There is interaction between Wikidata, the OHM, the historians working with gazetteers, LOD researchers and Jochen Topf & Tim Alder's work. The Wikimaps project is trying to stay abreast of the development to build on that.
I think also that Wikidata will lead the way and will offer a crowdsourced platform for place names across times. The open questions would be related to the choice of labels when displaying, while Wikidata itself would be able to store many different names, languages and alternatives.
Discussion is needed for the modelling, eg. if a place is one entity with changing properties or if a place is a linked continuum of separate places. What properties to store, how to link? How can the data be linked to say OSM DB entities? Do the notability guidelines of Wikimedia allow storing only important places?
So, in short, the most natural site for discussion is the wikidata-l list (now cc:d)
Best, Susanna Ånäs wikimaps.wikimedia.fi
2014-03-19 22:59 GMT+02:00 Laurence Penney lorp@lorp.org:
It's great to have such things mapped, but it does need care.
In this field Jochen Topf coded "Multilingual Map Test" together back in 2012. You might ask him to add Finnish to the languages offered.
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2012-November/065312.html
Here's part of Poland, shown with German labels:
http://mlm.jochentopf.com/?zoom=7&lat=52.57802&lon=19.11621&laye...
While the larger cities have well-known and current German names that are uncontroversial -- Warschau, Posen, Breslau, etc. -- many small towns and villages would only have been given German names during the Third Reich.
It is therefore contentious to use the "name:de" tag for these places, unless one is making a map of occupied Poland during WW2. The naming was a political act, and most of the names were not used by Germans, even those living in the vicinity, before 1939 or after 1945. Taking politics out of it, perhaps one could use the date to indicate when the name was in use, thus a key of "name:de(1939-1945)".
It would be good to speak to historians who specialize in this area.
- L
On 19 Mar 2014, at 20:37, Chris Helenius chris.helenius@gmail.com wrote:
How are historical place names from annexed countries regarded? Or put in another way; when does a name no longer exist?
In the case on Finland, which lost Karelia to Russia in the 1950s, hundreds of place names were translated and are now officially Russian, with the Finnish population gone. Former place names could nevertheless be of historical value (e.g. to see the geographical extent of the language), as physical historical features are.
The question is, does a name disappear when it is no longer used? Larger cities are still called by their Finnish names in a Finnish context, so would towns and villages be any different? Or when they are deserted?
There is also the unignorable issue of geopolitics, as there are still tensions between the countries. There is no shortage of geographical naming disputes ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Geographical_naming_disputes), and wikipedians themselves had a row over geographical names. ( http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/02/05/China_Japan_Wikipedia_War_S... ) I can imagine how the naming could be seen having a political agenda.
For what it's worth, my agenda is only historical, although I can't shrug off my national bias. Before I go and add name:fi= place-names, I'd like to hear what the community thinks of this.
Chris Helenius _______________________________________________ Historic mailing list Historic@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/historic
Historic mailing list Historic@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/historic
On 20 March 2014 06:58, Susanna Ånäs susanna.anas@gmail.com wrote:
[Snip other interesting stuff; CCs again trimmed]
Do the notability guidelines of Wikimedia allow storing only important places?
English Wikipedia has a de facto guideline of considering any settlement which is on a reliable and independent map or gazetteer to be notable enough to have an article; (the current draft proposal to formalise this is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NGEO
Wikidata notability guidelines accept anything with a Wikipedia article (in any language) *or* which is "a clearly identifiable conceptual or material entity. The entity must be notable, in the sense that it can be described using serious and publicly available references."
This notability guideline for geographic features, both current and historical, will indeed be a cornestone for building upon Wikidata!
It would not include all man-made structures yet, but I hope that would be the trend.
I hope we can develop tools and technologies to bridge the data between OSM/OHM and Wikidata.
