I must confess that I was quite surprised after reading the latest edition of weeklyOSM 773.
What caught my attention was a suggestion to make a butterfly named “Map” the mascot of OpenStreetMap—on the grounds that the word “map” in many European languages shares the same spelling as the butterfly’s name.
I have no intention whatsoever of commenting on the personal efforts or opinions of any individual.
However, I was genuinely surprised to see such a proposal published in OpenStreetMap’s official newsletter. (Addendum. Cancel because it’s not an official medium.)
It made me wonder—has OpenStreetMap in reality become a Greco-RomanStreetMap or a EuroupeanStreetMap?
Are cultures and languages outside the Greco-Roman or European spheres to be regarded as secondary?
Is this, in effect, a declaration that the cultural hegemony of OpenStreetMap belongs to Europe?
What do you think? (Am I perhaps being overly sensitive?)
I also believe the editorial team of weeklyOSM may need to offer some clarification on this matter.
I respectfully request that official consideration be given to cultures and language communities beyond the dominant ones.
If anyone believes I may be overreacting, I would like to say this:
People from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds are making tremendous efforts to follow the existing flow of OpenStreetMap. They endure and strive to overcome significant challenges and language barriers in order to collaborate with you.
It is also important to acknowledge that some are unable to overcome these barriers and remain almost entirely marginalized as a result.
It isn’t OSMs official newsletter (it isn’t even a newsletter, but that’s a different topic). Appealing to “officials” to fix something isn’t going to achieve anything because nobody remotely “official” in an OSM context has anything to do with it.
I must admit, I’ve often found myself confused about the official and unofficial nature of various parts of the OpenStreetMap ecosystem.
(To be honest, the deeper I delve into it, the more unfamiliar and complex it feels—almost like quantum mechanics. “Is the cat in the box alive or dead?”)
I recently even wrote a piece describing OpenStreetMap as having a rather anarchic structure, and I believe some of my confusion or misunderstandings may stem from that perspective.
Given how autonomous and flexible many areas of OpenStreetMap are, it’s understandably difficult to draw clear lines between what is official and what is not.
If it’s clear that weeklyOSM is not an official outlet, I would like to retract part of my previous remarks accordingly.
That said, since people from diverse cultures and language backgrounds read these updates, I hope the editorial choices are made with a more universal or neutral perspective in mind.
Lastly, albeit belatedly, I’d also like to extend my thanks to @SimonPoole for helping to clarify my misunderstanding.
The map butterfly is named for having mapwings visually. This pattern could be recognized universally, not culture-specific. The Japanese name is stone wall, which is again quite a map-related feature.
How about this far-fetched pun: In Japanese, an atlas is “地図帳”. “帳” is pronounced the same as “蝶” butterfly.
When people from different cultural backgrounds see a towering rock, those from a Christian context might think of the Virgin Mary, while those from a Buddhist background might envision the Buddha or a monk. This illustrates the relativity shaped by cultural sensibilities.
And above all, just as Europe is not only represented by the UK, Asia is far more than just China and Japan.
I hope you can understand that the example you mentioned, though perhaps intended innocently, could be seen by some as another form of the “Ching Chang Chong” stereotype.
I’m the first to agree that what actually weeklyOSM is is a bit confusing.
Most of the time it is simply a slightly reformulated list of “X has done Y” and somebody thought that either X or Y was interesting enough to include it in the list. That’s completely OK and useful, as long you are aware that it is just that, and don’t try to give it more meaning.
In general it doesn’t have long form editorial content, and when something isn’t formulated in the “X has done Y” format it tends to go wrong. See for example in last weeks edition weeklyOSM 773 – weekly – semanario – hebdo – 週刊 – týdeník – Wochennotiz – 주간 – tygodnik the OSM research section, where weeklyOSM makes (bollocks) statements from a research paper its own instead of just noting that a paper with such content was published.
The other thing to note is that some times the translations are a bit off, it’s a once a week community created list and the exact wordings shouldn’t be given too much weight. The text that annoyed you would have been better if it had been “Harald Schwarz has suggested …” because “nominated” could and for you probably did imply that there is a formal process going on, which isn’t the case. Naturally you were likely reading it in Korean so in the end I’ve got no idea how and if that was conveyed.
As a European, native language is English with second language French and a joint 3rd of Welsh and German I was baffled as map and butterfly are not even close in any of those languages. Certainly not in German which is the language in which the argument was made
So all I can say is the argument is as baffling to me as a European as it is to you.
To take a butterfly with map-like patterns on its wings as inspiration for a new OSM logo is a great idea. That because of these patterns, it’s called the “map butterfly” in some European languages, that it occurs in Europe (but also in northern Asia all the way to Hokkaido) and that to be inspired by it was proposed by a European is a coincidence that was likely to occur because Europe is over-represented in our community. Maybe there is a similar animal living in the jungles of Congo, but it would be less likely to be proposed because we don’t have many mappers from Congo. But the idea would be equally good!
