[OSM-talk] Can wikidata links help fight name inflation?

[Mateusz Konieczny]

On Thu, 28 May 2015 12:11:32 +0200
Maarten Deen <mdeen at xs4all.nl> wrote:

> On 2015-05-28 11:30, Komяpa wrote:
> 
> > How do we cover this use case in OpenStreetMap, with its
> > eager-to-revert-names-in-languages-I-don't-speak users?
> 
> I'm genuinely curious: How do people in Russia search for places that 
> are not in Russia? If you search for London, do you search for London
> or do you search for Лондон?

I am from Poland and I am typically looking by Polish name.
For example I was unable to find Nova Scotia on Nominatim because I was
unaware what is the local name. I used Polish "Nowa Szkocja".

After my search failed I located this place using other means and added
name:pl tag ( http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/390558 in
http://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/20558121 ).

Further complicating such edits by moving it to Wikidata or somewhere
else is in my opinion a bad idea.

It is also a bad idea to add thousands of names without a really good
source and verification. Especially automated adding name:xx based on
transliteration alone is a terrible idea that should be reverted once
spotted - sometimes there is a separate name in foreign language, with
difference going beyond transliteration.

What may be done is to improve editor interface to do not display 100+
name:xx tags for places like London.