Hi,
*** Before I begin: I've never been a major OpenStreetMap contributor, so
forgive me if I misunderstand something basic about it. ***
Lately, some work has been done on improving the integration of
OpenStreetMap (OSM) and Wikimedia projects, in the Kartographer extension.
In particular, I'm curious about this task:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T112948
It's about showing place names in the wiki language. It may get resolved
soon (yay!!)
But it raises an important question: What happens if the place name was not
translated into the wiki language? As a not-so-extreme example, what
happens if a place name is only available in the OSM database in Chinese?
Unfortunately, it will be not very useful to readers of the English
Wikipedia.
The desirable solution is to give Wikipedia editors who know the relevant
languages an easy way to translate the labels.
Reading
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Translation#OpenStreetMap_website_inter…
, I see that there is no *easy* way to do it on the OpenStreetMap side. To
add a translation of a place name, you need to:
* find it on the map
* edit it
* type "name:LANGUAGE_CODE" in the properties list (for example
"name:ru"
for Russian)
* write the name
* save
* wait for it to get published (I'm not sure how long does it take; maybe
it's instant, but I made a test edit, and I still don't see it.)
This is not super-efficient for several reasons:
* Finding each place on the map may be time-consuming for practical
considerations.
* Sending each change manually is also time-consuming.
* Typing the property name manually is slowish and error-prone.
A lot of this data is already available on Wikidata. In fact, OpenStreetMap
already has a Wikidata item property for each place. (It can also have a
property for Wikipedia link, one for each language. It looks redundant to
me: A link to the Wikidata item page would be enough.)
Did anybody ever suggest importing the place names available on Wikidata to
OSM, or to synchronize them regularly?
--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore