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<p>Dear all,</p>
<p>It has become painfully clear, repeatedly, that name and
boundary tagging can lead to editing wars, vandalism and harm to
the OSM map and it's community. These kind of issues cannot be
resolved with the current definitions, procedures and guidelines
in OSM. <br>
When I refer to issues I mean:<br>
1. disputes, editing wars including related mailing list, forum
and other channels like social media;<br>
2. similar disputes and different interpretations in the use of
any of the name tags and/or boundaries in OSM, not specifically
Persian/Arabian Gulf.<br>
</p>
<p>We need to resolve this, improve our guidelines and procedures,
so we can proceed with a diverse and inclusive community, a space
where all political, cultural and religious views are respected
and expressed in an open and neutral way.<br>
To achieve this we need to improve our wiki, our guidelines and
consensus procedures, so when they appear the working groups and
committees like the DWG and the LCCWG Moderation Subcommittee can
take arbitrary actions which comply and are supported by our
community.</p>
<p>Both names and boundaries have had my interest since I joined
OSM. I was faced with numerous local disputes and recently got
involved in the search for authoritative and reliable resources to
offer the community. For the application of the boundaries as
defined by the International Law of the Sea this has been found
and we have reached a state where a waiver and cooperation
agreement can soon be finalised. It is a resource which accurately
reflects all bilateral treaties, international law and official UN
positions. It is often used by the UN and other renowned and
neutral organisations for geo related data and visualisations.<br>
</p>
<p>I believe as a community we should support and accept these
resources. Resolve, find consensus based on the same primary
reference, the UN, and when it comes to marine areas the IHO.<br>
I will prepare a proposal trying to address this and present it on
the tagging talk list for comments, improvement and voting. The
initial proposal will include:<br>
1. the basic use and guidelines for the name and boundary tags
will not be changed in case there are no disputes;<br>
2. in case of any disputes, in the first place, official and
public treaties, regulations from the UN and/or the IHO and
international court decisions will be decisive, in the second
place bilateral treaties between the involved parties, to
determine the position of us, the OSM community. No matter how old
they are. <br>
3. If, still, after 1. and 2. no consensus can be determined, the
issue will be formulated in a public document or mail on which the
whole community will be requested to vote. The voting procedure
for this will be anonimous, non-biased and give equal voting
rights to countries and indegionious people or international
minorities. This will be tricky but I have gathered some guidance
about it on which the community can comment and make adjustments
in the proposal process.<br>
4. Any corrective actions or sanctions will only be taken by the
DWG or the LCCWG Moderation Subcommittee, based on a non-biased
outcome of 1, 2 or 3.</p>
<p>The timeline I propose is as follows:<br>
1. If you support the approach as expressed feel free to express
it. Strictly abstain from any biased comments, conclusions or
discussions to any issues that this new approach will try to
address.<br>
2. We give it a week to express your support for this approach on
this mailing list.<br>
3. If there are no significant and founded objections, a proposal
will be launched for RFC in the second week. The RFC and
adjustments will take max. 1 month.<br>
4. After voting, when it is approved, the wiki will be updated. In
case of a negative vote outcome the proposal will go again to the
RFC state, we don't abandon it until we reach a status which gets
support.<br>
5. After a positive outcome of 4. the new guidelines will be
implemented.<br>
</p>
<p>With kind regards and respect to the whole OSM community,</p>
<p><br>
</p>
Bert Araali
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