OSM should not act upon advocacy to declare as fact every wish for independence, especially if ground situation is that authority of the territory is taken by force and in recent past so that matter is not internationally settled. That would mean that any terrorist organization that gain military authority at some territory gets the right to rename all places and declare territory as independent country on OSM?
Kosovo as you call it here is actually called Kosovo i Metohija. Status of that territory is quite a hot matter. It is not recognized as an country and by international agreements it is still part of Serbia. Most of the territory is actually owned by people who are killed or expelled out of Kosovo i Metohija. People who survived cannot get back to their property as they will be killed if they do so. That is the real fact, not what Mike Dupont talks. OSM should not act upon claims of unrecognized government of one nation which killed or expelled by brutal force almost all people of all other nations from that territory. Even international tribunal still tries to unmangle what actually happened there. What is now happening on OSM is renaming places in Kosovo i Metohija and giving them names they never had. That territory was populated by mostly Serbian people for centuries. Albanians showed there in recent past and in last decade they are doing all they can to albanize everything claiming not just names, but people, cultural heritage and history. Intentions of the "contributors" in OSM map of Kosovo i Metohija is best displayed by ignoring the fact that on the ground both Serbian and Albanian languages are used. Serbian language is ignored except for minor number of map objects. Names for lots of objects have been set in many other languages but Serbian. Goal of those "contributors" is to present Kosovo i Metohija as territory where Serbian people do not live and Serbian language does not exist. OSM should not allow that. OSM should follow international law. If Kosovo i Metohija become independent in the future, then OSM should allow it to be treated as such on maps. What happens now is that OSM is abused for political misinterpretations not just of status of that territory, but on language, culture and population structure. For now, Kosovo i Metohija is part of Serbia and OSM should reflect that, including using historically appropriate names on OSM map. If Albanian contributors from Kosovo i Metohija are threatening to leave OSM, then so be it. If they are prepared to falsify facts and use OSM to crate map as they like it to be, and not what is real, then they should not be allowed to do so anyways. But, it is not matter of Albanian contributors as there are just few of them. Map of Kosovo i Metohija is actually drawn mostly by foreigners like Mike Dupont, who work for their governments (or NGO's) of for the Albanian government and use OSM to advocate political aspirations of their governments. After all it is not on OSM to choose if it will loose Albanian or Serbian contributors (although Serbians did not express blackmail of leaving OSM on this matter). OSM should require facts, following international law and honest contribution in good will. What happens on Kosovo and Metohija map in OSM is very opposite: falsification of facts, against international law, dishonestly and with mean intentions. OSM should stop that, not just on map of Kosovo i Metohija, but in any similar situation. If not, there is high risk that political issues will reflect OSM. OSM is far to open and vulnerable. It will not be able to handle mapping wars if they occur for each and every territory where political authority is questioned. -- View this message in context: http://gis.19327.n5.nabble.com/Komuna-e-Malisheves-Serbia-tp5609351p5611125.html Sent from the General Discussion mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