Susanna
2014-03-20 11:51 GMT+02:00 Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk:
On 20 March 2014 06:58, Susanna Ånäs susanna.anas@gmail.com wrote:
[Snip other interesting stuff; CCs again trimmed]
Do the notability guidelines of Wikimedia allow storing only important places?
English Wikipedia has a de facto guideline of considering any settlement which is on a reliable and independent map or gazetteer to be notable enough to have an article; (the current draft proposal to formalise this is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NGEO
Wikidata notability guidelines accept anything with a Wikipedia article (in any language) *or* which is "a clearly identifiable conceptual or material entity. The entity must be notable, in the sense that it can be described using serious and publicly available references."
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
Historic mailing list Historic@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/historic
AIUI, currently, Wikidata can add:
* language-specific labels (ie alternative names) * language-independent properties (strings or relationships)
Properties can have modifiers such as date, labels can't. So there's a bit of a challenge here - we would be able to construct a field that says "historic name : Warschau (date:1939-45)", but this would be shown as a historic name in Polish, German, English, Chinese...
Andrew.
On 20 March 2014 06:58, Susanna Ånäs susanna.anas@gmail.com wrote:
There is interaction between Wikidata, the OHM, the historians working with gazetteers, LOD researchers and Jochen Topf & Tim Alder's work. The Wikimaps project is trying to stay abreast of the development to build on that.
I think also that Wikidata will lead the way and will offer a crowdsourced platform for place names across times. The open questions would be related to the choice of labels when displaying, while Wikidata itself would be able to store many different names, languages and alternatives.
Discussion is needed for the modelling, eg. if a place is one entity with changing properties or if a place is a linked continuum of separate places. What properties to store, how to link? How can the data be linked to say OSM DB entities? Do the notability guidelines of Wikimedia allow storing only important places?
So, in short, the most natural site for discussion is the wikidata-l list (now cc:d)
Best, Susanna Ånäs wikimaps.wikimedia.fi
2014-03-19 22:59 GMT+02:00 Laurence Penney lorp@lorp.org:
It's great to have such things mapped, but it does need care.
In this field Jochen Topf coded "Multilingual Map Test" together back in 2012. You might ask him to add Finnish to the languages offered.
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2012-November/065312.html
Here's part of Poland, shown with German labels:
http://mlm.jochentopf.com/?zoom=7&lat=52.57802&lon=19.11621&laye...
While the larger cities have well-known and current German names that are uncontroversial -- Warschau, Posen, Breslau, etc. -- many small towns and villages would only have been given German names during the Third Reich.
It is therefore contentious to use the "name:de" tag for these places, unless one is making a map of occupied Poland during WW2. The naming was a political act, and most of the names were not used by Germans, even those living in the vicinity, before 1939 or after 1945. Taking politics out of it, perhaps one could use the date to indicate when the name was in use, thus a key of "name:de(1939-1945)".
It would be good to speak to historians who specialize in this area.
- L
On 19 Mar 2014, at 20:37, Chris Helenius chris.helenius@gmail.com wrote:
How are historical place names from annexed countries regarded? Or put in another way; when does a name no longer exist?
In the case on Finland, which lost Karelia to Russia in the 1950s, hundreds of place names were translated and are now officially Russian, with the Finnish population gone. Former place names could nevertheless be of historical value (e.g. to see the geographical extent of the language), as physical historical features are.
The question is, does a name disappear when it is no longer used? Larger cities are still called by their Finnish names in a Finnish context, so would towns and villages be any different? Or when they are deserted?
There is also the unignorable issue of geopolitics, as there are still tensions between the countries. There is no shortage of geographical naming disputes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Geographical_naming_disputes), and wikipedians themselves had a row over geographical names. (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/02/05/China_Japan_Wikipedia_War_S...) I can imagine how the naming could be seen having a political agenda.
For what it's worth, my agenda is only historical, although I can't shrug off my national bias. Before I go and add name:fi= place-names, I'd like to hear what the community thinks of this.
