Dear user numide,

I am blocking your account for the continued removal of names written in Arabic script. Because of your abrasive attitude in the discussion at https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/86355342 (“I know german like altering other people culture like is Poland, czech republic as in the 2nd world war.”, “You better focus on your own shit. Hands off Algeria.”, “Send your ss waffen to Poland or elswhere” I am starting to believe that you are behind the series of edit-warring vandal accounts I had to block last week (jatoca, wixali, xogoce…). Do you have anything to say about this?

Whatever your feelings about the Arabic alphabet: If something is signposted locally with Arabic letters then it is totally correct to have that in OSM. The video that has been linked in the changeset discussion contains this picture:

http://www.remote.org/frederik/tmp/capcarbon.png

If you are, as you claim, local to the area then you know without any doubt that this sign is correct. Yet instead of admitting that, you try to discredit the source and talk about some official gazetteer. That is not acceptable.

Also, while it is true that local knowledge should be paramount in OSM, that doesn’t mean that someone who does not live in an area may not edit there ESPECIALLY if the local editors seem to ignore what is on their own local signs!

While I don’t have a photo of this particular fuel station of which you removed the name:ar tag,

https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/4053665695

I googled for other pictures of fuel stations of this brand and found that they did indeed have Arabic lettering. Are you sure that this particular fuel station has not?

I am still not sure what your issue is; you claim that these names are not Arabic but transliterated Berber - do you mean they should not be in “name:ar” but instead in… some other name tag that says “transliterated Berber” name? Or are you against recording anything in Arabic letters because… you don’t like them?

Anyway, your outright deletion of these names like here https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/4241765423/history when they are clearly signposted is not right. Whether or not the main name tag should be “Cap Carbon” or “رأس كربون” or a combination of both when both are signposted is a matter for the local community to decide but deleting name:ar is not ok.

Since you seem unwilling to solve this amicably and are continuing to rename things, I am now blocking your account until we can resolve this matter. Please write to data@osmfoundation.org an explain why you think that it is right to not have any name in Arabic lettering on https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/4241765423 - are you saying that the video from the changeset discussion is doctored and the sign shown there is not real? Are you saying the sign is real but not “official” enough to qualify for inclusion in OSM?

Can you point me to a discussion channel used by the Algerian community where such matters are discussed? Because in your changeset discussion you frequently say that the matter should be settled within the Algerian community and I would like to hear other opinions than just yours.

Please avoid creating any anonymous sock-puppet accounts as this will discredit the good work you have done for OSM in Algeria.

Thank you
Frederik Ramm
OSMF Data Working Group
Ticket#2020052810000311