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

[Maarten Deen]

On 2015-05-28 22:20, Frederik Ramm wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On 05/28/2015 09:56 PM, Jóhannes Birgir Jensson wrote:
>>> What I would not support in OSM, and like to outsource to Wikidata or
>>> other, is if speakers of these 20 languages were to start assigning
>>> name tags in their language to thousands of places in, say, the UK.
> 
>> Where do you draw the limit?
> 
> Does that mean you agree there should be a limit, or would you allow
> each and every of the several thousand languages on the planet to add
> their name tag to the London node? How would disputes be handled?
> 
>> name:en is on thousands of nodes but in
>> many of these places it is not an official or even a minority language
>> but an extra language.
> 
> Yes, I've thought about that; name:en is very useful for me but
> ultimately, if the locals don't use it, then it isn't "on the ground",
> and then it shouldn't be in OSM really.

So, the map should only be useful to people living in the vicinity of 
certain places? Like my previously issue, countries which use a 
different alphabet then yours. Place names in China are ususally only in 
Chinese, so I should not be able to read them on the map?

I say again: the fact that I can not read names in China, Russia, Laos, 
Israel, most arabic countries is one of my biggest gripes with the map. 
Why should I not be able to use the map in thos countries and why should 
people from those countries who probably may not all have a good 
understanding of the Latin alphabet not be able to use the map where the 
alphabet is Latin?
For that you need transliterated names which probably are not used by 
locals and are usually not on local street signs so "not verifiable".

Maarten