Chris Helenius _______________________________________________ Historic mailing list Historic@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/historic
Historic mailing list Historic@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/historic
talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Am 20/mar/2014 um 13:51 schrieb Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk:
Properties can have modifiers such as date, labels can't. So there's a bit of a challenge here - we would be able to construct a field that says "historic name : Warschau (date:1939-45)", but this would be shown as a historic name in Polish, German, English, Chinese...
maybe that's not a problem as this was indeed the official name in that time?
cheers, Martin
Andrew: I think this is key to making Wikidata suitable for a historical gazetteer. Andy was referring to changes allowing names/labels with dates. Will there be such?
Susanna
2014-03-20 15:24 GMT+02:00 Martin Koppenhoefer dieterdreist@gmail.com:
Am 20/mar/2014 um 13:51 schrieb Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk:
Properties can have modifiers such as date, labels can't. So there's a bit of a challenge here - we would be able to construct a field that says "historic name : Warschau (date:1939-45)", but this would be shown as a historic name in Polish, German, English, Chinese...
maybe that's not a problem as this was indeed the official name in that time?
cheers, Martin
I'm picking up points from this discussion and adding them to a Trello board in https://trello.com/b/uXP9JmSP/wikimaps-gazetteer at https://trello.com/wikimaps. Feel free to participate!
Susanna
2014-03-20 15:30 GMT+02:00 Susanna Ånäs susanna.anas@gmail.com:
Andrew: I think this is key to making Wikidata suitable for a historical gazetteer. Andy was referring to changes allowing names/labels with dates. Will there be such?
Susanna
2014-03-20 15:24 GMT+02:00 Martin Koppenhoefer dieterdreist@gmail.com:
Am 20/mar/2014 um 13:51 schrieb Andrew Gray <andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk :
Properties can have modifiers such as date, labels can't. So there's a bit of a challenge here - we would be able to construct a field that says "historic name : Warschau (date:1939-45)", but this would be shown as a historic name in Polish, German, English, Chinese...
maybe that's not a problem as this was indeed the official name in that time?
cheers, Martin
I think the problem is that we sometimes need to reflect more than just the single official name - at the moment we include multilingual names, which is great, and it's a bit of a backwards step to lose that ability for the past. Imagine if you're looking at an English or German map of Russia - all the names rendered with nice Latin-script equivalents - and you say "okay, show me a 1970s map", only for everything to become Cyrillic instead. :-)
It becomes more complicated if you have cases where the name changes in some languages and not others, or countries with multiple official languages where it changes in both.
For example, we'd want to be able to record that in English the city of Tsaritsyn became Stalingrad on a certain date, and then later became Volgograd, just as we record that in Russian it went from Царицын to Сталинград to Волгоград.
However, as you can see at the moment, the "other names" are simple strings with no dates or modifiers, so we can't convey this information. (Switching the interface to a different language will display the alternative names in those languages)
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q914
Susanna: I'm not aware of what the plans are for this, but I'm reasonably sure we can't do it right now. However, I'm not completely up to speed on how dates/modifiers etc work, so someone on wikidata-l can no doubt correct me :-)
Andrew.
On 20 March 2014 13:24, Martin Koppenhoefer dieterdreist@gmail.com wrote:
Am 20/mar/2014 um 13:51 schrieb Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk:
Properties can have modifiers such as date, labels can't. So there's a bit of a challenge here - we would be able to construct a field that says "historic name : Warschau (date:1939-45)", but this would be shown as a historic name in Polish, German, English, Chinese...
maybe that's not a problem as this was indeed the official name in that
time?
cheers, Martin
Well, that is one part of the problem, which could be addressed in Wikidata with a property "official name" with the datatype mono- or multi-lingual string (plannedhttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Development_plan#Multi-lingual_text_datatype_.28optional.29, but not available yet) plus the qualifiers start/end date. The other part of the problem is that for different periods of time you have different entities attached to geographic locations.
