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

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

> Am 29.05.2015 um 14:05 schrieb SomeoneElse <lists at atownsend.org.uk>:
> 
> * I have absolutely no idea what signage is around Haifa - if a name:en for a place does appear on signs and is useful to use to see if you have got there then clearly there needs to be some indicator that says that name:en is useful here, but (say) name:cy is not.


why are we focussing only on signs? What kind of signs? There are hundreds of name:en tags in osm for features in the municipality of Rome, but you won't find an official sign that says "Rome", you might find quite a lot of touristic information boards with English names at the monuments, usually just English and Italian, but in OSM we do have typically also de, fr, es, ru and some more localized names tagged. All of them are helpful if you speak these languages, naturally, and they are in use - not on signs but in travel guides (books), used by tour guides (humans), tourists etc. If you speak to English folk they will speak about Tuscany rather than Toscana. On the ground truth for me is not just signs, it is also oral knowledge, people talking to each other, stuff that is in books or newspapers  talking about "the ground", etc

Cheers 
Martin 


cheers 
Martin