Agreed. Everyone can suggest or nominate an animal as OSM mascot and as now it has been made clear the WeeklyOSM is not an official OSM newsletter I believe there is no need any longer to ask for official/formal consideration of other cultures and languages in this context.
The reason for choosing Araschnia levana is not the European origin, but the colour pattern resembling a map which led to the english name “Map butterfly”, the German name “Landkärtchen” (which means “small map”) and the french name “carte géographique”. Apparently many people see some kind of a map in the colour pattern of this insect and I’d say this has nothing to do with cultural background.
Anyhow, if you don’t like it, please feel free to suggest/nominate any other animal/plant or whatsoever which you believe would be a better choice as OSM mascot.
Personally I think, OSM does not need a mascot at all, but if a majority would like to have one that’s fine with me. My own suggestion:
For those interested in the history of creating OSM.
OSM was created as an alternative to OS (Ordnance Survey). To honor the original, the mascot or logo might be a cannon and balls. ( Please don’t take this too seriously).
Actually that the bit I kind of like about weeklyOSM that the obscure and funny turns up too.
It just shouldn’t be taken too serious, something that’s I have to tell myself today, after being very annoyed by it promoting work by a competitor to make them more viable as an OSM replacement and that not for the first time.
[Linking the social media post for transparency. Please don’t anyone dog-pile on it. ]
[in reply to someone else’s Fediverse post featuring a photo of the spring form of such a “map” butterfly]
Ich vesuche seit einiger Zeit das Landkärtchen zum Maskottchen von OpenStreetMap zu machen.
Andere OpenSource-Projekte nutzen Kamele, Wale, Elefanten, Schlangen oder Mastodons.
Dieser Falter passt gut zu OpenStreetMap, denn der Name entspricht in fast allen europäischen Sprachen der Landkarte.
My translation to English:
For some time already, I’m trying to make the map the mascot of OpenStreetMap.
Other Open Source projects use camels, whales, elephants, snakes or mastodons.
This butterfly[1] fits well with OpenStreetMap, as its name relates the geographical map in almost all European languages.
So the mascot suggestion isn’t just “Schmetterling” (Lepidoptera) order in general, but the specific butterfly species known[2] in German as “Landkärtchenfalter” or just “Landkärtchen”, but also “Netzfalter” or “Gitterfalter” (Araschnia levana):
Note that the Fediverse post — other than the OSMweekly rendition of it — didn’t use the term “official” at all. (It’s just “zum Maskottchen”, not “zum offiziellen Maskottchen”.)
Also consider that it was just a reply to a photo. I’d hope that any “(official) nomination” of that species as the “(official) mascot” would have focused not just on its names in various languages, but also on the color pattern on the wings said to resemble a map.
Using “Falter”, a synonym to “Schmetterling” (both referring to the order Lepidoptera, which contains the superfamily Papilionoidea (butterflies); In colloquial usage, both are translated as “butterfly”.) ↩︎
To those who even know the species and the name of it, which might not be all that common. I’m a native speaker of German and didn’t know that name until I heard of the mascot suggestion, even though I do know the German names of some butterfly species often encountered where I live. ↩︎
Llevo colaborando en OpenStreetMap desde 2013 y nunca he tenido la más mínima percepción de que nadie trate de imponer la supremacía cultural de unos sobre otros. Si hay nacionalidades que están infrarrepresentadas no es porque se las considere secundarias o inferiores, sino porque participan menos. El ejemplo de la comunidad hispanohablante es clarísimo. Si fuera por número de millones de hispanohablantes, tendrían que tener una presencia enorme en OpenStreetMap. No es así, y no es por culpa de OpenStreetMap ni porque se les discrimine. ¡Que colaboren más!
La barrera del idioma, aun no careciendo de fundamento, no es justo achacársela a OSM.
It’s a pretty new tag started with some discussions a few months ago in the OSM discord. I suspect that there’s still a bunch of work to be done clarifying what it means exactly in many cases. The current documentation is very tuned to a US/Canada educational organization use so it would be good to get more folks thinking about it with their local context in mind.
It’s also nice to have some things on the map that aren’t super super serious business! We all need some levity along the way.
As a European, native language is English with second language French and a joint 3rd of Welsh and German I was baffled as map and butterfly are not even close in any of those languages.
If it’s any consolation @adreamy, I once had a thought about adapting Hangul to write English, and basically ignored all hurt feelings of cultural pride that that engendered.
I think i would change the shapes of letters such as ㄱ to better match how I (and presumably other native English speakers) move my tongue when pronouncing the equivalent sound.
(
Please don’t take this too seriously).
]
zum Maskottchen von OpenStreetMap zu machen.
