[Imports] MapQuest translation of Beijing - requesting feedback

Hardgrave, Roman rhardgrave at mapquest.com
Tue Oct 19 14:49:04 UTC 2010


Hello,
We are considering doing a translation project to add some westernized names
to roads and places in several Asian cities.  We're planning to start with
Beijing and see how it goes.  We wanted to get feedback on our plan from the
community before we got started.

The idea is to add name:en attributes to any Node or Way that has existing
data in the name attribute.  Also, if the existing name attribute contained
westernized names (rather than native), we'd move that data from the name
attribute to the name:en attribute.

We'll be providing our translators a spreadsheet where they can add/move the
data.  Here's the step by step process on how we're planning to extract and
then import the data back into OSM.

1) Export the osm files out of the master OSM data given a bounding box
    -Use JOSM, XAPI or the OSM web based export given a bounding box
2) Run a script to chew through the osm file and look for any nodes and ways
that have a name attribute but not a name:en attribute.  For those that fit
the bill, capture the following data into a csv:
    a) Node or Way
    b) Node or Way Id
    c) Version
    d) Name Native
2a) Possibly add functionality to the script to look for westernized
charactersets in the native field and either flag it or move it
automatically
3) Give the csv to translator.  They translate (via Excel) and then export
out a csv:
    a) Node or Way
    b) Node or Way Id
    c) Version
    d) Name Native
    e) Name English
4) Download the osm data again to get latest set
5) Reform the osm data file with the new translated fields by inserting xml
tags for the native and english language attribute for nodes/ways, matching
by ID
    a) Would check first that the Version is the same before updating
    b) Ones with different Versions would be retrieved for manual
inspection/resolution
6) Upload via JOSM 


We have the resources lined up to get started on this soon.  We want to make
sure our plan and process look good.  Thank you for any feedback you can
provide.


Roman Hardgrave
Senior Sales Engineer
MapQuest
rhardgrave at mapquest.com

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