Stefan Keller skrev: > Hi all, > > I just have finished a converter of OSM xml format to GML and I > *BOLDLY*suggest to constrain the allowed characters of tags (= > key-names) to the > following XML related set: > 'aAbBcCdDeEfFgGhHiIjJkKlLmMnNoOpPqQrRsStTuUvVwWxXyYzZ_' in order to retain > reusability. > > After having looked at more than 100 MB of data we found in key names > characters like space, slashes, colons and even more weird ones. I don't > think this will take too much of users freedom of choice... > > What do you think to agree on such a character list and subsequenctly to > build this into editors like JOSM on order to get clean key names from the > beginning? > > -- Stefan
NO FRACKIN' WAY!!!! If people can't use national characters such as ÆØÅæøå, accented characters such as ÔÂÊôâê and ÕÃŨĨõãũĩ, or left-to-right characters as used in Hebrew, Arabic, and Chinese for in the naming of tags, we are loosing one hell of an incitament for people all over the world to use, participate in and develop OSM further. If you had suggested that "Tag names to be used on the Map Features list of recommended tags on the Wiki should only contain the characters used in the English language" then I had been with you, but to indiscriminately remove the possibillity of having tags in national languages using characters only found in those languages is IMHO a completely No-Go. Remember, one of the great advantages of the OSM tagging model, is that anybody can define a tag, even if that tag only is going to be usefull for that particular person. This maintains the versatility for people who might not be very well versed in english, to still be able to "customize and name" the data they put in to OSM, so it makes sense for their particular use. I still recall the old days in the 1970's and 1980's when a lot of US made software balked on hi-ascii characters, which meant that a lot of us europeans had to for instance spell streetnames that contained national characters such as the above, as they sounded in english, instead of the way they actually were spelled. And I do NOT wish for that to return in the twentyfirst century in OSM, not even for tag names. If an OSM tool is unable to utilize UTF8 characters, then the tool should be rewritten. It is a big step backwards, if we instead choose to limit the characters available for use. Just my 0.02€ Dutch _______________________________________________ dev mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dev
