Re: [OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Pavlo Dudka]

>> it is widely internationally recognised that Russia now controls Crimea.

When we talk about boundary recognition the meaning is completely different.
The UK Government’s position on Crimea

: Both the G7 and EU have affirmed their condemnation, and *non-recognition,
of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea* and we are implementing a strict
policy of non-recognition with respect to Crimea/Sevastapol, in line with
UN General Assembly Resolution 68/262

Doing business in Crimea

The UK government maintain *a strict policy of non-recognition *with
respect to Crimea / Sevastopol, in line with UN General Assembly Resolution
68/262. UK businesses should be mindful of the increased commercial risks
created by this situation.
...
These measures imposed on EU citizens and businesses:
call on international financial institutions to *refrain from financing any
projects that explicitly or implicitly recognise the illegal annexation of
Crimea and Sevastopol *

сб, 24 лист. 2018 о 16:13 Andy Townsend  пише:

> On 23/11/2018 21:03, Tomas Straupis wrote:
>
>
>   Ok. So do I understand OSMF position is this:
>
> All the answers here are "my personal understanding of OSM's collective
> position, based on many years to and fro in mailing lists, wiki pages, etc.
> etc.".  Some of the questions below are technical, some are political, some
> have implications for how data is stored and some have implications for how
> data is represented (and it's important to disconnect those last two).
> Also, OSM is a very broad church and some people have very different views
> about what we should record and how we should record it.
>
>
>   1. There are no technical problems with having international
> boundaries overlapping and representing official position of involved
> countries.
>
> There are technical problems, in that things may be "double counted" - the
> "total number of X in the world" will be higher if we count by overlapping
> countries.  However, often we're choosing the "least worst option" - the
> one with fewest problems (technical and political), not the one with none.
>
>
>   2. International boundaries DO sometimes overlap.
>
>
> I'm not actually aware of a situation where countries have said "this bit
> belongs equally to both of us" (I'd be interested to hear of any examples,
> actually), though there are plenty of places where they say "I think it
> belongs to me, and you think it belongs to you, but let's work together and
> manage it jointly".
>
>
>   3. OSMF is aware that overlapping boundaries would have satisfied
> more users (especially LOCAL users).
>
> There's a clear split here between the views of people from Ukraine (and
> other countries closer to Russia's borders) and mappers from elsewhere.
> The former are saying "Ukraine was invaded and part was taken away by
> force; maps should show it as part of Ukraine because that act was not
> legal according to International law".  The latter are saying "we have
> always mapped what's on the ground, regardless of the legal situation".
>
> Essentially it's a political decision what the admin_level=2 boundaries in
> OSM should reflect.  There's no one answer that will please everyone - if
> we said that admin_level=2 boundaries should show "the extent that each
> country thinks that it should have regardless of actual control on the
> ground" then we'd have to invent another boundary type for "actual borders"
> that did tell people where they were crossing a patrolled frontier.
>
> Conversely, I personally don't think that there's a reason (subject to
> verifiability, which isn't a problem here) why claims such as this
> shouldn't be in OSM (so that people can make maps from them), just as long
> as people can't confuse them with the areas that particular countries
> actually control.  Western Sahara is an example -
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/2559126 .  There was a discussion
> (with mappers who'd been active in the area and in the OSM boundaries
> forum) that decided that Morocco should be in OSM as the area that it
> controls, and the SADR area as the area outside that.  According to the UN,
> Western Sahara should be a country, and if someone wants to create a map
> based on OSM data that shows the boundary of Western Sahara, they can,
> because that data is in OSM.
>
> It's important to remember this last point - anyone can, and is encouraged
> to, make their own maps from OSM data.  What you see in the "standard
> style" at openstreetmap.org is just one possible rendering of many.  If
> you want to render OSM data without boundaries and then overlay a set of
> boundaries on it, you can (see
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/SomeoneElse/diary/47007 for a worked
> example).  If you want to have different boundaries displayed for different
> 

Re: [OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Oleksiy Muzalyev]

It seems to be a good idea to show the disputed boundaries in a 
different style. For example, if a captain of a see ship visits a port 
in Crimea and then one in Ukraine, as far as I know, he may have legal 
problems and the ship could be delayed in Ukraine. A captain from say 
the Southeast Asia could be not aware of local politics. For instance, 
who from us in Europe knows if there is a dispute between Bolivia and 
Paraguay? But at least he may see on the map that this boundary is 
disputed and be somehow forewarned.


On the MapQuest map one can see clearly the ground de facto border 
between Ukraine and Crimea, so a driver can slow down before the 
checkpoint, avoiding the risk of hitting the concrete blocks in darkness 
at high speed, if the de facto border were not shown at all. But the 
border has got somewhat different style.


The situation with Crimea is not settled on the ground either. The 
immense North Crimean Canal [1] is closed and does not supply water to 
the peninsula. What causes heavy loses both to the agriculture at the 
Crimea and to the companies in Ukraine which maintain the canal. A lot 
of people suffer due to this situation. Displaying the border as 
disputed, i.e in a distinctive style, could be an additional stimulus to 
the participants of the conflict to attempt to find a permanent peaceful 
solution.


Though I do realize that it could be time consuming for volunteers to 
rewrite programs and redesign databases for particular cases.


