Name tags for brand names like "BigC", "TESCO Lotus" or "Shell"

stephankn · 2010-05-11T21:56:21.000Z

I saw an interesting point when reading about romanization.

The official system used in Thailand to romanize words is RTGS. Wikipedia explains it nice for those not knowing it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Thai_General_System_of_Transcription

But even with such a system existing, a lot of people don’t use it. People making printed maps do their own system, as well as those making street signs. Sometimes you have different spellings on each end of a way.

So there is only one correct way to label streets, that’s the original Thai name.

I think we all agree that this goes to name:th

This leaves the question how to make it readable for foreigners.

As the rules are defined to romanize a thai script using RTGS it might be possible for an advanced renderer to romanize these on the fly when rendering a map. Or it could be romanized during import. If someone can provide me with source code to romanize (c, c++ or java) I can set up a demonstration site.

When romanization can be done automatically, the English tag could be used for the English name.

name:en would then be used for the translated english word. So instead of “Thanon Sukhumvit” as required by RTGS we would write “Sukhumvit Road”.

I would apply that only to highway=* and similar, not to amenities.

Any comments on this issue?

Stephan

Willi2006 · 2010-05-12T10:41:26.000Z

WanTan:

Thanks for the answer. Just a few thougths on this. Three OSMer, three different oppinions. This shows clearly how important it is to find a rule how we all want to handle it together.

I knew from the beginning this would be a hard discussion. But better it is discussed. Maybe we find a way to handle it together and not everyone alone with his own system. If we all do something wrong identically than it would be no problem to correct it automatically via API or with a SQL-query. But if we all tag in different ways then it might be a hard manual work to harmonize it all in future.

I agree with this and appreciate very much the constructive contributions to this tough problem which unavoidable leads to a tough discussion. Different countries have chosen different solutions or have open issues: Multilingual names.

WanTan:

No, i have to correct myself. The best solution for this problem would be a centralized database for brand names, where the renderers could request the names by sending an ID for a brand and select from the available translations for this ID. Or there should be something like a “name reference”. The current system is redundant. But this is another problem…

I like this idea. Worth to investigate further. But no “must”, more a “nice to have”.

WanTan:

No, Mercedes Benz has an official transcription. Look at the Mercedes-Thai-Website. Or do you mean something else?

Do you really want to use “เซเว่น อีเลฟเว่น” (see wikipedia and thai-website of 7eleven) for name=* of “7eleven”?

Thanks I didn’t have these two yet. They are from my “former days” when I could hardly read Thai letters. But now I see “everywhere”: foreign companies have derived names in Thai letters defined and are using them. I think all foreign companies have it. Not all Thai people can read roman letters and some can’t even read. I have seen flyers from the mall “Fairy Plaza” using only the Thai and not the roman version of their name.

No, I don’t want, I’m already doing this as I pointed out in my above rules. Just look around Khon Kaen.

And there’s a reason for that which I think is very important. Imagine you want to create a bilingual map, on paper or electronic, with local names in local letters and names in roman letters. You just take the values from the tags “name” and “name:en” all over the world, for each country, for each region. No need to think: When I’m in Thailand I have to take “name:th” and “name”. Oops, I crossed the border, now I have to take “name:lo” and “name:en”. This approach works also when there are different languages and different letters in the same country. The OSMers of the region can decide and put in the tag “name” what they think fits best.

With such a bilingual map a foreigner who can read roman letters can find a romanized name, pick up the local name in local letters and might be able to spot the local name on a sign or show it to a local person when asking for help. A local person can read a derived name in the local language and pick up the original foreign name. Unfortunately OSM doesn’t supply such a map yet.

WanTan:

Better we stop naming things completely

Or even stop talking about things or doing anything. When you don’t do anything you hardly can make errors.

But errors are not bad. They give the change to make it better.

Willi2006 · 2010-05-12T11:39:13.000Z

stephankn:

When romanization can be done automatically, the English tag could be used for the English name.

Unfortunately the automation is not trivial. I’m using the program which is also listed on the Wikiprojekt Thailand page Chulalongkorn University: Thai Romanization Program almost one year. It’s version 1.4 now. Even when there’s a romanization available I like to compare it with the programs romanization. I’ve experienced these issues:

Sometimes the romanization of the program is wrong.
These cases are rarely but they happen. I always ask a native speaker to look at the error.

