[Talk-bd] Discussion: Issues with name localization for Bangladesh

[Frederik Ramm]

Hello everyone,

the Data Working Group has been made aware of this discussion. I am from
Germany and I have very little knowledge about Bangladesh, so I would
initially like to ask three basic questions that will help me understand
the situation:

1. What is the status of English in everyday life in Bangladesh? Can
everyone who uses the Internet also communicate in written English, or
would a requirement of "please write your changeset comment in English"
exclude certain parts of the population? Also, what about signage - will
signs with street names or city names contain Bangla, English, or both
names?

For comparison, here in Germany, while nowadays most kids learn English
at school, a significant portion of people who are 50 years or older
would not be able to communicate in English unless they had higher
education.

2. What is the relationship between the "OpenStreetMap Bangladesh
Foundation" and the mapper community in Bangladesh? How many mappers are
members in the OSMBDF? How can mappers join the organisation, and how do
they democratically influence what the OSMBDF does? I checked the web
site but I found no information about that.

3. A general question about mailing list etiquette. Is it usual, in
mailing list discussions in Bangladesh, to refer to other participants
with their last name? If you were to reply to my post with "Dear Mr
Ramm", would that be (a) normal, (b) an expression of respect, or (c) an
expression of "you are not part of my group so I will not use your first
name"?

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"