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Crimean_Canal

Best regards,
Oleksiy

On 24.11.18 16:09, Andy Townsend wrote:
...As another example have a look at https://www.mapquest.com/ and 
browse to Western Sahara - there are at least 3 different styles of 
boundaries shown there that represent de facto and de jure country 
boundaries.  Those are technical decisions made by the people making 
those maps (in this case Mapbox, based on OSM data).

...

it is widely internationally recognised that Russia now controls Crimea.




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Re: [OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Michael Reichert]

Hi,

Am 24/11/2018 um 15.09 schrieb Andy Townsend:
> I'm not actually aware of a situation where countries have said "this
> bit belongs equally to both of us" (I'd be interested to hear of any
> examples, actually), though there are plenty of places where they say "I
> think it belongs to me, and you think it belongs to you, but let's work
> together and manage it jointly".

The rivers Moselle, Sauer and Our form a large part of the border
between Germany and Luxembourg constitute a condominium. The rivers,
their islands and bridges belong to both countries. AFAIK, there is no
dispute between the two countries. Therefore, the boundary relations of
both countries overlap.

Best regards

Michael

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Re: [OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Mateusz Konieczny]

24. Nov 2018 15:09 by ajt1...@gmail.com :


> 
>>   >>   2. International boundaries DO sometimes overlap.>> 
> 
>
> 
> 
> I'm not actually aware of a situation where countries have said  "this 
> bit belongs equally to both of us" (I'd be interested to  hear of any 
> examples, actually), though there are plenty of places  where they say "I 
> think it belongs to me, and you think it belongs  to you, but let's work 
> together and manage it jointly".
>




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condominium_(international_law) 
 lists some 
examples.






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Re: [OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Mateusz Konieczny]

"international recognition" allows to eliminate for example Sealand (and 
othermicronation nonsense).
It also allows to skip on the ground survey in cases where everybody agrees 
where the border are.
It also allows to map borders in areas without physical control (due to lack of 
inhabitants oranything else).

24. Nov 2018 14:58 by pavlo.du...@gmail.com :


> boundary=administrative can't be "IRRESPECTIVE OF WIDE INTERNATIONAL 
> RECOGNITION" by definition. Please check it on > OSM wiki 
> >
>  : "An administrative boundary. Subdivisions of 
> areas/territories/jurisdictions recognised by governments or other 
> organisations for administrative purposes."> OSMF statement also says "we 
> record one set that, in OpenStreetMap contributor opinion, is most widely 
> internationally recognised and best meets realities on the ground, generally 
> meaning physical control.". The first sentence also says to take 
> international recognition into account, while second part make the whole 
> statement > self-contradictory> .
> пт, 23 лист. 2018 о 23:06 Tomas Straupis <> tomasstrau...@gmail.com 
> > > пише:
>
>> 2018-11-23, pn, 18:57 Andy Townsend rašė:
>> > Where that best matches the situation on the ground about who has
>> > control, yes.
>>
>>   Ok. So do I understand OSMF position is this:
>>
>>   1. There are no technical problems with having international
>> boundaries overlapping and representing official position of involved
>> countries.
>>   2. International boundaries DO sometimes overlap.
>>   3. OSMF is aware that overlapping boundaries would have satisfied
>> more users (especially LOCAL users).
>>   4. Precedence is taken by "most widely internationally recognised
>> and best meets realities on the ground" where only second part is
>> actually important, so this sentence should be changed to "best meets
>> realities on the ground IRRESPECTIVE OF WIDE INTERNATIONAL
>> RECOGNITION".
>>
>>   Is this correct?
>>
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Re: [OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Andy Townsend]

On 23/11/2018 21:03, Tomas Straupis wrote:


   Ok. So do I understand OSMF position is this:


All the answers here are "my personal understanding of OSM's collective 
position, based on many years to and fro in mailing lists, wiki pages, 
etc. etc.".  Some of the questions below are technical, some are 
political, some have implications for how data is stored and some have 
implications for how data is represented (and it's important to 
disconnect those last two).  Also, OSM is a very broad church and some 
people have very different views about what we should record and how we 
should record it.



   1. There are no technical problems with having international
boundaries overlapping and representing official position of involved
countries.


There are technical problems, in that things may be "double counted" - 
the "total number of X in the world" will be higher if we count by 
overlapping countries.  However, often we're choosing the "least worst 
option" - the one with fewest problems (technical and political), not 
the one with none.




   2. International boundaries DO sometimes overlap.



I'm not actually aware of a situation where countries have said "this 
bit belongs equally to both of us" (I'd be interested to hear of any 
examples, actually), though there are plenty of places where they say "I 
think it belongs to me, and you think it belongs to you, but let's work 
together and manage it jointly".



   3. OSMF is aware that overlapping boundaries would have satisfied
more users (especially LOCAL users).


There's a clear split here between the views of people from Ukraine (and 
other countries closer to Russia's borders) and mappers from elsewhere.  
The former are saying "Ukraine was invaded and part was taken away by 
force; maps should show it as part of Ukraine because that act was not 
legal according to International law".  The latter are saying "we have 
always mapped what's on the ground, regardless of the legal situation".


Essentially it's a political decision what the admin_level=2 boundaries 
in OSM should reflect.  There's no one answer that will please everyone 
- if we said that admin_level=2 boundaries should show "the extent that 
each country thinks that it should have regardless of actual control on 
the ground" then we'd have to invent another boundary type for "actual 
borders" that did tell people where they were crossing a patrolled frontier.