Sometimes the program has another romanization than on the sign.
This happens more often and is due to the fact that the rules have changed and even the government does not follow the rules. You can also find different romanization on different signs of the same road.
I take the programs version very rarely: If it is not the name of a company, brand, government office etc. and the romanization on the sign is definitely wrong. I keep in mind that people using the map will compare with the romanization on the sign and not enter the Thai name from the sign into a program and compare the output.

Thus if you can’t find the romanization on the internet you have to be on the spot.

stephankn · 2010-05-12T23:46:19.000Z

Hi Willi,

I think the program does the RTGS right. The rules look not that difficult. Also the change history lists other changes on the program than on the romanization.

An issue is that there exist multiple ways to do a romanization. ISO 11940 is a different way to do it.
According to Wikipedia RTGS is the “official” way.

You live a longer time in Thailand, you sure know that things are handled different sometimes in Thailand. Not every rule is treated as a rule.
Think for the requirement to wear a helmet riding a motorcycle. And then look on the street on how many actually do when there is no MIB around.

Why should everyone creating a sign follow these rules? It’s more popular to write it in a way that when pronounced English it’s closer to the original sound.

For a sample of a bilingual map using “name (name:en)” as labels have a look at what it might look like:

Stephan

WanTan · 2010-05-13T07:36:59.000Z

Willi2006:

And there’s a reason for that which I think is very important. Imagine you want to create a bilingual map, on paper or electronic, with local names in local letters and names in roman letters. You just take the values from the tags “name” and “name:en” all over the world, for each country, for each region. No need to think: When I’m in Thailand I have to take “name:th” and “name”. Oops, I crossed the border, now I have to take “name:lo” and “name:en”. This approach works also when there are different languages and different letters in the same country. The OSMers of the region can decide and put in the tag “name” what they think fits best.

I disagree. I find it strange that the “common default name” (your interpretation for it is “local name”) should be different from what is written in big letters on many shops (e.g 7-Eleven). But i think a longer discussion will lead to nothing without having more people who participate. In my oppinion it is the business of the renderer to pick the correct value for its needs. But this is one of the many points that are “under discussion”. And i hate discussions

I personally could accept your suggestion to put the Thai name into name=. But then there should be no exception. Every name= for brands (supermarkets, fuel stations, drug stores, … and even headquaters of telephone operators like TOT or AIS) has to be written in thai letters. It is a very simple rule. And easy rules are always good because people know how to use them. And every big brand with a foreign name that acts in thailand surely has a thai transcription it uses, i guess. I know thai people are very proud of their country and their language, so it would not be totally wrong to do it like this. But i suspect many other users (even many thai people) will disagree in this and put something else into name=. And many “Falang” are not able to write thai or may even not have a thai font on their computer. Then they will not fill name= or put something else in it. And even thai people will often not know the correct value without having a list to look at.

stephankn · 2010-05-13T11:49:20.000Z

As the name topic is quite complex, can we reduce the complexity?

Sure a single simple rule would be great. Germans are keen of having rules
Right now we can’t commit ourself to a single rule.

Let’s split it a bit. I try starting with streets and places. That are things that existed first with Thai names. I leave off the discussion about brand names.

Thinking about street names. Is there consensus about the name tag?
name= contains the same value as name=th, namely the name of the street in Thai script

the same for place=, so place=city, town, …
name= contains the same value as name=th, namely the name of the place in Thai script

Do we all agree up to this point? Or already discussion needed with this?

Next would be the question what to write to name:en on those tags. I think we want something in there for the English speaking foreigners.
As I didn’t study linguistics, please forgive in case I use some words wrong. We want that name to be readable with a default character-set out of the latin alphabet.
So some sort of romanization or latinization must take place.

We have the choice of using the RTGS system here, as it seams to be the favored system by the Thai government.
A problem is that this system is not consistently used. I saw a lot of street signs that use some different system. We could also use a translation where available.
An example from Germany. The big city in the south has name=München. It has name:en=Munich. That is a translation. The transcription would be “Muenchen”. Maybe the last one is only a transliteration. I’m not too sure about this.

