[OSM-talk] can the Northern Cyprus editor contact me please?

David Janda dj at dotcomdave.com
Fri Nov 16 11:18:27 GMT 2007


Hi Mikel & list

I will at your request stop editing until this gets sorted - which I have to
say I don't think it will.

I must apologise for sounding fatalistic here, but here at ground zero in
Kibris/Cyprus we come across many individuals from the south who just will
bang on about the issue of the north; from sports, trade, politics to OSM, I
have seen it all.

Compromise just does not appear to be on the table, and when it is it does
not last long at all. Another issue gets brought up, and another and
another.

I can see an agreement being reached over the name: tag, and then, later an
objection to the street names which I have put in the villages (none had
names until a year ago). Then it will be something else etc. A perfect
example here is the edit wars that happen on Google earth community.

Again, apologise for being negative here, but I am from experience.

Going back to my original point with regard to name: I stick firmly to
name:Turkish / Greek and if you want I will even put the Greek name in
Cyrillic as they are in the south. As to leaving out name:en well OK, if you
wish, but experience here states that if you have en:Doankoy it helps people
pronounce the place!

Meanwhile, I and a team of two others are continuing to map and build up my
local copy of the north. I must say that I feel the future will see me
hosting the map itself in a non editable form, which will be a shame.

David Janda 

-----Original Message-----
From: Mikel Maron [mailto:mikel_maron at yahoo.com] 
Sent: 16 November 2007 11:44
To: dj at dotcomdave.com; talk at openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] can the Northern Cyprus editor contact me please?

Hi David

Thank you for your reply.

First, please please stop editing while this is under dispute. I've seen
that all data has been deleted, and simply reinserted in whole. Removing the
edit history like this is entirely unacceptable. Please don't worry what
anyone else is doing -- we'll resolve this finally soon.

So I think there's two guidelines. OSM should accurately represent all
legitimate points of view. While at the same time, fairly and without
provocation.


There are a few remaining issues. Let's work through these.

First is_in. I hope you understand that the is_in tag is, like the name tag,
under dispute. The TRNC is not recognized internationally, though of course
it has de facto governance over the region. So to avoid further
confrontation over the issue, I suggest is_in use the same A/B scheme as
name, or only use the the localized is_in:el and is_in:tr.

The English names. My suggestion here is to just leave them out. These are
disputed as well and avoid further discussion. And as an English speaker, I
can say that in this case the en tags add little value. 


The one I'm not sure about is Turkish/Greek vs Greek/Turkish. There are
rationales for both. This is getting picky, certainly. But I understand how
there could be some competition here.
So if you agree to what I've outlined above, I'll continue discussion with
the other editor to see where we can get.

Mikel






More information about the talk mailing list