[OSM-talk] disputed territories

[Gervase Markham]

Frederik Ramm wrote:
>> I'm not sure what you mean. If e.g. a Greek North Cypriot can't cope 
>> with the fact that the tr:name is a Turkish name, that's tough, no 
>> matter how emotionally hurt he is. If he's going to go around removing 
>> them then we need to find a way to stop him - either by disabling his 
>> account or other means to be implemented.
> 
> I think the problem here is that you assume "something having a name
> in a certain language" to be a fact free of politics, something that
> everyone in their right mind has to accept.

Well, yes. I'm not trying to write a rule for every possible situation, 
I'm trying to create rules where the exceptions/loopholes/grey areas are 
as small as possible.

> But in real life, the "fact" that something "has a name in a certain
> language" may already be questionable. For example, if Hitler had
> invented German names for some Polish cities that he overran, would we
> then really want to tag them "name:de=..."?

At the time he was in effective control of the area, why not? Then, when 
he was kicked out, we could remove the data again.

This policy makes no judgment on the rightness of his invasion, it 
merely says that now German people are calling some town Hitlersburg, 
and the map should note that.

(Perhaps we could continue with a less politically-charged example?)

> And I don't like the way this goes, because in the end it would mean
> that we'd need some project "institutions" that say which names are
> really valid and which aren't, and as a consequence those who remove
> "valid" names shall lose their accounts and those who remove "invalid"
> names shall be esteemed.
> 
> I would be very much in favour of finding a technical solution that
> would lead to the situation governing itself. 

So would I. As, I'm sure, would Wikipedia for their similar issues. But 
one has not presented itself.

I do think, though, that making name:<lang> irremovable without some 
sort of admin privileges might be a good step. So people can't just go 
around deleting names.

Gerv