Do we need a different tag for this? This is also still under discussion in other parts of the world.

We try our best to set up rules to do it right from the beginning. I appreciate that, because no one is doing work that gets later discarded.
But maybe we have to develop. That could include changing the edits we do now at a later time.

Stephan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcription_%28linguistics%29

Willi2006 · 2010-05-13T12:08:30.000Z

WanTan:

But then there should be no exception. Every name=* for brands (supermarkets, fuel stations, drug stores, … and even headquaters of telephone operators like TOT or AIS) has to be written in thai letters. It is a very simple rule. And easy rules are always good because people know how to use them. And every big brand with a foreign name that acts in thailand surely has a thai transcription it uses, i guess. I know thai people are very proud of their country and their language, so it would not be totally wrong to do it like this.

That’s exactly my intention and what I’m doing (Khon Kaen): “no exeception”, “simple rule”, no endless dicussions.

WanTan:

But i suspect many other users (even many thai people) will disagree in this and put something else into name=. And many “Falang” are not able to write thai or may even not have a thai font on their computer. Then they will not fill name= or put something else in it. And even thai people will often not know the correct value without having a list to look at.

We as well as other organisations have this problem with other things also: due to different knowledge, different understanding, different willingness, mistakes, etc. We must and can live with that.

Edit:
I think we have only a different opinion in regard to brand or company names. Can we as a first step try to agree on what is currently written on our Wiki page Multilingual names and apply it for all names except Brand names?

Have a look at WikiProject Laos / Names.

WanTan · 2010-05-13T17:11:50.000Z

Willi2006:

Edit:
I think we have only a different opinion in regard to brand or company names. Can we as a first step try to agree on what is currently written on our Wiki page Multilingual names and apply it for all names except Brand names?

Imho this does not apply to brands, shops, supermarkets, hotels, bars, restaurants and more things like this. It surely apply to names for streets and places (e.g. lakes, cities, forrests, rivers,…); mostly to 100% of the time.

Just an idea i had today, not meant as a serious suggestion:
The more i think of it the more i get the idea that the “common default name” maybe is something completely different. Maybe it is meant like a “global identifier”. This would mean it would be the same value everywhere in the whole world. A Carrefour supermarket would always be tagged name=“Carrefour”, even if there is a very big sign “คาร์ฟูร์” outside of the named shop. A Shell fuel station would always be name=“Shell”. Mc Donalds would be “Mc Donalds” and so on. A German street “Herzogstraße” would be name=“Herzogstraße”. The Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok would be of course name=“ถนน สุขุมวิท”. The German embassy in Bangkok would be name=“Deutsche Botschaft”.
But we better should not discuss this idea.

Why is OSM so damned democratically! Why is there noone from the OSM-foundation saying: Just do it like this!

stephankn · 2010-05-13T17:27:58.000Z

As this thread was originally about brand names, we should get back to that topic. In case we need more discussion about name tags on places and streets, these would be better in a separate thread.

A brand name is often introduced by a foreign company, thus having a logo with Latin characters. Or a Thai company considers it en-vogue to use them.

Let’S bring it to an actual example.
How do we want to tag fuel stations? For example from the Caltex brand? The different stations are owned by separate companies (with a name), but operated as Caltex.

On the company site you can browse their station directory. A random company operating “CALTEX” is called “Pathara Care Ltd., Part”:
http://www.caltex.com/th/th/SiteLocator/popUpStationInfo.aspx?id=452

I would then add the company name in the name tag (in all it’s language variations) and the operator “CALTEX” in the operator tag (again in all it’s language variations). In case the name of the company is not known, only operator would be used.

I suggest using the “major” writing style of the brand for name or operator without language code. That is what a company is using most prominently. For caltex this would be the name in Latin characters “CALTEX” as it’s printed like this on the big signs:
http://www.kohkaew.com/pulse%20%2841%29.JPG

In case the major form of writing is Thai script, it would be that. PTT with “ป ต ท” would be such a case.

What is left for discussion is what would go into the “*:th” tag in case the name was Latin. This could be a Thai-script version of the name in case the company is using such or the same as the Latin one in case the company is not using a Thai variant for keeping the brand uniform.

