[HOT] Name tag in non-latin script - hindrance for NGOs/aid agencies?

[John Whelan]

Is there any reason why name:en could not be used?

I'm not seeking to influence here but looking for enlightenment.  In 
Canada locally we are able to display the map in either English or 
French certainly in OSMand.  OSMand defaults to the name value if 
name:fr is not available.

Thanks John

Frederik Ramm wrote on 2019-11-27 7:00 PM:
> Dear HOT list,
>
> the DWG has been involved in a discussion being had by the community in
> a country where the official language uses non-latin characters.
>
> I would like to keep this abstract hence I will not say which country it
> is even though some of you will know; I don't think it matters. It is
> not Japan but you can imagine Japan if you need an example.
>
> In the country, more than 98% of the population speak the official
> language as their native language, though English is commonly taught at
> school and used in higher education. Older people or people outside of
> the university system will often not be able to write English fluently.
>
> Signs (road signs, signposts) seem to be exclusively in the official
> language if less important, and in official language plus English where
> more important. It is claimed that some signs in big cities are
> English-only but I haven't yet seen one.
>
> There is a dominant group in the country that says: Let us use English
> for our "name" tags, and put the official language in name:xx (where xx
> is the language code). This is relatively unusual for OSM, but it seems
> to be the current consensus in the community. Some of them also request
> that changeset discussions should be had in English instead of the
> official language. Just like in many other countries, OSM was first
> adopted by people at or involved with universities and hence used to
> English, so the decision came lightly.
>
> Parts of the discussion hinge on not all IT systems properly supporting
> the special characters needed for the official language; but the main
> argument brought up again and again by the proponents is that there are
> many people from aid agencies and NGOs contributing data to OSM or using
> data from OSM in that country, and the data was of lesser use (or even
> useless) to them if name tags were in the official language. (This
> reasoning is also used for the request to hold changeset discussions in
> English.)
>
> We have been told by the pro-English-name group:
>
>> as the major user & contributors to the local repository are the aid agencies like UN, MSF, Red Cross/Red Crescent eventually they are also facing problem while using the data ... We have been reported a recent case were WFP was unable to use the data due to this reason. ... Aid agencies like UN, MSF, Red Crescent have run many projects to map large portions of the country and given those data to OSM, which makes them big contributors and users of the OSM data. But this data becomes useless if all `name` tags are replaced with [local language] ... The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) made a map for disaster response that is available in OSM main site as an additional layer, which also can't render [local language]. And that makes it a challenge in times of disaster response.
> Of course, the pro-local-name group feels stymied by the request to use
> English; they feel this is an sign that the map is not "their" map but
> someone else's and that requesting English changeset discussions
> practically excludes large parts of the population.
>
> This is an issue that ultimately the local community must solve for
> itself. But it seems to be that there might be a danger of favouring
> the comfort of international contributors and NGOs over that of the
> local population - in a line of thought that goes "the map in our
> country gains more if we can keep these NGOs interested by using
> English, than if we attract the less-well-English speaking citizens of
> our country".
>
> I hope that there might be people from the organisations mentioned (UN,
> MSF, Red Cross/Red Crescent, WFP, HOT) on this list who can tell me if
> their organisations have policies or a general approach towards issues
> like this. Is this a thing, projects hinging on whether the locals are
> willing to deal in English? Or is "we have to use English to favour our
> international partners" a red herring?
>
> Bye
> Frederik
>

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