[Tagging] English translations in non-english countries

[Stephan Knauss]

Hello,

On 13.09.2014 07:49, johnw wrote:
> Is there in OSM wide set for this? pulling all the default "(English)" labels off of an internationally focused map seems truly backwards.
> Whats the deal there?

in OSM we focus on ground truth and having a local (!) community taking 
care of the data and keeping it in shape.

The standard in OSM is to put the local name of a feature in the name 
tag. There are exceptions for countries with multiple languages in use 
or for disputed areas. But typically there is one language and the 
feature's name in that language is in the name tag.

If the name exists in different languages or there is the need for some 
romanized writing this is in the respective name:* tags.

Due to the main site's map commitment to the local community and thus 
displaying each feature in it's local name some people abused the name 
tag to implement bilingual (local/English) rendering.

This is certainly an abuse as it makes processing the data for various 
purposes much more difficult. And the decision which name to show on a 
map is a cartographic decision and should not be made in the data.

As of today there exist many alternatives on how to make a map 
multi-lingual. My own map is doing this since four years, Mapquest is 
also showing a local/English naming (world-wide).

So while in principle it's correct to fix the name tag to include only 
the local name (in your case in Japanese), due to the widespread misuse 
of the name tag especially in Japan it is a decision of the local 
community how to go on with it.

Personally I would favor a mechanical edit to rectify the majority of 
the name tags, then continue with the local/name:* scheme.

But this is a decision which needs to be made by the local community.


You can compare the tagging in other parts of the world which follow 
this tagging.

For example here:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=9/48.0147/11.5645&layers=Q

it is name=München, name=en=Munich

No local mapper wants to read München (Munich) on the map. So why should 
Japanese or Chinese mappers want to read something on their map?

The style on osm.org respects local mapper and always shows the local name.
Specific rendering exists for "international" maps. Switch to the 
mapquest layer and you can read it bi-lingual.

Other maps like that on openstreetmap.de try to show always the German 
name or a romanized form.


Stephan