[Talk-ko] Proposal to change current naming convention

[Robert Helvie]

I honestly don't think the English on the street signs is just for
tourists.

If it is just for Tourists, why do we still see English on signs that are
nowhere near any place a typical tourist might go?

I think, just my opinion, the Korean government made a decision to create
the signs for "residents" of Korea, whether those residents speak Korean,
English, Farsi, or Mongolian. Obviously you can't put everything you need
on the sign. The two most useful languages in their decision were likely
Korean and English.

Your second quote is from the Multilingual names page which handles
features that have

<quote>
different names in different languages
</quote>

If I am correct, this convention was originally developed to deal with
problems along the lines of the Senkaku / Diaoyu islands.

Here, within Korea, I would suggest that these are not different names. It
is the same name written/spoken in a different language, especially since
the Hangul characters are not translated to their actual meanings.

That page also covers transliteration (we currently have a name:ko_rm tag
for that).Users in other countries have similar tags, but some have
decided, likely for utility's sake, to include two languages in their name
tag.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Bilingual_street_names#Hong_Kong
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Bilingual_street_names#Japan
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Bilingual_street_names#Haiti

If you feel strongly enough that it is in the best interest of the Korean
mapping community to use only Hangul on the name tag, then write it up in
the Wiki and possibly, eventually, mappers may start to use that tagging
system.

I still stand by the last part of my message, though:

> For now, I think it is OK to add the English to the name tag, especially
> since the Korean government has decided to add it also. It certainly makes
> the map more usable for a wider section of the world
>
> In the future, when map-display works better for every individual, it
won't
> be so hard to strip the English from the name tag. A bot could likely do
it
> more easily and quickly than you or I. When that time comes, I'll be happy
> to support the process.

Happy mapping.

Robert

*"We should give meaning to life, not wait for life to
give us meaning. "*
~ unknown
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