[Voting] Official tagging consensus for the name tag in Algeria

[ilias]

As many of you know, the name=* tag in Algeria has been a source of continuous debate and edit wars for over 11 years (see [1], [2]). We have seen repeated cycles of mass-additions and mass-deletions of French, Arabic or Tamazight, based on personal preferences rather than a community consensus.

This back-and-forth degrades the quality of the map and violates the collaborative spirit of OSM. It’s time to establish a formal, documented consensus so we can stop the edit wars.

After reviewing all the related discussions and the linguistic reality of the country, I am putting forward a fair compromise designed to respect both OSM’s core tagging rules and Algeria’s regional differences.

The Proposal

Administrative and street names

For administrative names (from the Wilaya down to neighborhoods) and street names, the languages included in the name=* tag are determined by the general signage reality of the Wilaya. The guiding question is simple: does French appear on public signage in that Wilaya?

• If yes, the name=* tag is written in French;Berber;Arabic (when known). Example:

  • name=Wilaya d'Alger ⵜⴰⵡⵉⵍⴰⵢⵜ ⵏ ⴷⵣⴰⵢⵔ ولاية الجزائر
  • name:fr=Wilaya d'Alger
  • name:ber=ⵜⴰⵡⵉⵍⴰⵢⵜ ⵏ ⴷⵣⴰⵢⵔ
  • name:ar=ولاية الجزائر

• If not, the name=* tag is written in Berber;Arabic (when known). Example:

  • name=ⵜⴰⵡⵉⵍⴰⵢⵜ ⵏ ⵅⵏⵛⵍⴰ ولاية خنشلة
  • name:fr=Wilaya de Khenchela
  • name:ar=ولاية خنشلة
  • name:ber=ⵜⴰⵡⵉⵍⴰⵢⵜ ⵏ ⵅⵏⵛⵍⴰ

This means the threshold is not political or demographic, it is purely physical. If French is on the signs, it goes in the name tag. If it isn’t, it doesn’t. No ideology, no personal preference. Simply facts.

Of course, all languages always go into their corresponding sub-tag (name:fr, name:ar, name:ber).

Place and business names (POIs)

Points of interest (shops, businesses, hospitals, etc.) strictly follow the physical “on the ground” rule (see Good practice: Map what’s on the ground).

If a place or business displays its name in French, Arabic, and Tamazight, that is how it should appear in the name=* tag. The same applies if it only displays in one or two languages.

• name=Hôpital Mustapha Bacha مستشفى مصطفى باشا
• name:ar=مستشفى مصطفى باشا
• name:fr=Hôpital Mustapha Bacha

The standardization can be helped by adding the main brands in the country to the Name Suggestion Index, where I am a maintainer and can oversee the additions in a future discussion.

The Vote

• Agree: I support this compromise. Let’s document this on the Algeria OSM Wiki and enforce it moving forward.
• Disagree: I do not support this compromise. (Provide a viable alternative solution that prevents future edit wars.)

This poll will remain open for 14 days. After that, if a consensus is reached, the results will be final, the Wiki will be updated, and any further unilateral mass-deletions contrary to the vote will be treated as vandalism.

Thank you to everyone who has participated in these discussions constructively. Let’s get this settled.

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P.S: I had updated this proposal to reflect @Adam_Franco’s suggestion to use semi-colons instead of spaces, which is better supported by newer-generation data users. But after reflexion, this should be a separate discussion. This vote should focus on what languages to include in the name tag first. The delimiters will be discussed in the future.

[Saad_chaoui]

The suggestion you made is completely unacceptable (at least to me) because if the reason for including French on a map is simply because it appears on a road sign, then English or French should be used for all Arab countries, since road signs are written in Arabic and English or French in all Arab countries, and indeed even in non-Arab countries whose languages are not written in the Latin alphabet, such as Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan.

