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

Frederik Ramm frederik at remote.org
Fri Nov 29 08:20:48 UTC 2019


Mkel,

On 29.11.19 05:19, Mikel Maron wrote:
> There’s no reason to hide this about a dispute in Bangladesh when that’s
> already in the open

I would have preferred to talk about the more abstract question of "how
do we deal with sitautions like this" rather than getting lost in the
particulars of one concrete case where there'll inevitably be a ton of
he-seid-she-said baggage muddying the waters...

Interestingly, one person emailed me privately and said "I'm pretty sure
you are talking about the situation in <countryname>" and it was not
Bangladesh, so indeed the issue does not seem to be unique.

> But I certainly don’t know the ins and outs of this particular
> situation, the people and the history behind how things have been
> organized in Bangladesh. 

Neither do I, hence why I tried isolate the generic aspects of the issue
from the concrete "history behind how things have been organized".

> What seems more important here than poking
> holes in arguments on public mailing lists is an attempt at a healthy
> dialog between the parties involved in the dispute.

These goals are not mutually exclusive, so there's no need to argue
which is more important.

Local mappers are aware of the need to discuss the issue and they claim
that these discussions are taking place - e.g. at SOTM Asia and on their
Facebook group. As an outsider I cannot judge how healthy and how
inclusive this dialog is; it is currently not clear to me where some
individuals derive the authority to "speak for the community" from, but
this is rarely clear in any place in OSM.

This doesn't change the fact that one recurring argument in the
discussion is "we need to use English names lest the map is useless for
our international partners" - and *that* part is one that the
"international partners" can discuss without being involved in the
concrete local issues.

Hence my attempt to isolate that part which can reasonably be discussed
here, from the part where 99% of people on this list lack the background
to make a meaningful contribution.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"



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