Gulf of America - Gulf of Mexico
community.openstreetmap.org
President Donald Trump just said during his inauguration that he wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Aside from the political aspects, how does that even work? How does OSM choose a source for that? I’m curious! Also, somebody executed what I thought while I wrote this post:
  • Boomkop3@reddthat.comEnglish
    0·
    1 天前

    For ducks sake, just because one country wants it to be different doesn’t change how it’s internationally recognized.

  • JaggedRobotPubes@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 天前

    There’s nothing to discuss. It’s the Gulf of Mexico, and suggestions to the contrary are to be appropriately dismissed as childish.

    Aa a side note, make sure that, no matter what, you find a way to follow “Gulf of” with “Mexico”. It should flow by rote in the hearer’s mind, simply by virtue of the fact that they hear it the correct way when you talk about it.

    This is a trivially easy battle to fight. Only use the correct name, and it will be the one that sticks. Using the incorrect name, even to make correct statements about how it’s dumb and childish and not going to be its name going forward, reinforces the lie.

    Mexico is the Gulf-of-havin’est thing you ever did see.

    • infeeeee@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      2 天前

      OSM exists to record and map facts, not to dictate them. If some people call it that way, than it should be recorded in the database, it’s not about personal preferences and politics, we shouldn’t decide if the name is right or not. If you read the linked forum thread you can see that it is purely technical, about how we should record it in the database and when (now vs when and if it will become official)

      It’s a bit annoying in here that a lot of people misunderstands this, and comments recommendations with near zero osm mapping experience, this is about how to map a thing on OpenStreetMap, not about politics.

      • Classy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        24 小时前

        I could imagine Trump deciding that a random bird needed to be named after himself, and inaturalist having a forum discussion about localization etc. It’s probably the same kind of debate here

      • ggtdbz@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        0·
        1 天前

        How does OSM deal with Arabian Gulf / Persian Gulf? I’ve only ever seen it referred to by the latter name by western sources but only the former name in Arabic over here.

        I’m well aware that the name “declaration” of Arabian Gulf was a political move in the 20th century, but I’ve never seen the name Persian Gulf in Arabic. Never.

        Just curious.

        • infeeeee@lemm.eeEnglish
          0·
          23 小时前

          See it yourself, this is the gulf relation: https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/9326283

          It has more than 90 names, on different languages. As I can see the default name key without a language subkey is the same as name:ar which is the Arabic name, so that’s the “default”. There is also an alt_name:ar as “alternative name” and google translate says it means “Gulf of Basra” which should be coming from the city of Basra, in Iraq (OSM).

          In Persian the same 2 keys exist. The default name:fa translates to Persian Gulf, the alt_name:fa is Arabian Gulf

          It’s important to note that the language independent name tag is not used the same way everywhere. E.g. here they use the Arabic name, but for example for the Danube river this default is “Danube” in English, while for example this section where it’s the border between Slovakia and Hungary its name is “Dunaj / Duna”, containing names in both languages. Similar here, but Romanian and Bulgarian names “Dunav/Dunărea”: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/42369355

          This tagging scheme is also common for example in Alto Adige/Südtirol (OSM) a region of Italy where 70% of the population is native German speaker, they add both names, and you can see this on the default Mapnik layer on openstreetmap.org

          OpenStreetMap is a database, and the map you see on openstreetmap.org is just one renderer, a lot others exist. If you want to see everything rendered in another language you can use for example on Wikimedia Maps, in this url just change the language code at the end to something else, e.g. this is in German: https://maps.wikimedia.org/?lang=de This is in Italian: https://maps.wikimedia.org/?lang=it

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
    0·
    2 天前

    Seems idiotic to me to discuss what some nutter suggested no matter their current job title. Everything in the world has been named already geography wise.

  • selokichtli@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    2 天前

    It is a necessary discussion for the OSM project, and it is quite reasonable the way it’s been developing.

  • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 天前

    Looking at a map, it would really be best named the Gulf of the Americas.

    But otherwise is this reminiscent of Erdoğan’s decree changing the name of Turkey to Turkiye.

    A map should show the established name, i.e., the most widely understood designation, the one that enjoys the most consensus, including among specialists, historians, and so on. In a sane world, dictators do not get to wake up one morning and decide to change our maps.

    It’s still the Gulf of Mexico.

    • itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      0·
      2 天前

      Different situation, I’d say. You get a say how your own countries, cities, etc get named. No one is forced to accept it, but it’s a matter of international respect to do so.

      You don’t get to rename a geographic feature. Much less one that’s outside your borders.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
      0·
      2 天前

      reminiscent of Erdoğan’s decree changing the name of Turkey to Turkiye.

      America doesn’t hold sovereignty over international waters; at least, not without blatant displays of toxic macho force.

      Gulf of Mexico. If need be, use and report ONLY the common Spanish name used by regional leaders. Fuck 45.

  • menemen@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    2 天前

    Why? There are commisions for that. E.g. the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names, the United States Board on Geographic Names or the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names. Just follow the lead of one of these. There is no need to further complicate stuff.

    • CaptainBasculin@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      2 天前

      To put it simple, they sayeach country can decide what name to use for where, and that’s what OSM uses as a reference.

      What it is called however is not by defined by what the president says alone though, it has to go through the entire government bureaucracy thing.

      • Otter@lemmy.caEnglish
        0·
        2 天前

        I just checked, and it’s only the link in the post body

        It has a period at the end, and so my client opened an error page. I can see it now :)

  • balsoft@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    2 天前

    I think the discussion there is quite reasonable given the circumstances, and official_name:en-US once the GNIS updates is the correct way to go until people actually start calling it the new name.

    what a stupid timeline this is

    • selokichtli@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      2 天前

      The problem they are addressing right now is that “Gulf of America” is not an equivalent name, as “Gulf of America” can and will only apply to the waters next to USA states, so it is a regional name, official or regular.

      • balsoft@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        2 天前

        Hmm, right. This makes it somewhat more complicated. If this new name starts being used by many people and organizations, I suppose it would make sense to create a new place=sea boundary=maritime, but until then it’d be kind of stupid to pollute the map with a new entity just because it’s in the official records.