Edit: added example for major use of Thai writing

WanTan · 2010-05-13T17:50:35.000Z

@stephankn
Sorry, but what is the difference between your suggestion and my first post? I am not able to clearly see a difference.

stephankn · 2010-05-13T19:37:20.000Z

@WanTan: so after discussing forward and backward: I agree with your first post, as I did already in the second post, right? This thread was about whether to translate an Latin-character logo for the name:th tag or not, right?

Willi2006 · 2010-05-13T20:05:56.000Z

stephankn:

I suggest using the “major” writing style of the brand for name or operator without language code. That is what a company is using most prominently. For caltex this would be the name in Latin characters “CALTEX” as it’s printed like this on the big signs:
http://www.kohkaew.com/pulse%20%2841%29.JPG

May be we got it. May be that’s the root cause of our different opinions.

There is no “major” writing style on the big signs. The big signs are or contain the company logo which itself might contain letters in a special style. The logo is exactly defined by an image, legally protected and can be represented by an image only not by a character code like UTF-8. E.g. 7-Eleven has its name in the logo or “big sign”, Shell doesn’t.

In character coded text the companies adapt to the country. I mentioned already that the mall “Fairy Plaza” uses only the Thai and not the roman version in flyers. Even Mercedes-Benz does it on its Thai web pages. And I don’t think the company Mercedes-Benz is doing this because it’s aiming at less educated people who are not able to read roman letters.

stephankn · 2010-05-13T20:30:09.000Z

Willi2006:

There is no “major” writing style on the big signs. The big signs are or contain the company logo which itself might contain letters in a special style.

I was talking about the brand name. And for that there is a preferred (or as I called it major) way of writing that.
Some companies prefer to use Latin characters to represent their brand, even when there is a writing with Thai script.
See the TESCO example: They also have a way to write their brand name in Thai script, but prefer to use the TESCO variant.

Shell uses on the Thai website this heading: “Shell Thailand”. So even with the whole site written in Thai script, they did chose to have “Shell” in Latin characters.

In both examples, TESCO and Shell I would this expect in “name=”, as well as in “name:en=”.
I’m still not sure what should be in “name:th”, but I would be fine with a transcription of that name in Thai script.

Stephan

Willi2006 · 2010-05-13T21:40:04.000Z

stephankn:

Shell uses on the Thai website this heading: “Shell Thailand”.

Well, some companies are writing more in roman letters e.g. Shell Thailand where the main and other headings are in roman letters. Others are writing more in Thai letters e.g. เมอร์เซเดส-เบนซ์ ประเทศไทย (Mercedes-Benz) where even the html page title is in Thai . May be this is just pure chance or tells something about how much you care about visitors of your web presentation or about your customers in general.

In the near future even the URLs can be in Thai. Why is this introduced? I think people prefer their mother language even if they are able to talk and write in a foreign language.

WanTan · 2010-05-14T06:09:18.000Z

Willi2006:

In the near future even the URLs can be in Thai. Why is this introduced? I think people prefer their mother language even if they are able to talk and write in a foreign language.

But this is not the most important point for the decision what should go into name=. What you suggest is “tagging for the renderer”, so that the renderer do not need to choose between languages. We already have name:th= for this!

Thai people who want everything written in thai could switch to a map that uses name:th=*. Than they have the whole world in thai language (in the ideal case that the whole world is translated). Why should the thai names stop at the border of thailand? This is not really logical. Normally there will be at least parts of other countries visible on every (printed) thai map.

The name for a brand is created (given) by the company itself, like parents that choose a name=* for their child

EDIT:
But i agree in the point that we should not only look at the websites. The websites are just additional indicators for what a company uses for name=*. The quality of websites differ very much. The title-tag (title of the web-browser window) of a website may be given from the web-designer and noone told him to change it.

Much more important than the title-tags and headings in websites are the signs at the stores, used names in commercials, names on plastic bags, names in company logos and things like this.

WanTan · 2010-05-14T07:05:48.000Z

stephankn:

@WanTan: so after discussing forward and backward: I agree with your first post, as I did already in the second post, right?

Very good. Sorry that i did not realise your agreement with me until now. Until now i thought we all have three different opinions on what should go into name=*.

stephankn:

This thread was about whether to translate an Latin-character logo for the name:th tag or not, right?