(A random sign in Egypt)

Secondly, your suggestion to write names in French, then Tamazight, then Arabic is completely unrealistic. Arabic is the dominant language, the de facto official language, and the language spoken by the entire population. Therefore, it should be the first language without question. Tamazight should follow, as it is an official language spoken by a large minority of Algerians (Kabyle, Chaoui, Mozabite, Tuareg, Aïn El Hammam, Aïn El Hammam, and Iznet). There is no need for French because the entire population speaks Arabic, or Arabic and Tamazight. Furthermore, the vast majority do not speak French.

[omar_mahboubi]

To be honest, for me, I only see this as necessary to maintain ASCII-supported characters in the name tag. I’m guessing many clients that use OSM data might not properly render Arabic or Tifinagh text, not to mention that anyone searching in French (which is a lot of people) won’t find results on many clients.

Of course, we can fill the English name as well under name:en

[Saad_chaoui]

Now I will present my proposal, which reflects the reality in Algeria.

First: Names of cities, villages, hamlets, and natural areas.

These should be in Arabic, followed by Tamazight (because they are the two official languages and the languages spoken by the entire Algerian people, either in one or both).

Second: Streets and public and private institutions.
For street names and public institutions such as schools and hospitals, it is acceptable to write them only in Arabic.
For private companies and factories, they should be written in Arabic, but if they are known by their French name, it is acceptable to write them in French.
For municipalities, districts, provinces, and the country itself, these should also be written in Arabic, followed by Tamazight.

If you agree with my proposal and disagree with Elias’s proposal, please vote against it.

[Saad_chaoui]

Of course, the English name goes into name:en, the French into name:fr, the Arabic into name:ar, and the Amazigh into name:ber, but it must go in the “name=” field first for Arabic and then Amazigh only, and I have explained why.

[ButterflyOfFire2 (Athmane Mokraoui)]

Hello everyone,

ButterflyOfFire here. As if it is a new subject. We already discussed this subject here in 2015 : The use of the "name" tag across Algeria

Personally : I’m against name sandwiching` since a long time. Because OSM is a database and quering the data in the tag `name` will be useless if it is a sandwich string.

Notifying : @Algebre_gama @Sandervalya

The most important tags is not the tag `name` itself but the other tags such as :

• name:ar
• name:kab
• name:fr
• name:en
• name:ber
• …

We know that these data are more important than the generic useless sandwich `name`. Even if we add japanese to it, none will query it. And we know that the other tags used to name POIs are important because we know that users can have control over their own map and can render it in their own language.

Before, we had issue to get even OSM to render the Algerian map in arabic, if you want to know then we extended this to be more inclusive and we contributed to add name:kab and name:ber to make everyone happy without counting on that generic sandwich `name` on which everyone focuses.

Why not everyone is not focusing on adding name:kab or name:ber or name:fr … where missing? Why everyone is blockminded on that useless name tag? I want to understand.

For example :

• Wikimedia map full in kabyle using name:kab : Wikimedia maps beta
• Bejaia map in Tifinagh script (Tamazight) using name:ber : Wikimedia maps beta
• Bejaia map using arabic : add lang=ar to the url (for administration an government orgs that wants to have a map in arabic).

By the way, take into consideration that OpenStreetMap Web interface is available in Kabyle (Taqbaylit) language too and not only in french or arabic. And which is good with this, is that OSM is rendered based on the user profile preferences and language set on the browser.

And I encourage people to contribute in Tashawit berber language (Shawiya) too using for example name:shy and other minority languages in Algeria.

I hope you posted pictures from real streets in Algeria but everything I saw was from Eastern foreign countries which may not reflect the reality in DZ. Do you want fresh pictures of my region to update some minds?

Make it whatever you want, that name tag, none will be re-using it to extract a list of commune, villages, hamlets, names or regions, or bus stations or whatever. Users will use the useful data not the sandwich data unless they are advanced users that can use script filtering.

