[OSM-talk] Advice needed - dispute regarding names in Cyprus

[Mikel Maron]

Talking is exactly the kind of outcome we'd hope to see I think .. nothing wrong with dialogue!

There are many situations like, disputed names and disputed borders, around the world. Bodies like the UN are well aware of all these geographical disputes, but don't publicly release data about these places for fear of sparking diplomatic upset. So these disputes simmer in semi-shadows. Openness is needed!

Why can't the map be a forum for discussion? It would be excellent to see some dialogue come out of this mini edit-war. Any forum is going to attract people who don't agree -- but an open one is especially useful for fostering understanding. I encourage you to get in touch here, and I for one would be eager to hear about how it goes.

Does this mean that talking among Cyprus mappers is going to lead to political settlement or even agreement on names in OSM? I don't expect so. The best result is likely to be agreeing to disagree, and I suppose OSM is going to need to support a solution -- I'd suggest displaying both disputed names.

-Mikel

----- Original Message ----
From: bvh <bvh-osm at irule.be>
To: talk at openstreetmap.org
Sent: Friday, November 9, 2007 3:38:40 PM
Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Advice needed - dispute regarding names in Cyprus


On Fri, Nov 09, 2007 at 10:08:24AM +0100, Martijn van Oosterhout wrote:
> > I hate to say this, but it is a sensitive issue and politics are at
 hand
> > here!
> The only way you're going to get out of this is by talking to the
> person doing it. Come to a compromise, no amount of adjudication is
> going to solve your problem here...

I don't think that is a helpfull advise. There are some spots in
the world (and this island is one of them) where there is no agreement
on the status of certain areas. And maybe you can find
individuals from both sides who are willing to agree, an open
project like OpenStreetMap will always attract people who are not
going to agree.

So I think we need to have some official workaround here.

The only workeable solution will be to in the end not show any names
by default for certain areas until the user has selected a
language/political preference. Bonus points if that choice is
partly automated (looking at the http headers and what not)

cu bart

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