No, this question is just a small part of the naming problem for brands. I started this thread as a discussion about what should go into name=, name:en= and name:th* when naming brands (e.g. supermarkets). Isn’t the title of the thread clear enough? I am sorry if the title and my first post of this thread is confusing. This was not my intention.

stephankn:

What is left for discussion is what would go into the “*:th” tag in case the name was Latin. This could be a Thai-script version of the name in case the company is using such or the same as the Latin one in case the company is not using a Thai variant for keeping the brand uniform.

Imho there should never be a latin character in name:th=* (and there should never be a thai character in name:en=). Only in name= the mapper can choose between character-sets.

I would prefer to put the transcription of the latin name written in thai letters into name:th=. For big companies there should be a transcription that is used by the company itself. In case there is not a transcription available and someone wants to fill name:th= he should make the transcription himself. But some day i hope we have a list of the most important companies in thailand where people can look to find the correct values.

Willi2006 · 2010-05-14T09:07:36.000Z

WanTan:

What you suggest is “tagging for the renderer”, so that the renderer do not need to choose between languages.

The quality of websites differ very much. The title-tag (title of the web-browser window) of a website may be given from the web-designer and noone told him to change it.

There’s a Wiki ( Tagging for the renderer) with the definiton: “Don’t deliberately tag incorrectly for the renderer.” I couldn’t see any incorrect proposal yet.

I think a company which cares will check a website before it’s published as it will do with any publication.

WanTan · 2010-05-14T10:13:34.000Z

Willi2006:

There’s a Wiki ( Tagging for the renderer) with the definiton: “Don’t deliberately tag incorrectly for the renderer.” I couldn’t see any incorrect proposal yet.

Your only motivation to put the thai name into name=* is that the thai version of the name should be rendered on “default versions of the maps”. Or am i wrong? What should be the use of this “default map version” if germans want to read german and thai-natives prefer reading in thai? Who should use this “default map”. Only www.openstreetmap.org will use it in future i guess. Everyone who wants to provide useful information will let the user decide what he wants to see on the map. And this is one of the core buisinesses of the rendering software. This is why i call your suggestion “tagging for renderers”. But we should not waste our times with discussions about terms like “tagging for renderers”. Sorry, i will try not to use it anymore

I think a company which cares will check a website before it’s published as it will do with any publication.

This is just a guess. Maybe, maybe not.

Some companies invest more into their representation on the internet, some invest less. But all invest into labeling their shops, printing advertising in newspapers and mybe in TV-commercials. If a Mercedes-Benz shop in Thailand has a big label “เมอร์เซเดส-เบนซ์” and not “Merceds-Benz” than you would be right. I do not know a Mercedes-Shop where i can go and have a look. Do you know one? Maybe Mercedes is a difficult example, because they sell “high class products”. They surely fear loosing customers and invest much money into intelligent marketing. The best “default” value for representing a store of Mercedes-Benz on a map would be a small icon with the Mercedes-Star on it.

WanTan · 2010-05-14T12:54:10.000Z

Maybe things get clearer if we get rid of the idea of “a default renderer”. We should look at name= as a kind of fallback-value which will be used if the language the map-user wants to read is not available.* The fallback values for streets in thailand surely should be the thai names of the streets. But the fallback for a supermarket like 7eleven should be the value 7eleven. Please take into account that not only thai people look at OSM-maps of Thailand. Chinese people will do, Germans do, the whole world does it.

EDIT 15.05.2010 (I try to describe it better and easy to understand.)
The name=* is very important as fallback value for users all over the world, as long as not all languages of the world are available. So we should try to put a useful value for users of the whole world in name=*.

(This rule should not be applied to streets and places of course. For streets and places the thai name should go into name=*)

Willi2006 · 2010-05-14T13:41:56.000Z

WanTan:

I do not know a Mercedes-Shop where i can go and have a look. Do you know one?

I’ve mapped one in Khon Kaen. But Mapnik and Osmarender ignore shop=car. I saw there the name in roman letters only not in Thai letters.

The ThinkNet Bangkok map shows 44 in Bangkok: near Prawet (Google).