4 ms·

OpenStreetMaps' content is virtually 100% objective (with only political borders and names being potentially contentious).

by spb 11y ago

viewer5 11y ago
What's there to argue about over names? Pardon my ignorance, I'm very poorly-travelled.
- briandh 11y ago
  For instance, do you refer to a particular group of uninhabited islands as "Senkaku Islands, Japan", "Diaoyu Islands, People's Republic of China", or "Diaoyutai Islands, Republic of China"? Some people are very passionate about the answer. Is the political entity on Formosa "Taiwan", "Taiwan Province, Republic of China", "Taiwan Province, People's Republic of China", or "Taiwan, Province of China"?
lovelearning 11y ago
Political contention isn't as big a problem, as spam and inaccuracy. Those are the problems that make such sites generally unwelcoming towards newcomers. Both Wikipedia and Google Maps demonstrate this. OSM doesn't.
frenchy 11y ago
It's not 100% objective, but for simple things, it mostly is. If you hop on the mailing lists you will find all sorts of people bickering about whether it should be `shop=ice_cream` or `amenity=ice_cream` or `restauraunt=ice_cream` as they fight over their self-made taxonomies. At some point, I think, things will inevitably change. But for the moment, there's so many obvious things to work on that the confusing/subjective things don't really pop up too much.
- DanBC 11y ago
  Do you have links? I'm interested in meta stuff. Discussions about shop= vs amenity= are sometimes frustrating, but I bet they don't come anywhere near the discussions over using –,—, or - in page titles. Here's 15,000 words. At the end of that? No consensus. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_101#Hyphens_and_endashs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(poli... The type of dash to use in "Mexican-American War" got over 20,000 words. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mexican%E2%80%93American_War/Archive_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mexican%E2%80%93American_... Dash wars even got to Arbcom: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case&oldid=429209333#Hyphens_and_dashes https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitra...

OpenStreetMaps' content is virtually 100% objective (with only political borders and names being potentially contentious).

by spb 11y ago

OpenStreetMaps' content is virtually 100% objective (with only political borders and names being potentially contentious).

viewer5 11y ago

What's there to argue about over names? Pardon my ignorance, I'm very poorly-travelled.

briandh 11y ago
For instance, do you refer to a particular group of uninhabited islands as "Senkaku Islands, Japan", "Diaoyu Islands, People's Republic of China", or "Diaoyutai Islands, Republic of China"? Some people are very passionate about the answer. Is the political entity on Formosa "Taiwan", "Taiwan Province, Republic of China", "Taiwan Province, People's Republic of China", or "Taiwan, Province of China"?

lovelearning 11y ago

Political contention isn't as big a problem, as spam and inaccuracy. Those are the problems that make such sites generally unwelcoming towards newcomers. Both Wikipedia and Google Maps demonstrate this. OSM doesn't.

frenchy 11y ago

It's not 100% objective, but for simple things, it mostly is. If you hop on the mailing lists you will find all sorts of people bickering about whether it should be `shop=ice_cream` or `amenity=ice_cream` or `restauraunt=ice_cream` as they fight over their self-made taxonomies. At some point, I think, things will inevitably change. But for the moment, there's so many obvious things to work on that the confusing/subjective things don't really pop up too much.

DanBC 11y ago
Do you have links? I'm interested in meta stuff. Discussions about shop= vs amenity= are sometimes frustrating, but I bet they don't come anywhere near the discussions over using –,—, or - in page titles. Here's 15,000 words. At the end of that? No consensus. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_101#Hyphens_and_endashs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(poli... The type of dash to use in "Mexican-American War" got over 20,000 words. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mexican%E2%80%93American_War/Archive_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mexican%E2%80%93American_... Dash wars even got to Arbcom: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case&oldid=429209333#Hyphens_and_dashes https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitra...