[Talk-ca] First Nations reserve naming

[stevea]

Apologies in advance for the length.  To "cut to the chase" (get to the bottom line of what I suggest), please skep ahead to the last paragraph.

With a heavy heart I again contribute to this (sadly) now-contentious thread in the hopes of pouring some oil on these troubled waters (a metaphor for "calming").  A recap and a suggestion follow.

Mr. Stark began by asking "How should we name these?"  John stated something reasonable, I chimed in with an OSM-centric view (as a bit of an outsider, not being Canadian nor "native," though, I was born in Michigan and my grandfather immigrated to Michigan from Ontario), that these should likely be "case-by-case," Amos helpfully offered some (excellent) academic perspective, agreeing with "case by case" and the kind offer to contact him to connect to sources or for research, and Pierre reminded us of his indigenous_territory_category:ca addition (to describe / clarify legislative status of these territories).

John and Clay tried to further tease apart who might be authoritative in these regards, Mateusz made a (somewhat cryptic, in my opinion) suggestion, and Pierre made an important point about how it is important to consider how these communities do or do not want their villages identified and linked maps as to what the Government of Canada has to say (hint:  even the largest, most comprehensive / "whole country" map of these has a clear disclaimer:  "this map is for illustrative purposes only" which indicates to me that "what the locals say on a case-by-case basis" is more correct than incorrect.  James and John seemed to concur that Mateusz' suggestion is likely too strict and that this is "not...easy."

Hoser introduced himself as whom he believes to be "the one who prompted Mr. Stark's question in the first place," and laid out an exposition of the specifics of one case (Tsúùtʼínà) and how OSM has specific keys and tags (like name:srs and official_name=*) which can alleviate the need for duplication of (multi)polygons, keeping all of the semantics in a single datum (well, with multiple tags, as is quite common and correct all over OSM's database).  He further notes that Mr. Stark contacted him off-list which seem to indicate further misunderstandings (about Canadian naming of these peoples and their lands), he attempted to clarify with Mr. Stark, apparently to no (or little) avail.

Mr. Stark resurfaced on the mail-list, apologizing for delay and saying "what (he) ended up doing is following how other First Nations with one reserve are displayed."  He then posited that he considered a solution and came up with a "two relation" approach (one for "the Nation" and another for "the reserve").  Hoser replied that this sounds like "tagging for the renderer" (I characterize), saying "we don't concern ourselves with how things are *displayed" on the map."  And "First Nations (do not) n need to be mapped in the same way, nor should they be."  He states (correctly) that it is redundant to have two overlapping relations for the same thing, characterizing Mr. Starks edits as "not ground truth," "problematic," and "creating a solution in search of a problem."

Mr. Stark takes offense at Hoser's observations, that he was asked to refrain from editing, that he is aware of OSM's tenet of "on the ground," that he is also an editor of Wikipedia, and that Hoser accuses him of editing "in bad faith."  Hoser replies that he "*asked*" Mr. Stark ("a perfectly reasoned thing to do when someone makes a contentious edit"), reminds that "case-by-case" is a best practice here (not a "top-down" approach).  Mr. Stark replies that "nation and reserve do not have the same name" and offers slightly differing (apparently Government Canada) names to prove this.  Andrew states that there are a multitude of possibilities of distinctions between "multiple reserves and no reserves" and that "separate relations" is correct as these are two different entities.

John (politely) suggests that Mr. Stark desist (refrain) from changing things in Canada, to which Mr. Stark replies with a flat refusal ("No.")  Hoser outlines how Mr. Stark stated that he contacted someone at the First Nation to "do (his) research" but didn't wait for a response before editing OSM with his changes, alluding to Mr. Stark "astroturfing" (creating the impression of false consensus of grassroots support / consensus) and that the First Nation's response of "we make no distinction" (implying a single OSM relation can suffice) doesn't seem to be the answer Mr. Stark wants to hear, but he edits OSM "ignoring" this.  James says "long story short we should revert (Mr. Stark's) change sets."

Mr. Stark devolves to potty-mouthed insults towards Hoser.

I suggest that ON A CASE-BY-CASE basis (which likely is close to, or exactly, what existed in OSM previous to Mr. Stark's edits) a SINGLE relation (tagged either boundary=aboriginal_lands or boundary=protected_area + protect_class=24) be used to enter these entities into OSM.  By "these entities," I mean the combination of "the land and the people," however that might be expressed in reality.  We can do this (the latter) with a correct set of tags (including such things as official_name=* as well as others which either exist today, as Pierre has suggested, and/or others which might be developed and coined, partly based on what we learn from this discussion).  We should do this on a single relation, adhering to OSM's strong tenet of "one entity in reality, one datum in the map."  (Tagged accordingly, very frequently with multiple, quite-specific tags).  If Amos wants to say something in this context, I think it might be instructive, as when my professors said something, I listened.

I hope this helps.