[OSM-talk] Naming dispute over Jerusalem - OSM failure

[dimka israeli]

Hello to all,


 I would like to inform the OSM community about an ongoing dispute

 regarding the node "Jerusalem" http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/29090735.

 
In my opinion, the handling of this dispute by OSM officials has up until now been entirely

 inappropriate, damaging for the Israeli OSM community and  perhaps even politically motivated.

Since all official OSM representatives remain deaf to our arguments and pleas, effectively holding our entire community hostage with threats of ban, I saw no other choice but to send this letter.

Allow me to describe very briefly the essense of the dispute, sticking to facts only. More details can be found at this forum

 thread:
http://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?id=13178.

The Jerusalem node had its name: tag changing several times by people who were not members of OSM Israel, for unknown (to us) reasons, and always changed back by us in order to keep up with our tagging standards. Those standards specify that all places inside Israel should be tagged with Hebrew as default, unless specific agreement otherwise. This convention was never disputed.  Last switch to Hebrew name of the Jerusalem node occured in December 2010, and no changes were made since then.
In addition to Jerusalem node, there exists a separate "place=suburb" node tagged "Al-Quds" in Arabic which represents mostly Arab-populated east neighborhoods of Jerusalem. This tagging was never in dispute.


Three months ago, several people who never before made edits to OSM, claimed that they cannot identify themselves with the map (and as a result, are not ready to contribute to it), because the name of the city of Jerusalem did not appear on the main OSM site in Arabic language with the same prominence as the Hebrew one. This claim was expressed not to the members of the Israeli community, but to Mikel Maron who happened to be in Jerusalem. He  set to organize a meeting between the two parties.

Mikel sent an email to the OSM Data Working Group where he apparently elaborated the situation, claiming that there has been an "edit war" over the node (a highly controversial claim per se). This was done prior to the meeting, without giving the two sides any chance to talk.

On the morning of the meeting day and prior to the meeting itself, the DWG removed the name: tag from the node, without making any direct contact with us.

Anxious to have it back, we proposed during the meeting to have two separate nodes, tagged respectively in Hebrew and Arabic. However, the other side would agree on nothing less than equal rendering (they are explicitly interested in rendering only) of the two names, which implied that the Arabic node would be tagged as capital (analogous to Hebrew Jerusalem). However, it was pointed out that this would certainly create problems with mapnik on low zoom levels (where the two nodes would overlap and only one of them would show). Such a situation was not acceptable to the other side, and so we concluded the meeting by letting Mikel contact the mapnik team and come back with an answer.

After coming back home, we actually started to have a discussion in our forum (see link above). Many of us couldn't participate in the meeting (only two of Israeli mappers were present there), and so expressed their opinion in the matter for the first time. Furthermore, we found out that the other side of the dispute is an organization with a clear political agenda related to Arab-Israeli conflict in general and Jerusalem in particular. Eventually we backed up from the agreement and requested further discussions with the other side. Mikel has stepped down as a mediator, admitting that he was too involved in this.

We have asked the DWG to appoint a new mediator and to restore the situation to what it was prior to their intervention, until the dispute is settled. The new mediator was appointed, but the DWG categorically refused to revert their deletion and pressed us to come up with a solution  which the other side would agree on. Although we expressed our willingness to discuss the situation with the other side in any online forum, they never answered us (they actually made no edits in OSM since then). Also, the new mediator is yet to show any sign of activity, despite our repeated requests during the last two months.

So,right now the handling of the dispute is stuck, no discussion is going on,  the other side being virtually nonexistent.


We believe that this situation sets a very dangerous precedent.  The DWG
 has obviously taken sides in this dispute and therefore proved itself 
non-trustworthy.   It allowed itself to be 
manipulated by people completely outside of OSM.




Sincerely,

Dmitry B.


 		 	   		  
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