Not to mention there is a renewed push to stop producing the penny due to the input costs being higher than the value of the coin itself.
Can I just take a quick moment to say that Minh should be nominated for OSM MVP if only such a thing existed. His thoughts and comments are always insightful, well researched and well written and bring great clarity to discussions. Thanks for being a part of the community Minh.
The overall gulf is only mapped as a point rather than an area, so there wouldnât necessarily be any overlap. It used to be an extremely crude way, but it got simplified down to a node a couple years ago:
Some Wikipedians have noted some ambiguity in the orderâs wording: it limits the name to the âU.S. Continental Shelfâ, defining its southern limit as âthe seaward boundary with Mexico and Cubaâ. Under the Submerged Lands Act of 1953, a stateâs âseaward boundaryâ lies only 3 leagues (9 nmi; 10.4 mi; 16.7 km) from the coastline, but I donât think this necessarily means the countryâs seaward boundary is that close to shore, because lots of things can be âseawardâ. A plain reading of the order would suggest either the Exclusive Economic Zone or the Outer Continental Shelf designation â which arenât the same thing.
So until we have more clarity from the feds, any separately mapped Gulf of America feature might also have to be a point rather than an area, to avoid potentially misleading users. That could be somewhat unsatisfying to folks who specialize in mapping the oil rigs and pipelines in that part of the gulf, but itâs not like we have very much certainty about how to map sea limits anyways.
Done. Letâs see if it sticks.
I added a comment linking to this forum thread to the node as note=* so itâs directly visible in the editor.
Just before you added the note, someone added alt_name:en=US. I did not see where we agree on that tagging I thought we would end up with official_name:en-US=* but since it isnât formally official yet, it is too soon to add.
That someone would be @Jojo4u from the post directly above
since it isnât formally official yet, it is too soon to add.
since when we require names to be formally official?
we require that for names that are not in actual use and are worth tagging solely due to their official standing
Though this one may be of such high profile to qualify for some niche subtag.
But it is further confused by fact that it is officially directed to NOT apply to Gulf of Mexico but only to its part - in true xkcd: Sloped Border fashion
So adding it as official_name* to Gulf of Mexico would be wrong and not correct.
Arrrgh.
Considering itâs apparently still newsworthy when someone uses the name at all, I feel pretty strongly that it doesnât qualify for alt_name:* yet.
What makes you feel it doesnât qualify?
Regardless of the outcome of this in the future, the name is in use. It is reported in newspapers worldwide, used by the current US president, and used in all sorts of ways online and offline. Most alt_name never even get close to this level of high profile exposure!
Sure, outside of the reporting, most of this is trolling (including Trump), but that is irrelevant. The name exists and is used, even if it ends becoming a tiny aberration limited to 2025. It may be offensive, but it isnât obscene or otherwise objectionable. All that remains for OpenStreetMap is to put it in a suitable tag. That it is at the very least an alternative name for the Gulf of Mexico in English, is pretty much established. Being newsworthy does not change that.
For what itâs worth, the notion that the order applies to only part of the gulf is just one possible interpretation of the awkwardly worded order, and maybe a little bit of wishful thinking. Months down the line, what will probably matter more for the purpose of official_name:*=* is what the Interior Department and Board on Geographic Names end up actually designating, and what other agencies end up using the name for.[1] Meanwhile, name:*=* hopefully stays above the fray. Thereâs that wishful thinking again.
Ironically, modeling it as a separate point feature would make it much more prominent than modeling it as a mere tag on the main feature with seven qualifiers hanging off it. Renderers would probably have the two labels collide each other out unpredictably at some zoom levels, potentially preferring the neologism over the internationally accepted name, because we donât have an established tag for the relative size of a sea. Believe it or not, some renderers might even break the tie alphabetically by accident.
Pssst: GNIS is not the federal governmentâs only authoritative gazetteer. That would be too easy. â©ïž
Collegue Glassman being part of the DWG and seeing renewed discussion here I reverted the change for now. The discussion is mostly about wether the intended name change is for the whole gulf or only a subset.
Being official is of course no requirement for adding in OSM, I think Glassmann referenced to the unclear extend.
Alt_name:en-US is obscure and very probably has currently no consequences for any data user at all. So I find it a minimal step forward to acknowledge usage by probably a majority who voted for the current president.
Is it time to revisit mapping seas as areas?
Sounds like an excellent Idea, Last week spending an hour just to get all the Adriatic into JOSM bit by bit as else it was timing out with 1200 island, little isles and islets (according AI) just to get 100% verification on a sandbank which outline was mapped twice and twice made inner of the Gulf of⊠no not that one, the Gulf of Venice and the Adriatic. Oceans do not seem to suffer from this âinnerâ role tagging need. /OT
Iâd also suggest that that is best done in a new thread. There has been some discussion before (here and elsewhere), and there are pros and cons of both approaches. I donât think that youâll get a meeting of minds over it, though.
The IHOâs Limits of Oceans and Seas has been frozen in time without any updates since 1953, apparently because Japan and South Korea canât agree on a name for the sea separating them.
There appears to be a draft for a 4th edition (ca 1998-2002) but it has been stalled since September 2002 S-23 Draft 2002. The GoM is being represented as a subdivision of the NORTH ATLANTIC, as shown in section 1.11. Since the GoM represents a larger area than the USA has any claims over, then we are faced with two possibilities: One being to leave it as-is until the IHO takes action (if any), or subdivide it into a IHO default named area (primarily south and west sections) and a section where the USA has some claims to extended rights (primarily north and east sections).
Where this may get even more confused, is that various NOAA sub-agencies conduct a variety of operations in the GoM. This kind of makes their job excessively difficult if they have to now sub-divide their products to describe two named areas, where previously there was only one. NHC already differentiates tropical storms in the GoM from storms in the Caribbean Sea.
My own hunch is that all eyes will be watching what USGS decides, as they will have any number of cartographic products that will need to be changed. Even this morning, I saw a USGS earthquake report using the Denali name.
So they make things easier, & to please His Trumpness, that should probably be renamed as the Eastern American Ocean, with the Western American Ocean on the other side of the US!
& as they are both vital to American history & security, they would obviously extend, under these names, to the coastlines of Europe & Asia.
So they make things easier, & to please His Trumpness, that should probably be renamed as the Eastern American Ocean, with the Western American Ocean on the other side of the US!
Some NOAA and FAA products already have that division. Aircraft HF radio over the Atlantic is divided into segments based on which shore based station manages the traffic within it.
Posting a general thought on how to resolve this (and several other similar disputed names of navigable waters). My own view is that any government, or international organization, generated name should be stored in OSM. That means that a given point on the globe may have more than one legitimate name. This is something that ultimately the renderer has to make choices, and possibly based on the needs/allegiance of the user needing a map produced. I do not believe that OSM will ever be able to pick one, without offending some user somewhere.
We need a path out of this quagmire that does not involve edit wars. The technical details is something Iâll leave to those with a deeper understanding of the schema, and what might be possible and how.
OT\ Curious how a first post by a new community entrant gets the hidden flag, yet keeps the âThis is the first time osm8810 has posted â letâs welcome them to our community!â, and âthemâ at that. Very inclusive. /OT