For instance after the "Kingdom of Great Britain" https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q161885
Came the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q174193
Yes, the name changed, but it it not just a name change, it is a different entity.
Cheers, Micru
On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 6:43 PM, Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.ukwrote:
I think the problem is that we sometimes need to reflect more than just the single official name - at the moment we include multilingual names, which is great, and it's a bit of a backwards step to lose that ability for the past. Imagine if you're looking at an English or German map of Russia - all the names rendered with nice Latin-script equivalents - and you say "okay, show me a 1970s map", only for everything to become Cyrillic instead. :-)
It becomes more complicated if you have cases where the name changes in some languages and not others, or countries with multiple official languages where it changes in both.
For example, we'd want to be able to record that in English the city of Tsaritsyn became Stalingrad on a certain date, and then later became Volgograd, just as we record that in Russian it went from Царицын to Сталинград to Волгоград.
However, as you can see at the moment, the "other names" are simple strings with no dates or modifiers, so we can't convey this information. (Switching the interface to a different language will display the alternative names in those languages)
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q914
Susanna: I'm not aware of what the plans are for this, but I'm reasonably sure we can't do it right now. However, I'm not completely up to speed on how dates/modifiers etc work, so someone on wikidata-l can no doubt correct me :-)
Andrew.
On 20 March 2014 13:24, Martin Koppenhoefer dieterdreist@gmail.com wrote:
Am 20/mar/2014 um 13:51 schrieb Andrew Gray <andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
:
Properties can have modifiers such as date, labels can't. So there's a bit of a challenge here - we would be able to construct a field that says "historic name : Warschau (date:1939-45)", but this would be shown as a historic name in Polish, German, English, Chinese...
maybe that's not a problem as this was indeed the official name in that
time?
cheers, Martin
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l
Property 'Official name' with datatype 'monolingual text' has already been approved but is waiting for that datatype before it is created. It is designed for the use you described - listing the various official names with qualifiers for language, start date, end date etc. No matter what your language is set to you will see this name in the official language
This leaves the label as a simple label, reflecting general usage, localised into as many languages as required.
Lots of location items change over time. Boundaries change, names change, statutory rights change. If we create a new item every time there is a minor change it would get silly so there has to be some scope for using qualifiers to reflect those changes over time. The question is merely at what point that breaks down and you really need to have two separate items. For me the basic principal is that you need two items if you can't describe it in one item.
Joe
On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 6:19 PM, David Cuenca dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
Well, that is one part of the problem, which could be addressed in Wikidata with a property "official name" with the datatype mono- or multi-lingual string (plannedhttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Development_plan#Multi-lingual_text_datatype_.28optional.29, but not available yet) plus the qualifiers start/end date. The other part of the problem is that for different periods of time you have different entities attached to geographic locations.
For instance after the "Kingdom of Great Britain" https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q161885
Came the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q174193
Yes, the name changed, but it it not just a name change, it is a different entity.
Cheers, Micru
On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 6:43 PM, Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.ukwrote:
I think the problem is that we sometimes need to reflect more than just the single official name - at the moment we include multilingual names, which is great, and it's a bit of a backwards step to lose that ability for the past. Imagine if you're looking at an English or German map of Russia - all the names rendered with nice Latin-script equivalents - and you say "okay, show me a 1970s map", only for everything to become Cyrillic instead. :-)
It becomes more complicated if you have cases where the name changes in some languages and not others, or countries with multiple official languages where it changes in both.
For example, we'd want to be able to record that in English the city of Tsaritsyn became Stalingrad on a certain date, and then later became Volgograd, just as we record that in Russian it went from Царицын to Сталинград to Волгоград.
However, as you can see at the moment, the "other names" are simple strings with no dates or modifiers, so we can't convey this information. (Switching the interface to a different language will display the alternative names in those languages)
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q914
Susanna: I'm not aware of what the plans are for this, but I'm reasonably sure we can't do it right now. However, I'm not completely up to speed on how dates/modifiers etc work, so someone on wikidata-l can no doubt correct me :-)
Andrew.
