OpenStreetMap
Mark paracel islands and spratly islands as international area
Posted by Jason_Brown on 16 April 2020 in English. Last updated on 17 April 2020.I saw that an user edit these islands to what China call it (Xisha Islands) . But this arena are a disputed sea (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracel_Islands and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spratly_Islands for detail). Please some mark this as disputed area.
Why am doing this? Because if I am not, @SomeoneElse_Revert will keep revert this area.
Discussion
Comment from SomeoneElse on 17 April 2020 at 12:33
Various mappers have over the years tried to have OSM represent their country’s (and their country’s alone) claim to these islands. The wikipedia article that you linked to for the Paracels notes 3 claims and says “Administered by People’s Republic of China”. The Spratlys are more complicated, with apparently 5 different occupying powers of bits of the archipelago.
I’m aware that a post-COVID-19 campaign has been whipped up by the Vietnamese press (see here for example). This isn’t relevant to OSM.
OpenStreetMap has historically represented disputed boundaries with a “disputed” tag, and that tag is already present on the main Paracels boundary. By all means try and work with the rest of the OSM community towards a better representation of disputed areas. Last year one was proposed but was rejected largely because it was just too complicated.
If you’d like to engage with other mappers and try and work forward to a solution please do so. Like COVID-19, only an international solution will work. However, sending expletive-ridden OSM messages to people and writing (now hidden by us) expletive-filled diary entries will only suggest to people that you are not worthy of trying to have a conversation with.
Best Regards,
Andy Townsend, on behalf of OSM’s Data Working Group
Comment from Jason_Brown on 17 April 2020 at 14:31
Yesterday these I saw @SomeoneElse_Revert revert these islands and mark them by Chinese name. Today I see it as both Vietnamese and Chinese.
But shoudn’t OSM mark these area by English name not by Vietnamese or Chinese? Like Google Map
Comment from SomeoneElse on 17 April 2020 at 15:21
“OSM” does not “ mark these areas” by any name - English, Vietnamese or Chinese. All of these names will be available in the data, and it’s up to people creating maps to decide which to use.
If you’d like the rules that the tiles that you see at OpenStreetMap.org by default use to change then raise that at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues - but any suggestion will need to be practical and scalable. Currently, as noted in https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/w/images/d/d8/DisputedTerritoriesInformation.pdf , the language that you’ll actually need to use on the ground is the one used. Google Maps isn’t a direct comparison here because it actually gives a different result depending on where you access it from. The maps that you see at OpenStreetMap don’t do this, and in any case aren’t designed as a “service” to be used by allcomers in the same way.
Lots of options exist for showing names in different languages - if you’d like to use OSM data to create one showing your desired names and country boundaries you are welcome to do so, and plenty of people already have.
Comment from Jason_Brown on 17 April 2020 at 15:57
But didn’t you revert those Vietnamese edit to @NM$L edit (Sansha in Chinese or Tam Sa or Vietnames) yesterday? So that means any edit from Vietnam to these areas will not be consider. And by “mark” these areas as non-English languages OSM is telling to the world that these areas belong to those Countries. Because any normal human when they saw a map that have a local language on it, I am sure 99% they can tell what country this area belong to. So Why don’t OSM (I say OSM cause we can’t edit these ares :) ) ‘just’ display there areas in English ?
Comment from SomeoneElse on 17 April 2020 at 16:15
Actually, no. The reverted edits were mostly just vandalism (deleting data, writing obscenities, removing names in some langages). 3 edits by NM$L were made in the area in the last 3 weeks or so; Iv’e commented on one of them osm.org/changeset/82702598
No - constructive edits, that try and better reflect the situation on the ground, are welcome from anywhere. Mass deletions and sending lists of obscenities to people (which you yourself have done) are not.
When it comes to places where people live and work, English has no special status as a language within OSM. We try and use local languages where possible. There are a few exceptions - The Indian OSM community uses English placenames in the “name” tag, and some countries with multiple languages have opted to use combinations of thise languages in names (e.g. Belgium). In each case though it’s a decision of the people that live there, not the decision of a claiming country.
As I’ve already said, if you’d like the rules that the tiles that you see at OpenStreetMap.org by default use to change then raise that at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues - but any suggestion will need to be practical and scalable.
Comment from Jason_Brown on 17 April 2020 at 16:47
Okay I know it’s a hurting truth as China’s army is currently occupying at some islands. But I don’t want any people looking at the map and say “oh it’s Chinese” because after a long long period that thinking may become the truth regarding how hard we’re fighting. We just want people to know there is a conflict there.
BTW: you shouldn’t let NM$L let her/his have this name (https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/25nz3i/what_does_nui_ma_si_le_mean/)
Comment from SomeoneElse on 17 April 2020 at 17:03
As set out in https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/w/images/d/d8/DisputedTerritoriesInformation.pdf , the “on the ground” situation is what you’ll see reflected in the OSM “standard” map tiles.
As I’ve said above - the data already reflects this.
I wouldn’t describe “vandalising a shared international resource” or “sending messages full of expletives to people” as “fighting”, personally. If you want to do something constructive, I’d suggest (in the order of “simple” to “more difficult”):
Use an existing map or app that shows things in your preferred language
Create a map of the area that shows the names that you want people to see and make that available to people. Lots of information already exists about how to do this, including links from here.
Help create a solution by which tiles from OpenStreetMap.org can show different languages to users in different locations. That isn’t possible right now, and would be a major technical change. Also for some people it would not be desirable - a number of people have expressed a wish for OSM to continue to show on-the-ground control only, and not to reflect unmappable claims - see the comments here.
Comment from Jason_Brown on 18 April 2020 at 04:32
I don’t what you say as “on the ground” situation can reflex country’s boundary. They are “disputed” areas - meaning UN doesn’t not regconize these areas. But OSM shows boundary of China. This does reflex real status of these islands.
and Vietnam
And again I would say that any normal human see this boundary can tell these areas belong to. Becuse no care these areas, just us.