[Osmf-talk] [OSM-talk] Persian/Arabian Gulf Tagging
Mostafa Ahangarha
ahangarha at riseup.net
Mon Jun 28 08:08:50 UTC 2021
Hi,
I read whole of the discussion. First I wanted to thank most of the
participants for their efforts to keep the discussion in point.
I believe when there is dispute, the name tag should either use the
official name (recognized by the higher authorities, which in this case
is UN) or get removed completely. I am fine with either choices to be
made. Discussion over population, length of border, etc. wouldn't help
in such cases. There is a big regional conflict on this issue and at
least UN still recognizes what has been recognized historically. Till
the time UN has not changed its decision, using any other name that
Persian Gulf or خلیج فارس for name tag is wrong.
I strongly suggest to use country+language tag for what local people
use. It shouldn't be limited to language since not only there are Arabs
in Iran but also many people around the gulf, use map in English
version. So there should be country+language tag which was discussed
earlier and I support it.
--
I just wanted to comment on one more thing. Li Yaqo mentioned that some
Iranian changed the name of Arabian sea and complained that OSMIran
didn't take any action on that. Same complain was about Caspian sea. It
is not fare to expect so. OSMIran doesn't have responsibility or man
power to monitor each and every changes made on OSM. I think the power
of Free/Open Source projects is that every person or community can take
care of what is related to them. In many cases, I might not be able to
recognize wrong-hood of my action till the time I get feedback from the
other party who got hurt by it. If the name of Caspian Sea was wrong for
years, the international community and more importantly the people
around the sea should be questioned for their lack of action to fix the
issue. Same for Arabian Sea which was for sure a wrong action by a
person who didn't know what he is doing. Let's avoid over reaction and
make some blame of whole group of OSM contributors in Iran. Let's have
logical expectation from each other.
Thankfully OSM (unlike wikipedia) has many ways to recognized diversity
in naming and tagging features. Let's embarrass and utilize these
possibilities in our best capacity.
--
Regards,
Mostafa Ahangarha
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