[Tagging] Proposal to change key:man_made to key:human_made

nathan case nathancase at outlook.com
Mon Oct 19 10:11:54 UTC 2020


Pros and cons aside, “human-made” is not a term that is in current widespread usage. As a native English GB speaker, I find it clunky and somewhat distracting.

A better gender neutral term might be “artificial”, which is already a synonym for “man-made” and is already widely used. 

Indeed, the Handbook of Nonsexist Writing suggests: "artificial, handmade, hand-built, synthetic, manufactured, fabricated, machine-made, and constructed" as options instead of man-made. Presumably the majority (if not all) of OSM "man-made" tags relate to objects which are not naturally occurring. Therefore "artificial" seems to hold.

Other sources: 
https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/gender-inclusive-language/ 
https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Usage/faq0053.html
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/man-made

An issue may arise if artificial is already being used as a tag however.

Best,

Nathan


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