[OSM-talk] Persian/Arabian Gulf Tagging

[Mostafa Ahangarha]

Hi,

I read whole of the discussion. First I wanted to thank most of the 
participants for their efforts to keep the discussion in point.

I believe when there is dispute, the name tag should either use the 
official name (recognized by the higher authorities, which in this case 
is UN) or get removed completely. I am fine with either choices to be 
made. Discussion over population, length of border, etc. wouldn't help 
in such cases. There is a big regional conflict on this issue and at 
least UN still recognizes what has been recognized historically. Till 
the time UN has not changed its decision, using any other name that 
Persian Gulf or خلیج فارس for name tag is wrong.

I strongly suggest to use country+language tag for what local people 
use. It shouldn't be limited to language since not only there are Arabs 
in Iran but also many people around the gulf, use map in English 
version. So there should be country+language tag which was discussed 
earlier and I support it.

--

I just wanted to comment on one more thing. Li Yaqo mentioned that some 
Iranian changed the name of Arabian sea and complained that OSMIran 
didn't take any action on that. Same complain was about Caspian sea. It 
is not fare to expect so. OSMIran doesn't have responsibility or man 
power to monitor each and every changes made on OSM. I think the power 
of Free/Open Source projects is that every person or community can take 
care of what is related to them. In many cases, I might not be able to 
recognize wrong-hood of my action till the time I get feedback from the 
other party who got hurt by it. If the name of Caspian Sea was wrong for 
years, the international community and more importantly the people 
around the sea should be questioned for their lack of action to fix the 
issue. Same for Arabian Sea which was for sure a wrong action by a 
person who didn't know what he is doing. Let's avoid over reaction and 
make some blame of whole group of OSM contributors in Iran. Let's have 
logical expectation from each other.

Thankfully OSM (unlike wikipedia) has many ways to recognized diversity 
in naming and tagging features. Let's embarrass and utilize these 
possibilities in our best capacity.

-- 
Regards,
Mostafa Ahangarha