[OSM-newbies] avoid repeating the name tag twice

[Tal]

On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 8:40 PM, Christoph Eckert <ce at christeck.de> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> > In Israel we try to tag all names with "name","name:he","name:en", and we
> > put the same value in "name" and "name:he".
> > For example:
> >   name=1234
> >   name:he=1234
> >   name:en=abcd
>
> if he is the default language, why then use lang:he at all? Usually, we
> just
> use name and omit name:default_lang completely, don't we?

Hebrew is my native language, and as far as I'm concerned the whole world
can and should be mapped exclusively using the Hebrew alphabet ;)
(und auch natuerlich ein bisschen Deutsch, die auch eine schoene sprache
ist)

Unfortunately, not everyone is me. We currently have a small mapping
community in Israel, and a significant percentage of them do not read and
write Hebrew. We have a lot of people who are not very comfortable with the
Hebrew alphabet, because they were not born here. In addition, in some parts
of the country the commonly used language is Arabic, which is also an
official language in the entire country. Is is also quite common to stumble
upon a software that does not work correctly with Hebrew and Arabic, since
they are written right to left. Therefore, it would also be usefull to have
the ability *not* to get Hebrew and Arabic letters in your map data.

As I see it, using the "name" tag is simply asking for trouble, and one need
to seek a coherent and complete solution, which the "name:lang" system
offer.

I would, however, like to set a default language to the renderer using
    name=$(name:he)
or something equivalent, for the default international map on the osm site.
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