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<p>Interesting. I sent a message two days ago with a very similar
topic, but it hasn’t yet found a moderator to accept it (or reject
it). I’m sending it again here, maybe it can help with the
discussion.<br>
</p>
<p>Regards,<br>
Martin.<br>
</p>
<p>Hi,
</p>
<p>
Some context first. So there has been this changeset that
triggered some discussions: <a
class="gmail-moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/77845837">https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/77845837</a>
Changeset comments in not a great place for discussion, so I
suggest that we continue here. (Thanks @SomeoneElse for the link!
☺)
</p>
First, here is what is not an issue: the language-specific “name”
tags (“name:en”, “name:de”, etc.), and the “name” tags where there
is a clear default language (because the place uses a particular
language, because it is in a place using this particular language,
etc.).
<p>The issue comes in places where there is not a particular
language, like oceans, most seas, or places like Antartica. In
most of these places, the “name” tag is actually using the English
name.</p>
<p>The issue is that English, despite being a de facto internal
language, is felt by some communities as a non-neutral choice,
given all the inequalities it yields among people in the world,
given its complexity, etc. The Esperanto community is
particularly criticising the choice of the English language as an
international language. I don’t think that anyone wants to fight
about whether English is neutral here: this is not my question.
I’m writing this message in English as the title of this mailing
list displays in English, but I’m willing to rephrase the question
in Esperanto.
</p>
<p>The question I would like to ask is about the relevance of having
a “name” tag in places where there is no default language—knowing
that all the “name:en”, “name:eo”, etc. are already there. I can
imagine that some renderers might expect to always be a tag
“name”, and I wonder how fixable this is (especially in the cases
where there is a localised name). If you have any argumented
pointer about this, I would be interested.
</p>
<p>As far as I know, the wiki doesn’t state anything about English
being the default language for the name tag: <a
class="gmail-moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Names">https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Names</a>
It thus doesn’t feel like this question has already been
discussed. However, I never participated in the main OSM mailing
list and thus missed any such discussions if they already took
place. If so, please give me an argumented link.
</p>
<p>I tried to formulate the question to avoid having to fight over
English vs Esperanto or any debate like that. Please do not fight
because of this message: I know how harmful such debates can be ☹
</p>
<p>Regards,<br>
Martin. </p>
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