[OSM-talk] OSM & Political problems (Re: China cracks down onillegal online map services to protect state security)

[Tom Chance]

On Sat, 29 Mar 2008 13:14:00 +0100, "Bernt M. Johnsen" <berntm at gmail.com>
wrote:
> I think this will be an increasing problem as OSM gains more momentum.
> For some people, national boundaries have huge political importance,
> and we should perhaps give some thought on how to deal with this
> before we get an edit war wrt Taiwan is a country or wether Kosovo is
> a part of Serbia or not.
> 
> Wikipedia has these problems and deals with them (see e.g. this
> article with corresponding discussions:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide), but since OSM is more
> like a sea of data than a set of separate articles, I assume it migt
> be more complex to deal with  in OSM.
> 
> I also assume (could not find anything in the wiki) that OSM ideally
> should be politically neutral.

Of course the problem is that there is usually no such thing as
"neutrality", you either call Taiwan a country or you don't and both
positions are politically charged. The closest we could come would be, for
example, to call Taiwan an island and part of China since the UN recognises
it as such.

Kind regards,
Tom