I suggest to keep the generic name in Algeria in Japanese (or may be a fallback to English is better ) or :

• Render the map based on : user preferences, browser lang agent or fallback to (japanese) sorry, I mean to (loc_name) or english.

Regards,
Athmane (ButterflyOfFire)

[Sof1a_111 (Sof1a)]

I cannot say this for every wilaya, but in Bejaia there is a significant amount of French speakers with a lot of businesses and names being in French.

[Saad_chaoui]

I challenge anyone to find someone born and raised in Bejaia whose mother tongue is French. That doesn’t exist. If there is, please tell me the name of the city or neighborhood where the inhabitants speak French as their mother tongue.

[Saad_chaoui]

I understand you very well, and indeed I said that if the map must be in a certain language, it should be in Arabic only. When I entered this site, I thought that I would be discussing whether the map should be in Arabic only or Arabic and Amazigh because French is a foregone conclusion since no one speaks it as a “mother tongue”.

[ilias]

@Saad_chaoui OSM maps physical infrastructure and actual usage, not “mother tongues.” If OSM only mapped mother tongues, we’d have to wipe the maps of India and Nigeria. French is the administrative and commercial language in Algeria. We map reality, not demographic surveys.

Furthermore, comparing Algeria to Egypt or Saudi Arabia is a false equivalence. The English on Egyptian signs is a phonetic transliteration for foreign tourists. French and Tamazight in Algeria are active, daily working languages. The correct OSM equivalents are places like Brussels (French/Dutch) or Switzerland (German/French/Italian/Romansh), where the standard rule is to put all local languages, used by the population there, and printed on the physical signs, into the primary name=* tag.

I have given you enough evidence and directly answered your arguments, but you keep repeating the same claims. I am going to stop answering you now and just let the vote decide.

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@ButterflyOfFire2 you are completely missing the point of the debate and the proposal. Of course name:fr, name:ar, name:ber, name:kab and any other languages go into their corresponding subtags. No one said the opposite and I literally mentioned it in my proposal.

The whole point of the proposal is to decide what to do with the name tag, because that’s what’s actually rendered on the default maps, and that’s the source of edit wars. As I’m sure you know, contributors have historically removed Arabic, removed Tamazight, removed French, added them back, resulting in endless, and I mean endless, edit wars. That’s what we’re trying to fix here. Your “disagree” vote is completely mistaken, unfortunately.

[Saad_chaoui]

I’m tired of saying that the official and practical languages, spoken and mastered by the entire population, are Arabic and Tamazight, not French.

Comparing Algeria to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and all Arab countries is a very good comparison. They don’t offer English alongside Arabic for tourists, but rather for all foreigners (tourists, workers, businesspeople, etc.) because people worldwide are proficient in the Latin alphabet. (Why isn’t French included in Tunisia, given that its demographic and cultural makeup is exactly like Algeria’s? The only difference is that they don’t have large Amazigh communities, unlike us and Morocco.)

You haven’t given me any evidence, my friend. The truth is that the entire population speaks and is proficient in Arabic, and some also speak Amazigh. I mentioned that a small number speak French as an acquired language in addition to Arabic and Amazigh. Makrawi understood the point of the discussion and grew tired of it, just as I did. Simply put, his idea is that the map should be in one language, ideally Arabic, but it doesn’t matter; make it Japanese if you want. The important thing is to put each language in its own section. This way, anyone who wants the map in a specific language can easily choose the translated map, which will appear entirely in their desired language. He is against having three languages ​​appear on the map and likened it to a sandwich, and I largely agree with him.

I voted against it because it doesn’t reflect reality, and I’ve explained why several times.

[Adam_Franco]

@ButterflyOfFire2

Personally : I’m against name sandwiching`` since a long time. Because OSM is a database and quering the data in the tag name` will be useless if it is a sandwich string.

As a foreigner with no local knowledge of Algeria I have no input into which name[s] should be in name=* tag. That said, I recommend using the standard semicolon (;) separator between entries in the name=* tag rather than spaces or some other delimiter.

