[Talk-ko] Random Thoughts

[Brian McLaughlin]

Hey Andrew, I just wanted to send a follow up message to you since I'm on a
real computer now. I want to send this to the Korea mailing list so others
can comment. Hope you don't mind.

In regards to renaming certain peaks to saddles here is my rational. I'm
translating the Korean "suffixes" -재,-고개, -치, -령 to mean mountain pass. I
have passed through many of them personally along the southern portion of
the Baekdudaegan most all of them are at a crossroad or cross trail. They
are at the low point of the main ridge, but many are at the highpoint of
subsidiary ridges. So depending on what perspective you're looking from
they can appear as peaks. Many of them do contain survey markers as well as
elevation markers but that alone doesn't qualify them as peaks. I did edit
some of the ones in the vicinity as well based on my one experiences along
the trail. When you consider the historical significances of these places,
and that the ancient foot trails of Korea went mostly through the
mountains, these were low points along the trail were the traveler could
get off the main trail and find comfort in civilization below. On the
particular peak in question, please re-edit it but note it so I don't
accidently change it again. I've got several hundred of my own edits to
reexamine when I'm through with this journey so I'll be busy with that for
a long time. I've been using Vespucci on my Android phone to do most of my
edits the past 5 weeks and I want to recheck everything in JOSM.

In regards to editing the map for my own purposes I can understand the
points your making, and I've been carefully considering my actions. I don't
want to be a rogue mapper and some of my actions have been contrary to the
conventions already in place. But you know as well as I that these
conventions were mainly copied from Japan and China and haven't really been
written in stone yet. I'm willing and wanting to help refine these
conventions so that they're useful to all OSM users both Korean and
non-Korean alike.

Now why does Korea need OSM? That is easy for me to answer from my own
experiences in Korea. True if you're in the city both Daum and Naver defeat
OSM in the same way that Google defeats OSM in the western world,
particularly in America. Where OSM excels is in the small villages and
mountain trails. Most of the trails I have been hiking have already been
mapped on OSM, and they do not appear on Naver or Daum. Reason number two
why Korea needs OSM is a free and open source of information. This is
lacking in Korea since the government does not make that data available to
their citizens like my own does.

You did a wonderful job creating this mailing list, even though it hasn't
grown into what you thought it would be. There are many mappers both Korean
and non-Korean who have not taken part in the discussions here, but the few
that do are very knowledgeable and helpful. I believe Korea needs OSM and
OSM needs this Korean mailing lists and community to come together.

So I propose two things,

1)    With what small community we have together rework the current naming
conventions into something more usable and acceptable to everybody.

2)    Find a way to bring together the Korean OSM community both Korean and
foreign alike.
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