Conversely, I personally don't think that there's a reason (subject to 
verifiability, which isn't a problem here) why claims such as this 
shouldn't be in OSM (so that people can make maps from them), just as 
long as people can't confuse them with the areas that particular 
countries actually control.  Western Sahara is an example - 
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/2559126 . There was a discussion 
(with mappers who'd been active in the area and in the OSM boundaries 
forum) that decided that Morocco should be in OSM as the area that it 
controls, and the SADR area as the area outside that.  According to the 
UN, Western Sahara should be a country, and if someone wants to create a 
map based on OSM data that shows the boundary of Western Sahara, they 
can, because that data is in OSM.


It's important to remember this last point - anyone can, and is 
encouraged to, make their own maps from OSM data.  What you see in the 
"standard style" at openstreetmap.org is just one possible rendering of 
many.  If you want to render OSM data without boundaries and then 
overlay a set of boundaries on it, you can (see 
https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/SomeoneElse/diary/47007 for a worked 
example).  If you want to have different boundaries displayed for 
different URLs or different audiences, you can do that too (and many 
consumers of OSM data do exactly that).


There are other technical options about how best to show de jure and de 
facto boundaries.  As another example have a look at 
https://www.mapquest.com/ and browse to Western Sahara - there are at 
least 3 different styles of boundaries shown there that represent de 
facto and de jure country boundaries.  Those are technical decisions 
made by the people making those maps (in this case Mapbox, based on OSM 
data).



   4. Precedence is taken by "most widely internationally recognised
and best meets realities on the ground" where only second part is
actually important, so this sentence should be changed to "best meets
realities on the ground IRRESPECTIVE OF WIDE INTERNATIONAL
RECOGNITION".


Frankly you're really not helping your argument by cherry-picking pieces 
of text from 
https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/w/images/d/d8/DisputedTerritoriesInformation.pdf 
like that.   For the avoidance of doubt the full sentence from which you 
have quoted part of is:


*"Currently, we record one set that, in OpenStreetMap contributor 
opinion, is most widely internationally recognised and best meets 
realities on the ground, generally meaning physical control." *


It seems to 

Re: [OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Mateusz Konieczny]

23. Nov 2018 01:42 by yuriastrak...@gmail.com :


> * each country gets its own admin_level=2 relation according to THAT country. 
>




I am against starting to misuse admin_level=2 relations.
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Re: [OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Pavlo Dudka]

boundary=administrative can't be "IRRESPECTIVE OF WIDE INTERNATIONAL
RECOGNITION" by definition. Please check it on OSM wiki
:
"An administrative boundary. Subdivisions of
areas/territories/jurisdictions recognised by governments or other
organisations for administrative purposes."
OSMF statement also says "we record one set that, in OpenStreetMap
contributor opinion, is most widely internationally recognised and best
meets realities on the ground, generally meaning physical control.". The
first sentence also says to take international recognition into account,
while second part make the whole statement self-contradictory.

пт, 23 лист. 2018 о 23:06 Tomas Straupis  пише:

> 2018-11-23, pn, 18:57 Andy Townsend rašė:
> > Where that best matches the situation on the ground about who has
> > control, yes.
>
>   Ok. So do I understand OSMF position is this:
>
>   1. There are no technical problems with having international
> boundaries overlapping and representing official position of involved
> countries.
>   2. International boundaries DO sometimes overlap.
>   3. OSMF is aware that overlapping boundaries would have satisfied
> more users (especially LOCAL users).
>   4. Precedence is taken by "most widely internationally recognised
> and best meets realities on the ground" where only second part is
> actually important, so this sentence should be changed to "best meets
> realities on the ground IRRESPECTIVE OF WIDE INTERNATIONAL
> RECOGNITION".
>
>   Is this correct?
>
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Re: [OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Tomas Straupis]

2018-11-23, pn, 18:57 Andy Townsend rašė:
> Where that best matches the situation on the ground about who has
> control, yes.

  Ok. So do I understand OSMF position is this:

  1. There are no technical problems with having international
boundaries overlapping and representing official position of involved
countries.
  2. International boundaries DO sometimes overlap.
  3. OSMF is aware that overlapping boundaries would have satisfied
more users (especially LOCAL users).
  4. Precedence is taken by "most widely internationally recognised
and best meets realities on the ground" where only second part is
actually important, so this sentence should be changed to "best meets
realities on the ground IRRESPECTIVE OF WIDE INTERNATIONAL
RECOGNITION".

  Is this correct?

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Re: [OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Andy Townsend]

On 23/11/2018 16:36, Tomas Straupis wrote:

2018-11-23, pn, 18:23 Andy Townsend rašė:

Yuri, I suspect that literally every statement that the DWG has made
throughout this process has said exactly the opposite of what you've
just suggested that we said.

   You're saying DWG position is that it IS acceptable to have
overlapping country polygons?


Where that best matches the situation on the ground about who has 
control, yes.  I even contributed a couple of examples to a recent 
thread about exactly that - 
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2018-November/081712.html 
(wikipedia has a good summary of that) and 
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2018-November/081717.html 
(read the Dutch thread there for the full story and links).