@Minh_Nguyen has demonstrated how vector maps can be elegantly rendered in a user’s preferred language and developed a MapLibre plugin called “Diplomat” to achieve this localization in other map renderings. As improved localization permeates the OSM ecosystem I hope that speakers of minority languages can more fully access OSM in their native tongues.

As has been discussed previously in many forum posts, alternate separators like space ( ), pipe (|), or slash (/) do appear in single (non-multi-valued) real-world names and cannot be reliably parsed as multi-value separators. See Name lists in OSM Americana; or: how I learned to love semicolons for more background on separators.

[ButterflyOfFire2 (Athmane Mokraoui)]

Hi @Adam_Franco What you said and the links you posted make sense.

Just to answer @ilias : French is becoming no more an administrative language in Algeria.

@ilias

French is the administrative and commercial language in Algeria.

In fact, the government is passing laws to drop french language and embrace english.

Now based on statistics on Taginfo, it appears that name:arbeats all the other tags in Algeria. If we have to decide what the generic namewould be, It will be in arabic never in french.

name:ar | Keys | OpenStreetMap Taginfo Algeria

But thanks to @Adam_Franco I’m reading the interesting links he posted and I think everyone should read them too.

Regards,

[ilias]

@ButterflyOfFire2 Regarding the shift to English: I know the government has announced intentions (!) to transition. However, OSM’s rule is to map the current physical reality on the ground, not future government aspirations. Once the state actually goes out and physically replaces the street signs with English, the map will change to English. Until then, we map what is physically present today.

Also, did you even read the article? Or did you just copy paste the link? The article itself says that shifting from French to English cannot happen overnight and will take an entire generation, that trying to force a sudden linguistic replacement “disrupts the continuity of knowledge”, and “forging a new linguistic habitus will take years.”

@ButterflyOfFire2

Now based on statistics on Taginfo, it appears that name:arbeats all the other tags in Algeria. If we have to decide what the generic namewould be, It will be in arabic never in french.

Sure buddy, 4 thousand more uses is a crazy difference. name:fr even has 9 times more usage than name:ber, and over than 3 times more than name:kab.

[ButterflyOfFire2 (Athmane Mokraoui)]

@ilias I started to contribute on OSM since 2012 and I quit contributing once around the same subject but I came back.

Anyway, happy mapping.

[Saad_chaoui]

I still don’t understand why a language should be imposed on the map of an entire country simply because the signs are in Arabic and French. For example, there are some remote villages deep in the mountains whose signs are only in French, even though the inhabitants of those areas don’t know Arabic, let alone French.

It’s unwise to name areas across the entire country just because the signs are in French. As I mentioned before, all Arab countries use Arabic and Latin script on their signs, and not only Arab countries, but all countries whose alphabet isn’t Latin. Here are some random signs from China, Thailand, and Georgia:

China

Thailand

Georgia

[raffiqdhmn (Raffiq)]

Hey everyone, just wanted to jump into the discussion which had been ongoing for the entire day without any progress on the name=* tag

Though a consensus regarding the secondary name tags such as name:ar=* ; name:fr=* ; name:ber=* AND spacers in sandwiched names has been reached, the discussion has taken more of a political and regional nature than an objective one, and if any changes are to be applied to the map in Algeria they must reflect on ground realities and truths even if it doesn’t go with our personal/political alignments.

This being said, I’m currently working on a proposal which will be submitted here in the coming hours. Hopefully it can help bring up better points of discourse.

[ButterflyOfFire2 (Athmane Mokraoui)]

About multilingual naming streets in Algeria, as seen in some villages, on the ground, in Bejaia (pictures taken by myself some days ago) where first line is :

• name:ar=*

Second line :

• name:kab=*

Third line :

• name:fr=*

[ilias]

Exactly. And in the name tag, Berber can be replaced by Kabyle, depending on the region.

[Saad_chaoui]

Kabyle is part of barbar
Kabyle = barbar