Hello,
This is the first time posting to this mailing list. In case this is the
wrong place to post my question, feel free to point me to the correct
mailing list/forum.
I opened an issue in the OSM carto Github repository
(https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/4115) with
the question if places tagged with place=* but without a name could be
rendered. The follow-up pull request
https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/4120 proposes a
rendering for unnamed places.
A discussion erupted, about the conceptual consequences of rendering a
place without a name. This goes against the wiki
(https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:place) where the tag name=* is
marked as required. The first line in the wiki is /"Used to indicate
that a particular location is known by a particular name, to indicate
what sort of "place" it is. [...]"/. However indicating what sort of
place it is, does not require a name. Indicating that a place of some
sort exists at a certain location is also valuable data (a quick count
of Nigeria gives ~9800 nodes of places without a name versus ~69000
nodes of places with a name).
I wish to question the assumption that every place always has or
requires a name. The comment of 'sommerluk' on the Github issue
(https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/4115#issuecomment-612847759)
indicates that there may indeed be small populated places without a
name, although larger populated places always have a name in practice.
Also, regions of the world where on-the-ground mapping is not popular
will mostly be mapped by remote mappers. Because of that, mapped places
will usually not get a name (yet), because mappers are not locally
familiar with the place. The data is still useful for humanitarian aid
(for example see
https://tasks.hotosm.org/contribute?difficulty=ALL&text=nigeria for the
many projects in the HOT tasking manager for improving data in Nigeria,
in particular missing residential areas). Rendering these places in a
visual way makes using the data easier. Later, the unnamed places could
still be given a name by a mapper with that knowledge.
The tough question is when some place is considered a 'place' and may be
mapped when the name is unknown.
I am curious about further reactions on this topic.
Kind regards,
/Hidde Wieringa/
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