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

[Nathan Edgars II]

On 10/4/2011 7:00 PM, dimka israeli wrote:
> 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).

Let's not kid ourselves; this is about rendering. When name:lang tags 
exist, the main purpose of the name tag is for rendering and other 
applications that make use of the name tag. A good application will 
allow the user to choose language and use that tag, with the name tag as 
a fallback.

How are multilingual signs treated in general? I notice that many cities 
in China, Korea, and Japan have the English name in parentheses. Unless 
things have changed since 
http://www.evenatthedoors.com/album/images/92%20Jerusalem%20City%20Limits%20Sign.html 
was taken, the "on the ground" status is that the name is trilingual.