Over the past several years certain mappers have repeatedly removed the name tag from the Atlantic Ocean node (History Viewer, Deep History). The same pattern can be seen for the North Atlantic and South Atlantic. Proponents of name removal argue that these oceans have no local name because nobody lives there. Regardless of whether this argument has merit, this has a negative downstream effect on OSM based maps.
For example, the comprehensive name:lang tags on ocean nodes allows the OSM Americana map to label them in manydifferentlanguages. However, as you can see, the Atlantic Ocean is not labelled in any language. This doesnât seem right since the node is tagged with many language specific name:lang tags. So why is the label missing? Because the node lacks a plain name tag and is tagged with noname=yes OpenMapTiles (the vector tile schema OSM Americana uses) sees it as a nameless feature and not something that should be included in the name layer. So it filters it out. Could the logic be more complicated and check for every possible name:lang tag before deciding the feature is nameless? Sure. But expecting a named feature to have a name tag seems like a reasonable expectation for a data consumer to make.
So do plain name tags belong on oceans? Should name be restored on these nodes? If not, then name should be removed from all the other oceans as well for consistency. At the very least it seems to me that noname=yes should be removed since itâs simply incorrect to assert that the Atlantic Ocean has no name. It clearly has many.
This may be a somewhat trolling suggestion, but ⊠it should be possible to determine what language is spoken by the majority of people in the land adjacent to a given ocean, and use that language as the value for the ânameâ key.
Another semi-serious suggestion is to use an internationally recognized numeric identifier for the ocean in the ânameâ key, e.g. the Wikidata Q id, Atlantic Ocean - Wikidata or one of the (many) numeric identifiers listed there â GeoNames, FAST, ICPSR Geographic Names Thesaurus, Marine Regions or some other one.
That would remove the problem of downstream (heh) users thinking the feature has no name, while still avoiding privileging one language over another.
That approach is actually used in lots of places. Itâs not a panacea (both sides of the Persian Gulf / Arabian Gulf** dispute think they have got the majority on their side) but it can be useful. Itâd be interesting to see a calculation for the Atlantic, though.
But what do people think about my suggestion of using a numeric identifier for the name key? That would seem to eliminate opportunities for argument, at the cost of looking really weird to users who donât specify a language.
Thatâs even worse than just picking a language. Some rare features like these just fall outside of any clearly dominant language or are international (exceeding two or three countries) in scope. Using English there for name is just sensible.
Iâm Dutch, do I care that the default name tag for an ocean is in English? Of course not. If I want a map with as many Dutch labels as possible, I would just use name:nl.
If English is really problematic, then use the Latin Oceanus Atlanticus for a classical feel. It would be one of the least jarring identifiers you can use.
If English is really problematic, then use the Latin Oceanus Atlanticus for a classical feel. It would be one of the least jarring identifiers you can use.
the Romans took from the Greek, áŒÏλαΜÏáœ¶Ï ÎžÎŹÎ»Î±ÏÏα would be closer to the roots then
although expressing a slightly different concept, maybe
Personally I would be fine with English in the name tag for the Atlantic Ocean, I think it would be understood by the vast majority of all neighbouring population, even if they donât generally speak English, and while there is undeniably some imperialistic background, thatâs how it is, we just map what is there. For the Pacific Ocean or the Arctic I see more potential for problems
Greek has the problem of being indecipherable for most people unless transliterated. The latin alphabet doesnât suffer this drawback (not in any meaningful sense).
Would it? Anyone using maps in their native language will benefit from name:*. Besides, name often contains scripts and languages completely unintelligible to most, and thatâs fine. Besides, most international collaboration in the Pacific or Arctic is done in English. Denying that just seems overly political without any tangible benefit for the mapâs users.
(Although I must admit those Latin names are kind of sexy.)
Besides, most international collaboration in the Pacific or Arctic is done in English.
I donât have knowledge about the Pacific, but for example the homepage of the arctic council is in Russian and English https://arctic-council.org/ru/
Youâre joking, but this whole schmozzle started because a user didnât like the plethora of English terms in use for e.g. the Atlantic Ocean and wanted to use Esperanto instead. Itâd be lovely if we did all speak the same language, but we donât - at least not yet.
For better or for worse, English is the international language of todayâs world. It is the pragmatic choice for the fallback name tag in a case like this. I say fallback, because data consumers should be encouraged to always use name:lang tags first where they are present. Other suggestions like Latin, Esperanto, or a number would be far less useful to far fewer people worldwide.
That being said, having no name tag on international objects would also be a reasonable policy with some additional tagging. In this case data consumers need a way to easily tell that an object is tagged with multiple names, despite lacking the name tag. This way they can avoid prematurely filtering it out of their data set. We could say that data consumers are expected to look for a variety of different name keys or any key matching a certain pattern, but this seems overly complicated for the initial filtering step. Another option would be a tag that explicitly states âthis object has names despite lacking the plain name keyâ much like noname=yes explicitly states âthis object really has no name and itâs not a mistake that the tag is missingâ.
and that would be just for the ancient Greek (I wonât even touch the dialect origin, Iâm not too familiar with differentiating those )
I would be find with the English name aswell, mainly because thatâs the currently de-facto international language of communication, no matter if we like it or not.
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