<div dir="ltr">Hello,<div><br></div><div>I'd like to share my story.<br><br>We're making a new Global Map for World of Tanks game.<br>Game is translated into many languages, of which Russian and English are most significant.</div><div>Now we're in open beta, you can look at the map at <a href="https://ru.wargaming.net/globalmap/">https://ru.wargaming.net/globalmap/</a><br><br>To release the map, we need the whole map in Russian, and in English.<br><br>For closed beta, we chose to enable a small subset of a map, 80 provinces, for which I manually added the translations:<br><a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/30451655">http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/30451655</a> <br><br>This changeset got reverted by SomeoneElse:</div><div><a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/30706979">http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/30706979</a><br><br>Now we can't use OSM to render the map directly.<br><br>To go to Open Beta, as was suggested on IRC, we used automatic transcription modules, and did _not_ change anything in OSM.</div><div>(if you think making automatical translation from not-known-for-sure language to russian is easy, go try it! :)<br><br>Let's take a case:<br><br><a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/node/286131994">http://www.openstreetmap.org/node/286131994</a> - Slough, GB. Pronounced <span style="font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12px;line-height:20px">/ˈslaʊ/, which corresponds to russian "Слау". <br></span>Wiki page <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slough">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slough</a> links to russian <a href="https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%83">https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%83</a>.</div><div>That translation was added in 30451655 and deleted in 30706979.</div><div><br></div><div>Automatically translated province in Russian is called Слоф, not Слау:</div><div><a href="https://ru.wargaming.net/globalmap/#province/slough">https://ru.wargaming.net/globalmap/#province/slough</a><br> - and we have no way to correct that, if we don't add name:ru for it to OSM. <br></div><div><br></div><div>This is just one case, I bet we have a lot more that I just didn't have time yet to investigate.</div><div><br>So, this is the story.</div><div><br></div><div>How do we cover this use case in OpenStreetMap, with its eager-to-revert-names-in-languages-I-don't-speak users?<br><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">2015-05-28 0:13 GMT+03:00 Frederik Ramm <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:frederik@remote.org" target="_blank">frederik@remote.org</a>></span>:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Hi,<br>
<br>
we're seeing more and more "name:xx" tags on OSM objects.<br>
<br>
Not only are speakers of widely used languages adding their language<br>
tags all over the world; but rising interest in OSM also brings us to<br>
the attention of language lovers and speakers of minority languages. The<br>
less established a language is, the more committed its few proponents to<br>
have "their" language respected and recorded.<br>
<br>
The place node for London has 154 name tags as we speak, but there are<br>
several thousand languages in use on the planet, so there's still room<br>
for enhancement.<br>
<br>
Not only well-known tourist magnets carry foreign names; some dedicated<br>
language mappers have gone over and beyond the call of duty and added,<br>
for example, name:ru tags even to small villages:<br>
<br>
<a href="http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/name%3Aru#map" target="_blank">http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/name%3Aru#map</a><br>
<br>
(This is a matter currently under investigation by Data Working Group<br>
and it is relatively certain that not all 582,653 name:ru tags will remain.)<br>
<br>
It is difficult to judge when such foreign names have a right to be<br>
there, and when they're just inventions or name translations or<br>
transliterations. I guess we'll have to make rules on that somehow, but<br>
at the same time I dread doing it, and I wonder:<br>
<br>
If a place has a wikidata tag, could/should we then simply defer to<br>
Wikidata for names in other languages?<br>
<br>
We are a database of geodata and not one of international cultural<br>
heritage; even if London has a name in over 2000 languages, is OSM<br>
really the place to record these 2000 names? Would it not be better to<br>
record the wikidata link for London, and then (perhaps in co-operation<br>
with people at Wikidata) provide means for people doing map rendering to<br>
join OSM data with a separately-loaded translation table from Wikidata?<br>
<br>
We could then limit ourselves to using a "name" tag for the locally used<br>
name, or continue to allow a "name:xx" but only if these languages were<br>
actually used by the local population; throw in an int_name if you want<br>
(but some may say that's already an unfair privilege for users of<br>
English and the Latin alphabet). Anything else - i.e. names used for a<br>
place in other languages than the local ones - would be off-topic for<br>
OSM and should be recorded in Wikidata.<br>
<br>
Do you think Wikidata could play that role, and take the burden off of<br>
us? Or is Wikidata not mature enough for that yet, or even unsuitable?<br>
<br>
Bye<br>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">Frederik<br>
<br>
--<br>
Frederik Ramm ## eMail <a href="mailto:frederik@remote.org">frederik@remote.org</a> ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33"<br>
<br>
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</font></span></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">Darafei "Komяpa" Praliaskouski<br>OSM BY Team - <a href="http://openstreetmap.by/" target="_blank">http://openstreetmap.by/</a><br><a href="mailto:xmpp%3Ame@komzpa.net" target="_blank">xmpp:me@komzpa.net</a> mailto:<a href="mailto:me@komzpa.net" target="_blank">me@komzpa.net</a><br></div>
</div>