Edit warring over Nagorno Karabakh region/republic

General talk
21

First of all, nobody is being forced to leave Karabakh. Azerbaijan stated many times that, they are also our citizens. Anyone who wants to stay, can stay. You say it will become part of Azerbaijan, but it always was considered as Azerbaijan. Even Armenia did not recognize it as a Republic officially.

I just want to give one example: Khojaly town which historically was called Khojaly, even in Soviet era it was called Khojaly. But after occupation it was renamed to Ivanyan in year 2000 (!). Ivanyan was Armenian army general who lived between 1920-1999 years. Now, the question: How in the world the historical name Khojaly was removed and renamed as Ivanyan, who was alive 25 years ago? Wasn’t that ethnic cleansing? Openstreetmap team accepted that change and nobody said anything regarding that (historical names, ethnic cleansing and etc.). And now, when government takes control of its areas, you are calling that ethnic cleansing. For me these are double standards.

Not only names in Karabakh region, but names of other occupied 7 regions around it were changed to Armenian ones, not historical ones. I repeat again, I have no problem with armenian names, they can call any city how they want, but when it appears on the main page of the map, that is not correct.

I edited Kovsakan name to Zangilan and was warned for that in 2020 :slight_smile: Zangilan was never called Kovsakan, it was a city where majority was Azerbaijani people. So, why it was changed to Kovsakan and remained until 2020 war? Even in Soviet time it was called Zangilan.

There wre also many villages with Azerbaijani majority in Karabakh in Soviet times. For example, Malıbəyli, Kərkicahan villages were Azerbaijani majority. But all of their names were changed and there was no problem according to OSM. And now, when government really took control of those areas, somebody was uncomfortable and is trying to accuse me in ethnic cleansing. That is funny :slight_smile:

Anyway, if as you said, after 1 January 2024, the main names will be changed to Azerbaijani ones, I see no problem. Of course, multilingual names must be kept. But in our case, English names were also changed to Armenian ones. For example, Armenians call city Xankəndi (Khankendy) as Stepanakert (after the name of Stepan Shaumyan who also lived in 1900-s, historical name is Khankendy). When we look to multilingual names, in English it appears as Stepanakert, not Khankendy. That will also be a problem, so the best way is to show official names on main page and alternative names in description. Officially, the city is called Khankendy, you cannot send any item or any delivery by showing Stepanakert as address. It will not pass the border. That is why names should be official ones in deoccupied areas.

22

When you write “English name”, do you mean what is tagged in name? This is the main / official name.

To preserve the (old) Armenian names, sometimes one needs to add the name:hy tag. E.g. if you find

name=Armenian name
name:az=Azerbaijan name

and change the name to the Azerbaijani one, you also need to add name:hy=Armenian name. From the previous comments, I understand that this may have been omitted by some people doing such edits.

1 Like
23

That is actually what I did, I changed “name” to official ones in Azerbaijani. Armenian names remain as “name:hy”. But here I am “charged” with ethnic cleansing :)) Thankfully, it is not OSM users who decide whether there is ethnic cleansing or not :wink:

What I mean by saying English name is the one in “name:en”. Those names are generally written according to Armenian names but Azerbaijani versions are different in English.
For example: official name of a city is Xankəndi. It is also same in Azerbaijani. Armenians call it Stepanakert. Now the question: what it is called in English? As official name is Xankəndi in Azerbaijani, then English one should be Khankendy. But in OSM it is Stepanakert. You cannot add two English names for every nation. That is why I prefer just changing “name” - official name that is visible in default map.

25

A relatively new user has been replacing Armenian names with Turkish and Azerbaijani names tonight. This road for example.

This is reminiscent to what happened with the map of Ukraine recently.

26

is the name:en actually used to transliterate to latin alphabet? For this, there exists another more precise tag: name:hy-Latn or name:az-Latn, respectively.

Though, as long as an official system of transliteration to latin exists, the information value of adding transliterated names is quite low, as data consumers can theoretically just transliterate it themselves using this system.

27

You cannot add two English names for every nation.

you can add 2 names in English, e.g. alt_name:en or old_name:en

it is even done, 50.000 old_name:en https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/old_name:en#overview and 163.000 alt_name:en
https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/alt_name:en#overview

2 Likes
28

I’m reverting those undiscussed mass changes and have blocked the user while that revert takes place. I’ve asked the user to discuss their proposed edits here. News reports suggest that there absolutely will need to be changes, but wholesale deletion of objects because they had only Armenian names is not the way to go about it.

This is another user editing here with a “tr” locale; I can’t comment on their personal intent but clearly it has unfortunate historical echoes,

DWG ticket number for reference is " [Ticket#2023100110000042]".

1 Like
29

I can’t comment on all your other changes, but that is not what you did here.

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30

Yes, in the case of peak name you are right, my fault. Can you please revert it? I will try to find official names and add them by keeping Armenian names as “name:hy”.

1 Like
31

By the way, here is the website showing official street names and administrative boundaries according to State Service on Property Issues of Azerbaijan.

You can check street names and administrative boundaries by using this official information:

https://unvanportali.az/

32

Done

1 Like
33

I noticed that official names of some villages are changed again to Armenian. And it is done in the areas liberated in 2020. Can anyone please revert those changes? What is the reason of deletion of official names?

34

  1. Can we avoid political sniping with “liberation” and so on? it would be probably also clearer to outsiders when more neutral terms are meant

  2. it would help to link specific area, OSM element or edit (especially for people unable to distinguish Armenian from Azerbaijan labels) - “official names of some villages are changed again to Armenian” is not allowing to locate them easily

example of a typical viewport link: OpenStreetMap

example of a OSM element link: Node: ‪Hel‬ (‪524124149‬) | OpenStreetMap

2 Likes
35

  1. Ok, after the territories are under control of Azerbaijan government. Also, can we avoid terms like “ethnical cleansing” too?

  2. There are many villages that are changed recently (last 2-3 days). That is why I didn’t mention. For example, one of them is:

Village Sığnaq was recently edited and official name was changed again.

Some other villages:

And more around them…

I can’t see who edited them, that is why I cannot post username.

36

So Node History: ‪Սղնախ‬ (‪1343893914‬) | OpenStreetMap and for example Node History: ‪Ակնաղբյուր‬ (‪1343893920‬) | OpenStreetMap ?

37

For the avoidance of doubt, the “official” name is less important than the language spoken locally. Do you have any evidence for what that currently is?

Obviously we’ve all seen the news and seen a mass movement of people, and we can speculate about the reason that people chose to leave, but do you have evidence that “the language most spoken in this particular village” has changed?

38

BTW, I filed Missing changeset comments? · Issue #6195 · organicmaps/organicmaps · GitHub due to missing changeset comments in Changeset: 141964072 | OpenStreetMap and Changeset: 142019990 | OpenStreetMap

(as noted, it is possible that user is faking changeset tags and it is not made with OM)

39

But the same was applied to other cities where nobody lived under Armenian control and names were changed in OSM. I even got warned for that in 2020. Zangilan city was named as Kovsakan just because it was under Armenian control for about 28 years. Can you explain this?

What do you mean by locally spoken language? For now those villages under Azerbaijani control and obviously local language is Azerbaijani. Even road signs are in Azerbaijani.

40

Thanks. So, user Nightwind20 changed it back. I hope he got also warning from SomeoneElse :slight_smile:
I might seem annoying to you, but different approaches for same situations is not fair.

41

According to yesterday’s statement of UN officials, approximately 1000 Armenian people remained in Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. All areas are under control of Azerbaijan government, some government offices are already working in Khankendy and other cities and villages. If you want evidence for road signs, I can post them too.