @@ rediscovering them:
- **Counts on a choropleth instead of rates** (Cairo's set-piece) — needs
TopoJSON geometry and a build-time data dependency we don't have yet. Strong
candidate the moment we take that on.
- **Rainbow color scales for continuous data** (Wilke, Munzner) — buildable, but
the fixed chart needs a sequential ramp validated on `--chart-canvas` in both
themes. Do the palette work first (`dataviz` skill + its validator), then
write it.
- **Rainbow color scales for continuous data** (Wilke, Munzner, and now
Datawrapper's four-part color-scale series — the best free treatment of this
anywhere) — the canon backing is no longer the constraint. What still blocks
it is ours: the fixed chart needs a sequential ramp validated on
`--chart-canvas` in both themes. Do the palette work first (`dataviz` skill +
its validator), then this is ready to write.
## Conventions reminder