Best Regards,

Andy


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Re: [OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Tomas Straupis]

2018-11-23, pn, 18:23 Andy Townsend rašė:
> Yuri, I suspect that literally every statement that the DWG has made
> throughout this process has said exactly the opposite of what you've
> just suggested that we said.

  You're saying DWG position is that it IS acceptable to have
overlapping country polygons?

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Re: [OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Andy Townsend]

On 23/11/2018 15:34, Yuri Astrakhan wrote:


I suspect the "default" is what the community took the main issue 
with.  DWG essentially declaring that there must be a single truth for 
non-overlapping country borders is what seems to have caused all 
this.  Simply saying that every country can define their own would 
have averted this whole thing.


Yuri, I suspect that literally every statement that the DWG has made 
throughout this process has said exactly the opposite of what you've 
just suggested that we said.


I've certainly gone on record as saying (some time before these 
discussions) that there are places where overlapping admin levels might 
make sense, and contributed a few examples.


Similarly the first section of "in summary" in 
DisputedTerritoriesInformation.pdf contains 
"You are free to make maps from our data leaving out or 
putting in what you need for harmony with your general usage, culture and legal system.

We encourage you to do this directly or to support one of our many worldwide 
local
OpenStreetMap communities that share your issue", and in most of the 
messages I've sent I've explicitly offered to help people do just that.


It's not the first example of "someone from DWG tries to help someone 
with a problem with a DWG decision" - 
https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/SomeoneElse/diary/42069 was an 
attempt to document an approach to rendering names in a particular 
language based on geographical location and 
https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/SomeoneElse/diary/38613 was designed 
to help someone who was converting all the tracks to roads in a 
particular area "so that they showed on his Garmin".


I've also regularly linked to PlaneMad's 
https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/PlaneMad/diary/38176 which is 
particularly relevant here, especially the "'Fixing' the boundaries of 
India" part.


Best Regards,

Andy


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Re: [OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Gert Gremmen]

This is a boring discussion, and only triggered by what should be out of 
OSM : National Claims.


Borders are almost invisible on the ground either, at least in civilized 
countries.


And if we just decided to leave out all country borders.in a 
utopic effort to re-unite the world ? 


Wouldn't that be inline with the Free Map thought?

Gert

On 23-11-2018 16:34, Yuri Astrakhan wrote:

Frederik,

I suspect the "default" is what the community took the main issue 
with.  DWG essentially declaring that there must be a single truth for 
non-overlapping country borders is what seems to have caused all 
this.  Simply saying that every country can define their own would 
have averted this whole thing.


On Fri, Nov 23, 2018 at 2:24 AM Frederik Ramm > wrote:


Hi,

On 23.11.2018 01:42, Yuri Astrakhan wrote:
> One idea (perhaps this should go into a separete thread):

There already is a separate thread over on the tagging list
started just
a couple of weeks ago. I suggest that would be a good place to
continue
the discussion.

Being able to map different claims is certainly interesting, in so far
as they are verifiable (which surprisingly often is not the case). But
all that's already been mentioned over at
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/2018-October/040333.html

I fear that this is only "kicking the can down the road" though
because
we'd likely have - just as we have with names - one "default" set of
boundaries where we say "that's the one you get if you don't ask
for any
particular one", and the fight would then be on which one that is
going
to be. And judging from how this decision is blown out of proportion
("OMG OSM SUPPORTS TERRORISTS!") I am sure that people would display
exactly the same outrage when discussing which one of a large set of
mapped claims gets the "default" flag.

>  I especially appreciate 4.2 -- the fact that this decision is
very bad for the data users --

I think you have misread Victor's 4.2 which essentially says that data
users currently have to make up their own boundaries anyway and that
therefore this decision does not *help* them. He does not say that
it is
good or bad, just that it does not improve an already-bad situation.

As for whether

> DWG has gone too far into the political landscape - something I
hope it did not intend to do.

let me quote from the DWG statement - again:

"The Data Working Group takes no stance on if Russia's control is
legal
or not, as that is not within our scope."

The DWG has simply applied a policy that has existed in OSM since
before
Crimea's annexation. That policy was written by LWG and approved
by the
OSMF board in 2013 and has been applied many, many times since and it
has generally worked well for OSM. It certainly can be discussed and
improved but that needs to be on a general level, and not tacking
on an
"Ukraine exemption" to the rule.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
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Re: [OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Yuri Astrakhan]

Frederik,

I suspect the "default" is what the community took the main issue with.
DWG essentially declaring that there must be a single truth for
non-overlapping country borders is what seems to have caused all this.
Simply saying that every country can define their own would have averted
this whole thing.

