[OSM-talk] Roadmap for deprecation of name tags in OSM

[Alan Mackie]

This seems like a bad idea.

Name tags are generally very easy to verify on the ground. It is not always
as easy to tell if a shop with a certain name belongs to a specific
wikidata entry, especially in jurisdictions that are less litigious when it
comes to trademarks.

We also should not be doing bulk name changes until we have verified that
the signage on the individual locations has actually changed. Depending on
the brand these could take years to ripple through to the individual
stores, and particularly 'historic' stores may retain old branding as part
of a conscious effort not to irk locals. Branding changes in the Wikidata
would likely be over-applied.

Abandoning the name tags for chains would essentially be carte-blanche
permission for automated edits. As it stands now, a disagreement between
OSM name and Wikidata name may be a useful indicator that resurvey is
needed. If we abandon name tags we open the door to the introduction of
dodgy data that isn't caught by any of our QA tools because it doesn't even
have a changeset.

If "duplication"  is really an issue, I would prefer to remove all Wikidata
tags than to depreciate names where they exist. Forcing contributors to
check an independant database before uploading survey results seems like a
lot of extra effort for a volunteer driven project.

On Sun, 9 Aug 2020 at 12:11, pangoSE <pangose at riseup.net> wrote:

> These are valid concerns. See my response to James.
> If Wikimedia should become uncooperative we could easily set up our own
> wikibase installation. See https://www.wbstack.com/
>
> It takes a few minutes plus some configuration time.
>
> It would also be a new and currently unnecessary drain on OSMF's
resources.

In fact this might be much better than forcing our data into wikidata which
> is very tied to education and does not accept all our objects that have
> names currently.
>
> In case we take this route I would recommend having another prefix than Q
> for our unique ids.
>
> Cheers
>
> Mateusz Konieczny via talk <talk at openstreetmap.org> skrev: (9 augusti
> 2020 12:16:33 CEST)
>>
>> or has downtime? or deletes data/items used by OSM? or bans OSM mappers?
>> or refuses to ban vandal/troll/harasser? or fails to ban them quickly?
>>
>> Aug 9, 2020, 11:45 by james2432 at gmail.com:
>>
>> is there a contingency plan if wikipedia/wikimedia ceases to exist?
>>
>> On Sun., Aug. 9, 2020, 4:29 a.m. pangoSE, <pangose at riseup.net> wrote:
>>
>> I suggest we create a roadmap for deprecating of storing and updating
>> names in OSM for objects with a Wikidata tag.
>>
>> The rationale is explained here:
>> https://josm.openstreetmap.de/ticket/19655
>>
>> This of course affects the whole project and data consumers as well.
>> Every OSM user will have to become a Wikidata user as well to edit the
>> names or add name references (through the editors)
>>
>> Substantial changes will have to be made:
>> * nominatim will need to support fetching names from wikidata somehow. It
>> could probably be done on the fly.
>> * openstreetmap.org will need to fetch from wikidata when displaying any
>> object.
>> * rendering the standard map will have to support fetching from wikidata.
>> * all editors would have to fetch and enable editing of Wikidata objects.
>>
>> These seems like large burdens to dump on open source developers.

> * maybe it no longer makes sense to have 2 separate logins? We should
>> unify the logging in as much as possible. Ideas are welcome on how to do
>> that. Perhaps retire signing up as OSM user on osm.org and ask users to
>> create a Wikimedia account instead and log in with that?
>>
>> I'm not sure if I have a Wikidata account so this is a non-issue for me.

>
>> I personally don't see any problems connecting Wikimedia and OSM closer
>> than the islands they are today.
>>
>> As mentioned in the ticket above data consumers like Mapbox already
>> prefer Wikidata names. I'm guessing thats because they are simply better
>> quality, better modeled, better referenced and better protected against
>> vandalism.
>>
>> WDYT?
>>
>> Cheers
>> pangoSE
>> Ps I choose this list because this not only relates to tagging, but to
>> the wider ecosystem._______________________________________________
>> talk mailing list
>> talk at openstreetmap.org
>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>>
>>
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