[OSM-talk] [Osmf-talk] Reminder: OSM Etiquette guidelines

[Christoph Hormann]

On Monday 04 November 2019, James wrote:
> Conspiracy: tagging a grassy knoll "the place JFK was shot from"
>
> Nitpicking: You rounded off the 16th decimal on a city's name tag,
> losing a maximum on 10cm of precision....on...a...city...name....tag.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostensive_definition

I think Martin was asking for an intensional definition - which is much 
more suitable in cross cultural communication.  In the context of 
mapping and tagging in OSM we usually focus on and require intensional 
definitions of tags because anything else tends to cause problems with 
the use of tags in different parts of the world with very different 
geography.  Similarly relying on terms with purely ostensive 
definitions in social conventions causes problems with application of 
these conventions across different cultures and languages.

The problem about "conspiracy theories" for example is that the 
intensional definition would be something like "an idea that is in 
fundamental conflict with the major consensus narrative of a society".  
However in a multi-cultural community like OSM the major consensus 
narrative varies quite strongly between different parts of the 
community and the claim of something being a "conspiracy theory" will 
often be subjective and an instrument of cultural imperialism of some 
dominant culture what they consider to be the acceptable range of views 
you can have of reality onto the rest of the community.

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/