[Talk-us] Proposition for changing the common name tag

[Minh Nguyen]

On 2018-08-16 09:51, Daniel Koć wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I wanted to let you know about proposed change in tagging the name of 
> USA and I seek for the feedback about it - see the proposition here:
> 
> https://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?id=63384 

There are arguments to be made for either name, but `name=United States` 
`official_name=United States of America` seems like a perfectly 
common-sense way to tag it.

I had always assumed it was tagged `name=United States of America` 
because of the vastness and blankness of this country in the 
openstreetmap-carto style at zoom level 3 in Web Mercator projection. 
(Canada needs a longer name, clearly.) But that would be mapping for the 
renderer, so by all means shorten it.

Some of the `name:*` tags on the U.S. relation seem to have taken after 
`name` by unnecessarily including the equivalent of "of America". For 
example, `name:es=Estados Unidos de América` and `name:fr=États-Unis 
d'Amérique`. By contrast, there are few `official_name:*` tags on the 
U.S. relation. These tags might need to be reviewed -- perhaps checked 
against Wikipedia article titles -- to ensure that they too follow 
common practice in the respective languages.

On 2018-08-16 10:33, Jack Burke wrote:
 > I am opposed to this suggestion, because there are two countries called
 > "United States" in North America: the United States of America, and the
 > United States of Mexico.

To be pedantic, the official name in Spanish is "Estados Unidos 
Mexicanos", rather than "Estados Unidos de México". So the official 
English name is "United Mexican States", not "United States of Mexico".

Even if Venezuela hadn't changed its official name from "United States 
of Venezuela" (Estados Unidos de Venezuela), I'd still stick to "United 
States" for the U.S., because it wouldn't cause any confusion between 
the two countries. It would be very different if someone were to propose 
`name=America`, reasoning that it's the most common name.

-- 
minh at nguyen.cincinnati.oh.us