[Tagging] Naming boundary ways - the — separation character

[Colin Smale]

On 10/10/2012 21:53, Alexander wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I think the separation sign should be chosen by the render.
+1
>
> Why not adding new tags like:
>
> name:left=Mexico
> name:right=USA
>
-1

This looks to me like blatant "tagging for the renderer", i.e. 
manipulating the tagging to produce an optically pleasing result. I 
would contest that the border itself has no name; the names belong to 
the areas on either side, which are of various types and admin_levels. 
Therefore no "name" could ever be right under all circumstances. The 
renderer must make a choice out of the names of the boundary relations 
to which the way belongs, depending on whether the map is to show the 
countries of the world or the municipalities of Texas. Plus that the 
boundary way may actually also be a geographical feature such as a river 
with its own name; giving name:left and name:right a completely 
different set of semantics to the basic "name" tag doesn't sound like 
good practice to me.

Colin