[Tagging] International and UN names

[Colin Smale]

The tag name=* is not syntactically a name, it is a string which may resemble a name. It may also contain a synthesis of names in multiple languages separated with characters such as "/". 

Quoting from https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:name :

"Sometimes name=* itself can contain multiple values separated by semicolons:

"In multilingual regions or localities, multiple names in different languages may be relevant enough to include in name=*. A separator other than a semicolon, such as "/" or "-", may be customary locally. This is not a substitute for language-specific keys, such as name:en=* for English.
Some international boundary features (often bodies of water) have multiple values in name=*, so as not to favor one country's preferred name over another's."

Therefore the plain name tag is not in any particular language, and any attempt to interpret it as such is doomed to fail.

My browser settings have English as first preference, and various others at q<1. When viewing objects on OSM which have name=*, do not have name:en=*, but do have e.g. name:nl=*, I get Dutch texts popping up in an otherwise English context because the presence of name=* is ignored in this case as the rendering code has no idea that name=* is actually the English name. The most correct fix would be to add name:en=*. And indeed exactly that is suggested by the wiki extract above.

So let's encourage more explicit tagging, and be honest with ourselves that the current name tag is useless for language-specific processing.

> On 03/16/2022 12:43 AM Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:
> 
>  
> Hi,
> 
> On 3/16/22 00:25, Frederik Ramm wrote:
> > To be honest I strongly disagree with the sentiment on that page, "In 
> > cases where multiple languages are tagged for a name, the local-language 
> > name tag should be duplicated with the language-specific sub-key." - I 
> > can't believe that represents a consensus.
> 
> I have looked at the history of that statement and found that it was 
> moved onto that page from 
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Names by Mateusz.
> 
> I can see that the text used to be "Moscow is also tagged with 
> name=Москва, with the same value as name:ru=Москва. It is correct and 
> useful, names in specific languages must not be deleted just because 
> their value is the same as one in name=*" which is already more than I 
> like, but at least it says "if there is duplication, do not delete it", 
> whereas the current text is "duplication should be created"!
> 
> I can see that Mateusz has expanded this section a lot in 2021, adding 
> examples why he thinks that the name:xx duplication makes sense. It was, 
> however, an otherwise unremarkable edit by ZeLoneWolf on 09 November 
> 2021 that changed the "do not delete duplication" to "duplication should 
> be created":
> 
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Names&type=revision&diff=2217092&oldid=2217080
> 
> I don't know if this was by accident or on purpose, but I find it a 
> rather big change in meaning. Driven to the extreme, it would mean that 
> every single one of the tens of thousands of place names in Germany 
> should be amended with a name:de=<whatever is in the name tag>.
> 
> Coming full circle to the original discussion - please feel free to 
> invent something like "name:fr-UN" or something but please populate that 
> field only where an UN name differs from what is commonly used in 
> French. If I catch anyone duplicating the name:fr tag into name:fr-UN 
> for anything that has a name:fr tag then I will be *really* mad.
> 
> Bye
> Frederik
> 
> -- 
> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
> 
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