• im_fine_sandy@nord.pubEnglish
      26·
      23 days ago

      Wonder not:

      https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/lake-ontario-lake-america/146975

      Basically, OSM is a database containing points, paths, and polygons.

      Each item can have any number of fields. Obvious ones like lat and lon, and specific ones like speed limit or entry fee.

      An item can have many names, and its up to the renderer to choose which to show a user, or whether to show any.

      The locale specific name for the US will change whenever the US govt department adopts the new name.

      The general, most commonly used name will be lake Ontario until the most common make for the lake is lake America, which is unlikely to be ever.

      • Jacob_Mandarin@lemmy.world
        3·
        22 days ago

        Until a renderer uses it—which currently isn’t the case—nobody will see it. At least not on a map. The reasoning here is mostly to still have it searchable under that name.

        ETA: See its wiki entry, specifically this part:

        So basically the name is added somewhere so it is searchable but never displayed

        • im_fine_sandy@nord.pubEnglish
          3·
          22 days ago

          I’m not sure about that “currently not the case”.

          I mean you can download the data from OSM, open it in QGIS, and make a custom map of your city. You could use whatever locale you wanted for names.

          My point is, any assertion that it’s not used by a renderer is false, because someone will inevitably use it