On Fri, Nov 23, 2018 at 2:24 AM Frederik Ramm  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On 23.11.2018 01:42, Yuri Astrakhan wrote:
> > One idea (perhaps this should go into a separete thread):
>
> There already is a separate thread over on the tagging list started just
> a couple of weeks ago. I suggest that would be a good place to continue
> the discussion.
>
> Being able to map different claims is certainly interesting, in so far
> as they are verifiable (which surprisingly often is not the case). But
> all that's already been mentioned over at
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/2018-October/040333.html
>
> I fear that this is only "kicking the can down the road" though because
> we'd likely have - just as we have with names - one "default" set of
> boundaries where we say "that's the one you get if you don't ask for any
> particular one", and the fight would then be on which one that is going
> to be. And judging from how this decision is blown out of proportion
> ("OMG OSM SUPPORTS TERRORISTS!") I am sure that people would display
> exactly the same outrage when discussing which one of a large set of
> mapped claims gets the "default" flag.
>
> >  I especially appreciate 4.2 -- the fact that this decision is very bad
> for the data users --
>
> I think you have misread Victor's 4.2 which essentially says that data
> users currently have to make up their own boundaries anyway and that
> therefore this decision does not *help* them. He does not say that it is
> good or bad, just that it does not improve an already-bad situation.
>
> As for whether
>
> > DWG has gone too far into the political landscape - something I hope it
> did not intend to do.
>
> let me quote from the DWG statement - again:
>
> "The Data Working Group takes no stance on if Russia's control is legal
> or not, as that is not within our scope."
>
> The DWG has simply applied a policy that has existed in OSM since before
> Crimea's annexation. That policy was written by LWG and approved by the
> OSMF board in 2013 and has been applied many, many times since and it
> has generally worked well for OSM. It certainly can be discussed and
> improved but that needs to be on a general level, and not tacking on an
> "Ukraine exemption" to the rule.
>
> Bye
> Frederik
>
> --
> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frede...@remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
>
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Re: [OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Tomas Straupis]

2018-11-23, pn, 11:19 Oleksiy Muzalyev rašė:
> The topic of territorial claims is very complicated, long lasting,  and
> painful. It involves not only such relatively remote and insignificant
> cases as Hans Island, Sudan, Croatia, Crimea, Pakistan, etc. cases, but
> also the industrial developed lands. For example, the Reconquista [1] in
> the USA is about millions of square kilometers, including the
> California, the 6th economical power in the world if taken by itself.
> After visiting some areas of Los Angeles, California, the Reconquista
> does not seem to me as ridiculous as before. Demography and linguistics
> do have certain significance.

  It was already stated we're only talking about official claims by
official governments.
  To my knowledge official Mexican government has no official claims
on territory lost in XIXa.

  Victor and Yuri has stated, that having such an overlapping but
representing official local position borders would help data users to
adapt data to local needs: create Chinese map as Chinese want, create
Ukraine map as most of the world wants etc. etc.

  And "ground truth" will not be enough to settle some peaceful border
disputes or just agreement of joint rule.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Oleksiy Muzalyev]

The topic of territorial claims is very complicated, long lasting,  and 
painful. It involves not only such relatively remote and insignificant 
cases as Hans Island, Sudan, Croatia, Crimea, Pakistan, etc. cases, but 
also the industrial developed lands. For example, the Reconquista [1] in 
the USA is about millions of square kilometers, including the 
California, the 6th economical power in the world if taken by itself. 
After visiting some areas of Los Angeles, California, the Reconquista 
does not seem to me as ridiculous as before. Demography and linguistics 
do have certain significance.


Or the expulsion of Germans (the civilian population) from Eastern 
Poland after WW2 [2]. There is already in Germany the official 
organization The Centre Against Expulsions (German: Zentrum gegen 
Vertreibungen, ZgV) [3]. And the Germany is the world class industrial 
superpower.


Fortunately, these controversial massive cases are dormant, and I hope 
they will remain so. There are many other similar cases.


I suggested still several years ago to include in the OpenStreetMap 
foundation Core Values [4] the principle of Impartiality and Neutrality, 
similarly as it is done at the International Committee of Red Cross.

For example:
--
IMPARTIALITY
OSM makes no discrimination as to nationality, race, religious beliefs, 
class or political opinions. It endeavours only to map the objective 
“Ground Truth”.


NEUTRALITY
In order to continue to enjoy the confidence of all, the OSM may not 
take sides in hostilities or engage at any time in controversies of a 
political, racial, religious or ideological nature.

--

In 2014 Le Monde named the author Rana Dasgupta one of 70 people who are 
making the world of tomorrow. Rana Dasgupta wrote earlier this year an 
amazing article "The demise of the nation state" [6]. If what he writes 
is true, and it seems to be, the borders issue will become even more 
complicated.


In my opinion, the OSM should map nation states' borders in such a way 
as to promote constructive innovative peaceful resolutions of the 
territorial disputes. At the same time the interests of travelers and 
local residents should be also taken into account. If two competing 
borders are shown, still the line of passport control, where a tourist 
may be actually stopped for the passport & customs control somehow 
should be marked on the map. So she/he could prepare for the control, or 
not to cross inadvertently while hiking, cycling or rowing in wilderness.


No idea I heard or saw so far is perfect. I think there is still a lot 
of space for innovation in this domain.


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista_(Mexico)
[2] 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_from_Poland_during_and_after_World_War_II

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_Against_Expulsions
[4] https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Mission_Statement
[5] 
https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/misc/fundamental-principles-commentary-010179.htm
[6] 
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/05/demise-of-the-nation-state-rana-dasgupta


Best regards,
Oleksiy

On 23.11.18 10:10, Tomas Straupis wrote:

I fear that this is only "kicking the can down the road" though because
we'd likely have - just as we have with names - one "default" set of
boundaries where we say "that's the one you get if you don't ask for any
particular one", and the fight would then be on which one that is going

   "default" is not required (map/app creator should have a freedom to
make decision).

