How to name an object in case of an alternate name

Stumbling across wrong rendering of names of locks on canals, I digged into the naming scheme (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Name). IMO in any case where an alternate …_name tag exists, this name should be preferred over the normal name tag. If more then one alternatives exists the renderer chooses the first or whatever it likes.

This works in case of locks and it also works with the loc_name tag mentioned in the wiki. AFAIK there isn’t a case (except for official_name) where this scheme doesn’t work. Any objections?

About the tag official_name, IMO this tag should not exist. The official name belongs into the name tag and nowhere else. If the official name shouldn’t be rendered, one can always add a loc_name tag.

Wyo

AFAIK there are only two instances where the _name could be prefered over name:
lock_name
bridge_name

For all the variations on that wiki page name would be preferable on a general purpose map.

Well fine. There’s already a trac ticket open for lock_name and this now since 9 month. Isn’t anybody interested in fixing this ticket finally and hopefully do it for bridges as well? Seens to me a rather simple task for anybody familiar with the sources?

Wyo

It’s not that we don’t want to fix things, but that only select keys are available in the database that feeds the mapnik renderer, and neither lock_name nor bridge_name is part of that set. Thus it’s not possible to use those on the map, currently, until it’s decided to include them, and a full import is done.