[OSM-talk] Name rendering on osm.org (was Naming dispute over Jerusalem - OSM failure)

[Maarten Deen]

On Wed, 5 Oct 2011 12:33:25 +0300, pecisk at gmail.com wrote:
> 2011/10/5 Ed Loach <ed at loach.me.uk>:
>> Lambert wrote:
>>
>>> Personally I would say:  '.. OFFICIALLY used locally.'
>>
>> Which is where it becomes political... Do you mean officially
>> according to Israel? Or official according to international
>> resolutions such as
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolut
>> ion_194
>> (see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem#Political_status )
>>
>> (Note: I'm not taking sides in all this, but didn't realise there
>> was such a political aspect to Jerusalem until doing a bit of
>> research and thought the above made interesting reading for those
>> not aware of the history involved. Disclaimer: I'm not saying
>> Wikipedia is a reliable source).
>
> Actually I have a question - why osm.org doesn't default to English
> language of rendering entity names and if it's not available, to
> closest one (in country official language, etc.) as it is now? This
> would solve lot of such headaches. Jerusalem is Jerusalem in English
> for both of nations.

Do you mean English language or Latin script? I think you mean Latin 
script, because Jerusalem in English language and Hebrew script is 
probably still not acceptable to the Palestinian side.

But rendering in Latin script opens the question what to do in China, 
Japan, Russia, Egypt and all other countries not using the Latin script. 
_I_ would really like to see all names rendered in Latin script, but 
that is just my western-centered viewpoint and will probably clash with 
the views of people in those countries not using the Latin script (and 
therefore not really an option).
Maybe some script overlays would be a nice addition to the main map.

Regards,
Maarten