   The only change required is to allow OVERLAPPING borders which
apparently is a normal thing for borders even when there is no war,
nobody on the ground to make "ground truth". For example:
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Island

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Re: [OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Lester Caine]

On 22/11/2018 18:53, Victor Shcherb wrote:
In that case I would actually support idea of deleting all country 
boundaries to avoid this question completely.


There are numerous sets of data within OSM that are disputed and one 
'controlling body' or another would prefer was not published at all. The 
best that can be done is for local displays of that data to provide 
local filters. Simply deleting data is never going to be the right 
solution, but allowing tools that censor the data is equally controversial.


For the point of view of OSMAND, the display needs to know where one can 
drive and where one will be stopped and need paperwork to proceed. THAT 
in my book is the simple ToTG because it is flagged by something 
physical. That some areas don't actually have 'border posts' does create 
a problem, but as an 'outside visitor' to the Ukraine or Cyprus, where 
can I drive and where could I run into difficulty if I do drive into a 
disputed area. It's the grey areas that are something that will cause 
problems and may require projects like OSMAND to censor data based on 
the user view? I doubt that OSM services are really able to manage this 
area in a generic way?


--
Lester Caine - G8HFL
-
Contact - https://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact
L.S.Caine Electronic Services - https://lsces.co.uk
EnquirySolve - https://enquirysolve.com/
Model Engineers Digital Workshop - https://medw.co.uk
Rainbow Digital Media - https://rainbowdigitalmedia.co.uk

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Re: [OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Pavlo Dudka]

Good points, Victor! Thanks for sharing your opinion.

You've just demonstrated how DWG could have started the discussion.
Current discussion (not only this topic but all the messages on OSM
lists.*, OSM forum, OSM diaries, Twitter etc) raises the question about the
DWG role in OSM. While expected to resolve conflicts, find consensus and
prevent edit wars some members of DWG doing the opposite and trigger edit
war.
(Since it is not related to the points you highlighted I'll start a
separate thread.)

Pavlo

чт, 22 лист. 2018 о 20:57 Victor Shcherb  пише:

> Hi All,
>
> I followed many topics for the last 3 days about the Ukraine/Crimea and I
> would like to propose another look to all known issues.
>
> *DISCLAIMER:*
> First of all, I would like to thank everybody for staying calm and
> considering all views for this *non-trivial* problem. Originally, I'm
> from Belarus (former USSR) and currently I live for a long time in the
> Netherlands, so I hope I can express my point of view objective but also
> explaining the gist of the issue. Even though I'm leading OsmAnd mobile
> development, I will speak solely from my perspective on this question.
>
> *STATEMENT 1. *There is no ToTG principle for artificial objects such as
> boundaries + Boundaries are always driven by one or another authorities.
>
> *1.1 *To clarify that principle we can go the lowest level, city or
> suburb boundaries. it is very clear that it is impossible to identify on
> the ground whether city-suburb has ended and another has started.
> *1.2 *Of course, we can clarify or build it that knowledge from
> milestone, flags or fence. Though we have different Mapping for fence,
> milestone and *we shouldn't mix it with country borders.* Following that
> principle, it will be hard to build polygons cause we always could miss
> data in between or it could be very incomplete from the Ground knowledge
> *1.3 *Most of the data today is coming from authorities. Local
> municipalities provide that public data, so admin_level of lower level
> corresponds to
> *1.4 *There is no ToTG to identify a country, unless you go and do a
> voting on the special piece of terriritory. I think you can find lots of
> places like Kurdistan where people would say that they belong to country
> that doesn't exist or not listed in UN. Country is an entity that coexist
> with other countries and other countries should acknowledge it and
> acknowledge their borders (especially for neighbor countries).
> *1.5 *Fence or any physically present object which could be verified by
> ToTG doesn't make border legitimate and will be very likely removed from
> admin_level relations doesn't matter if it looks or claimed by
> non-authorized entity a special territory if it contradicts to 99.9%
> perception of other mappers.
>
> With this point I'm trying to say, that hiding a solution behind ToTG
> principle we are raising even more questions than we had.
>
> *STATEMENT** 2. *There is no right decision unless we clarify what
> exactly data and how it should be organized.
>
> *2.1 *Moving objects or making special statements about concrete objects
> will drive to a mess. It is obvious that we better focus on Proposal and
> clarify how to deal with data rather than changing the map itself.
> *2.2 *Every mapper should be able to make the right decision himself
> following the wiki documentation. If it is not possible than the
> documentation or rules are not complete or not correct. We should not block
> people that do mistakes in understanding whether their logic correct or not
> especially if it is a significant number of people.
>
> *STATEMENT** 3. *Any decision about current Relations in OSM will be
> political and it will only evolve confrontation between local editing
> groups. I believe OSMF should not take any political decisions in such
> manner.
>
> I truly believe that DWG/ OSMF didn't want to make any political decision
> and only correct the data and make it consistent which makes perfect sense
> from top level view unless you don't bother with the real situation itself.
> Unfortunately it is not possible to solve political question and don't get
> dragged into politics.
> *3.1 *Hidden political decisions are bad. Why this decision is political?
> First of all, there is a small politics involved anyway DWG is elected by
> OSMF members and DWG made that decision. In case people are against it,
> they can vote for different DWG group and next year the situation around it
> will be changed again and again. The problem remains here anyway, what if
> Ukrainian community to vote will be smaller than Russian or what if votes
> can be based on various connections between people, so we'll get into a
> minority problem.
>
> *3.2 *THE WORST PART: We evolve confrontation between 2 big group of
> mappers which were always welcome in OSM but as of today they read OSM
> rules differently and the war of edits begins. In case we want to keep both
> group of mappers because they INDIVIDUALLY 

Re: [OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Tomas Straupis]

> I fear that this is only "kicking the can down the road" though because
> we'd likely have - just as we have with names - one "default" set of
> boundaries where we say "that's the one you get if you don't ask for any
> particular one", and the fight would then be on which one that is going

  "default" is not required (map/app creator should have a freedom to
make decision).

