[OSM-talk] Naming disputes in Ukraine

[Aun Yngve Johnsen]

In my opinion sorting languages for rendering is the renderer's problem, one can assume that name= tags in countries with a single language is the national language, but for a renderer to understand this, poligons with lang=* or similar must exist (either within OSM or in a separate database)

It will be much more logic to store every name in name:xx tags, and let renderers sort out how to deal with them. Renderers must thus have fallback rules in places where several language name tags exists, but again, this is the renderers problem.

Now, to allow completely I18N compability in the maps, one would need every version of names to be available, either in name:xx tags within OSM, or in a separate database for name translation. This way, OSM could be completely neutral to naming disputes (as no 'default' name would exist in our database), leaving renderers resolving the various problems. I would love to see our 'default' map layer to show names based on browser language settings (i.e. Moscow would show as Moskva on my map, and my home town show up in Cyrlic in the browser of anyone from Moscov)

I understand that it might be a long and complicated task cleaning this up, as 'the entire world' is tagged with name= and only a few regions and places have aditional name:xx

Aun Y. Johnsen
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