On 20 March 2014 13:24, Martin Koppenhoefer dieterdreist@gmail.com wrote:
Am 20/mar/2014 um 13:51 schrieb Andrew Gray <andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
:
Properties can have modifiers such as date, labels can't. So there's a bit of a challenge here - we would be able to construct a field that says "historic name : Warschau (date:1939-45)", but this would be shown as a historic name in Polish, German, English, Chinese...
maybe that's not a problem as this was indeed the official name in that
time?
cheers, Martin
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l
-- Etiamsi omnes, ego non
Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l
If we have multilingual string datatypes coming, I take it back. Hurrah! :-) (I hadn't realised that was on the roadmap).
Andrew.
On 20 March 2014 18:19, David Cuenca dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
Well, that is one part of the problem, which could be addressed in Wikidata with a property "official name" with the datatype mono- or multi-lingual string (planned, but not available yet) plus the qualifiers start/end date. The other part of the problem is that for different periods of time you have different entities attached to geographic locations.
For instance after the "Kingdom of Great Britain" https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q161885
Came the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q174193
Yes, the name changed, but it it not just a name change, it is a different entity.
Cheers, Micru
On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 6:43 PM, Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk wrote:
I think the problem is that we sometimes need to reflect more than just the single official name - at the moment we include multilingual names, which is great, and it's a bit of a backwards step to lose that ability for the past. Imagine if you're looking at an English or German map of Russia - all the names rendered with nice Latin-script equivalents - and you say "okay, show me a 1970s map", only for everything to become Cyrillic instead. :-)
It becomes more complicated if you have cases where the name changes in some languages and not others, or countries with multiple official languages where it changes in both.
For example, we'd want to be able to record that in English the city of Tsaritsyn became Stalingrad on a certain date, and then later became Volgograd, just as we record that in Russian it went from Царицын to Сталинград to Волгоград.
However, as you can see at the moment, the "other names" are simple strings with no dates or modifiers, so we can't convey this information. (Switching the interface to a different language will display the alternative names in those languages)
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q914
Susanna: I'm not aware of what the plans are for this, but I'm reasonably sure we can't do it right now. However, I'm not completely up to speed on how dates/modifiers etc work, so someone on wikidata-l can no doubt correct me :-)
Andrew.
On 20 March 2014 13:24, Martin Koppenhoefer dieterdreist@gmail.com wrote:
Am 20/mar/2014 um 13:51 schrieb Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk:
Properties can have modifiers such as date, labels can't. So there's a bit of a challenge here - we would be able to construct a field that says "historic name : Warschau (date:1939-45)", but this would be shown as a historic name in Polish, German, English, Chinese...
maybe that's not a problem as this was indeed the official name in that time?
cheers, Martin
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l
-- Etiamsi omnes, ego non
Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l
On 20 March 2014 17:43, Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk wrote:
I think the problem is that we sometimes need to reflect more than just the single official name - at the moment we include multilingual names, which is great, and it's a bit of a backwards step to lose that ability for the past.
Why would we loose that ability?
However, as you can see at the moment, the "other names" are simple strings with no dates or modifiers, so we can't convey this information.
In Wikidata? The language modifier, at least, can be used in Wikidata today.
On 20 March 2014 12:51, Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk wrote:
AIUI, currently, Wikidata can add:
- language-specific labels (ie alternative names)
- language-independent properties (strings or relationships)
Properties can have modifiers such as date, labels can't. So there's a bit of a challenge here - we would be able to construct a field that says "historic name : Warschau (date:1939-45)", but this would be shown as a historic name in Polish, German, English, Chinese...
There's a language modifer, P407, for properties. So you'd have
historic name: Warschau date: 1939-45 language: German
(or whatever)