  The only change required is to allow OVERLAPPING borders which
apparently is a normal thing for borders even when there is no war,
nobody on the ground to make "ground truth". For example:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Island

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Re: [OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 23.11.2018 01:42, Yuri Astrakhan wrote:
> One idea (perhaps this should go into a separete thread):

There already is a separate thread over on the tagging list started just
a couple of weeks ago. I suggest that would be a good place to continue
the discussion.

Being able to map different claims is certainly interesting, in so far
as they are verifiable (which surprisingly often is not the case). But
all that's already been mentioned over at
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/2018-October/040333.html

I fear that this is only "kicking the can down the road" though because
we'd likely have - just as we have with names - one "default" set of
boundaries where we say "that's the one you get if you don't ask for any
particular one", and the fight would then be on which one that is going
to be. And judging from how this decision is blown out of proportion
("OMG OSM SUPPORTS TERRORISTS!") I am sure that people would display
exactly the same outrage when discussing which one of a large set of
mapped claims gets the "default" flag.

>  I especially appreciate 4.2 -- the fact that this decision is very bad for 
> the data users -- 

I think you have misread Victor's 4.2 which essentially says that data
users currently have to make up their own boundaries anyway and that
therefore this decision does not *help* them. He does not say that it is
good or bad, just that it does not improve an already-bad situation.

As for whether

> DWG has gone too far into the political landscape - something I hope it did 
> not intend to do.

let me quote from the DWG statement - again:

"The Data Working Group takes no stance on if Russia's control is legal
or not, as that is not within our scope."

The DWG has simply applied a policy that has existed in OSM since before
Crimea's annexation. That policy was written by LWG and approved by the
OSMF board in 2013 and has been applied many, many times since and it
has generally worked well for OSM. It certainly can be discussed and
improved but that needs to be on a general level, and not tacking on an
"Ukraine exemption" to the rule.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frede...@remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"

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Re: [OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Yuri Astrakhan]

Victor, thank you for a very thorough and accurate analysis.  I especially
appreciate 4.2 -- the fact that this decision is very bad for the data
users -- I would not be able to use this data at all, simply because most
of the time one needs to render the map from the perspective of the
specific user, e.g. render it differently for the user in Ukraine, Russia,
or anywhere else for that matter.  I also agree that DWG has gone too far
into the political landscape - something I hope it did not intend to do.

I strongly believe DWG should retract that decision, and the community
should instead devise a proper policy to record all of the relevant data.

One idea (perhaps this should go into a separete thread):
* each country gets its own admin_level=2 relation according to THAT
country. The relation should contain all of the ways outlining the
country's claims (using inner/outer roles). The relation should also
contain sub-relations for each of the disputed territory.
* each disputed territory should be a relation as well, containing the list
of countries that claim its ownership, as well as which countries accept
which position. There could be two (or more) "claimed" tags, e.g. in case
of Crimea -- "claimed:ru=af;ar;be;..." (list of countries that accept RU
claim), and "claimed:ue=*" (everyone else, making it unnecessary to record
every country code)
This way data consumers could decide how to draw each country depending on
the user - simply by combining all of the "claimed:*" tags.

On Thu, Nov 22, 2018 at 1:57 PM Victor Shcherb 
wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> I followed many topics for the last 3 days about the Ukraine/Crimea and I
> would like to propose another look to all known issues.
>
> *DISCLAIMER:*
> First of all, I would like to thank everybody for staying calm and
> considering all views for this *non-trivial* problem. Originally, I'm
> from Belarus (former USSR) and currently I live for a long time in the
> Netherlands, so I hope I can express my point of view objective but also
> explaining the gist of the issue. Even though I'm leading OsmAnd mobile
> development, I will speak solely from my perspective on this question.
>
> *STATEMENT 1. *There is no ToTG principle for artificial objects such as
> boundaries + Boundaries are always driven by one or another authorities.
>
> *1.1 *To clarify that principle we can go the lowest level, city or
> suburb boundaries. it is very clear that it is impossible to identify on
> the ground whether city-suburb has ended and another has started.
> *1.2 *Of course, we can clarify or build it that knowledge from
> milestone, flags or fence. Though we have different Mapping for fence,
> milestone and *we shouldn't mix it with country borders.* Following that
> principle, it will be hard to build polygons cause we always could miss
> data in between or it could be very incomplete from the Ground knowledge
> *1.3 *Most of the data today is coming from authorities. Local
> municipalities provide that public data, so admin_level of lower level
> corresponds to
> *1.4 *There is no ToTG to identify a country, unless you go and do a
> voting on the special piece of terriritory. I think you can find lots of
> places like Kurdistan where people would say that they belong to country
> that doesn't exist or not listed in UN. Country is an entity that coexist
> with other countries and other countries should acknowledge it and
> acknowledge their borders (especially for neighbor countries).
> *1.5 *Fence or any physically present object which could be verified by
> ToTG doesn't make border legitimate and will be very likely removed from
> admin_level relations doesn't matter if it looks or claimed by
> non-authorized entity a special territory if it contradicts to 99.9%
> perception of other mappers.
>
> With this point I'm trying to say, that hiding a solution behind ToTG
> principle we are raising even more questions than we had.
>
> *STATEMENT** 2. *There is no right decision unless we clarify what
> exactly data and how it should be organized.
>
> *2.1 *Moving objects or making special statements about concrete objects
> will drive to a mess. It is obvious that we better focus on Proposal and
> clarify how to deal with data rather than changing the map itself.
> *2.2 *Every mapper should be able to make the right decision himself
> following the wiki documentation. If it is not possible than the
> documentation or rules are not complete or not correct. We should not block
> people that do mistakes in understanding whether their logic correct or not
> especially if it is a significant number of people.
>
> *STATEMENT** 3. *Any decision about current Relations in OSM will be
> political and it will only evolve confrontation between local editing
> groups. I believe OSMF should not take any political decisions in such
> manner.
>
> I truly believe that DWG/ OSMF didn't want to make any political decision
> and only correct the data and make it consistent which makes perfect sense
> 

[OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Victor Shcherb]

Hi All,

I followed many topics for the last 3 days about the Ukraine/Crimea and I
would like to propose another look to all known issues.

*DISCLAIMER:*
First of all, I would like to thank everybody for staying calm and
considering all views for this *non-trivial* problem. Originally, I'm from
Belarus (former USSR) and currently I live for a long time in the
Netherlands, so I hope I can express my point of view objective but also
explaining the gist of the issue. Even though I'm leading OsmAnd mobile
development, I will speak solely from my perspective on this question.

*STATEMENT 1. *There is no ToTG principle for artificial objects such as
boundaries + Boundaries are always driven by one or another authorities.

*1.1 *To clarify that principle we can go the lowest level, city or suburb
boundaries. it is very clear that it is impossible to identify on the
ground whether city-suburb has ended and another has started.
*1.2 *Of course, we can clarify or build it that knowledge from milestone,
flags or fence. Though we have different Mapping for fence, milestone and *we
shouldn't mix it with country borders.* Following that principle, it will
be hard to build polygons cause we always could miss data in between or it
could be very incomplete from the Ground knowledge
*1.3 *Most of the data today is coming from authorities. Local
municipalities provide that public data, so admin_level of lower level
corresponds to
*1.4 *There is no ToTG to identify a country, unless you go and do a voting
on the special piece of terriritory. I think you can find lots of places
like Kurdistan where people would say that they belong to country that
doesn't exist or not listed in UN. Country is an entity that coexist with
other countries and other countries should acknowledge it and acknowledge
their borders (especially for neighbor countries).
*1.5 *Fence or any physically present object which could be verified by
ToTG doesn't make border legitimate and will be very likely removed from
admin_level relations doesn't matter if it looks or claimed by
non-authorized entity a special territory if it contradicts to 99.9%
perception of other mappers.

With this point I'm trying to say, that hiding a solution behind ToTG
principle we are raising even more questions than we had.

*STATEMENT** 2. *There is no right decision unless we clarify what exactly
data and how it should be organized.

*2.1 *Moving objects or making special statements about concrete objects
will drive to a mess. It is obvious that we better focus on Proposal and
clarify how to deal with data rather than changing the map itself.
*2.2 *Every mapper should be able to make the right decision himself
following the wiki documentation. If it is not possible than the
documentation or rules are not complete or not correct. We should not block
people that do mistakes in understanding whether their logic correct or not
especially if it is a significant number of people.

*STATEMENT** 3. *Any decision about current Relations in OSM will be
political and it will only evolve confrontation between local editing
groups. I believe OSMF should not take any political decisions in such
manner.

I truly believe that DWG/ OSMF didn't want to make any political decision
and only correct the data and make it consistent which makes perfect sense
from top level view unless you don't bother with the real situation itself.
Unfortunately it is not possible to solve political question and don't get
dragged into politics.
*3.1 *Hidden political decisions are bad. Why this decision is political?
First of all, there is a small politics involved anyway DWG is elected by
OSMF members and DWG made that decision. In case people are against it,
they can vote for different DWG group and next year the situation around it
will be changed again and again. The problem remains here anyway, what if
Ukrainian community to vote will be smaller than Russian or what if votes
can be based on various connections between people, so we'll get into a
minority problem.

*3.2 *THE WORST PART: We evolve confrontation between 2 big group of
mappers which were always welcome in OSM but as of today they read OSM
rules differently and the war of edits begins. In case we want to keep both
group of mappers because they INDIVIDUALLY support different regions, we
need to find a solution for both of parties.
In that case I would actually support idea of deleting all country
boundaries to avoid this question completely.

*3.3 *DWG/OSMF should minimize any political impact with all possible
technical solutions. I truly believe that this question could be solved
with proper tagging mechanism and even more it could be solved on the level
Google Maps solves it, by having different maps for locales UK_en.
Everything should be considered and estimated in order to minimize
reputation and diplomatic damage.

*STATEMENT** 4. *Decisions should be focused on providing the most value to
A) users/editors B) Applications -> to users in the