3d ago

In light of recent events, here's OpenStreetMap editors discussing naming of the Gulf of Mexico

community.openstreetmap.org Gulf of America - Gulf of Mexico

President Donald Trump just said during his inauguration that he wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Aside from the political aspects, how does that even work? How does OSM choose a source for that? I’m curious! Also, somebody executed what I thought while I wrote this post:

As of revision version #85, OpenStreetMap has the following tags for Golfo de México:

name:en Gulf of Mexico
official_name:en-US Gulf of America

OpenStreetMap community @lemmy.ml

Kalcifer @sh.itjust.works

4w ago

The OSM Community discusses the Trump Administration's renaming of "The Gulf of Mexico" to "The Gulf of America"

community.openstreetmap.org /t/gulf-of-america-gulf-of-mexico/124571

18 49

99 comments

It is the gulf of mexico. The whole thing is just president musk and vp trump power tripping. Also a distraction from other, much worse thjngs happening right now.
- Personally I'd prefer it if they spent all four years renaming things to Mount Hitler or whatever instead of doing anything actual.
  
  If it was left up to Trump he probably would. I don't think he's entirely sane at this point, unfortunately there are plenty of people manipulating things behind the scenes and they do have plans.
- That's what my dog does.
  He tears into the couch in one side of the house to get you annoyed, then runs to eat cat litter, then runs upstairs to take the kid's toys.
  Do enough chaos to get something and tire us out.
  
  OMG, we have to see pics of this cute criminal!
- Idk if this is true, but someone brought up it might be related to Biden putting in an order to not allow new drilling in the gulf of Mexico, so to get around it Trump and Co Just renamed it.
  Again, no idea if this is true, haven't had a chance to look it up since I heard it an hour ago or so, but it sounds plausible lol
  
  Yeah but couldn't he just resend the law. I can't see why renaming it would be required, also if that's true, what a stupid loophole.

@zlatiah Best comment in this thread: " Can we retag Trump’s golf courses as Golf of Mexico? " 🤣

Such a weird thing for everyone to fixate on and lose their shit. Let our dumbass en-US selves do whatever "official" dumbass thing we have to with the name.
Everyone else can leave it what it always was.
Next time there's a Democrat U.S. President, the "en-US" term will be changed back to Gulf of Mexico.
This is stupid.
- It's true and it's such a distraction. There is so much worse shit going on right now in the US government. I'm tired of not calling it a coup. It's a coup. They're trying to act like the judicial branch doesn't get to determine what is and isn't constitutional. So much shit.
  As bad and as cringe as it is for the "Gulf of America" debacle to happen, it's just genuinely not worth the headspace right now.
- You’re right. It’s part of a propaganda strategy to trick US media to “discuss” trivial things like this instead of focusing on the real harm the administration is doing.

Why is this even being discussed?
Are they discussing renaming Taiwan to China as well?
- One way a global index can respect local authority would be for the index to acknowledge that within that territory, there is an official name for things.
  They can also be pragmatic and acknowledge a common local name, the global consensus name, etc.
  In many ways, it's just a further fragmentation like language.
- The name itself can't really change in OSM because it's based on what someone "on the ground" would see, i.e. street signs, etc.
  Previous OSM naming conflicts have usually been areas of disputed land where some group de-facto controls the land/people and therefore the street signs, and therefore the OSM 'name' tag.
  That's not going to work very well for a big region of mostly international waters between several countries.
- Taiwan is the island, also known as Formosa, and it is ruled by the Republic of China. Separately, but still part of that state, there's the autonomous mainland provinces, calling themselves the People's Republic of China, a rebel faction which somehow steadfastly refuses to declare independence.
  
  Looking at it this way, I'd call the "mainland" part West Taiwan
- Are you taking about Formosa or the Republic of China?

Hey. Your all blinded by this nothing and elon is getting contracts of money he dismantled from government. Congrats americans. Hope another cou try can put us in our place.
- Current U.S. leadership: Our billionaires are gonna be bigger than all the other billionaires in the world put together. (I honestly believe there's an insecurity motive there: if US billionaires don't amass significantly more wealth, they won't be competitive in the billionaire world against outside billionaires.)
  U.S. Democracy: If one dollar = one vote, I guess we should save all that money we have been wasting on elections.
  The real reason for the surge in prosperity of the middle and lower classes after WWII: decimation of the ultra-wealthy throughout the developed world. Remember: the post WWII US income tax on the wealthy was 91% - literal decimation, for those who paid.
  https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/whole-ball-of-tax-historical-income-tax-rates
  
  (I honestly believe there's an insecurity motive there
  Once you have more money than you could reasonably spend in a lifetime, it just becomes another penis measuring contest for insecure manchildren.
  
  They also returned from the war to a much stronger welfare system.
- thank you, enlightened one… we are all forgetting every other crazy thing they’re doing and focusing exclusively on map apps….
  we’re all so blind, thank you for helping us see!
- It's possible to know about this while also knowing that extreme fuckery is occurring. But its not like your average Lemmy user can do anything to stop either.
- What specifically do you think that OSM maintainers should be doing to stop this instead of maintaining OSM?
  Also coup has a p.
- no doubt it's all been squirrelled away into crypto. They'll have fun trying to hold the guy accountable. Oh wait, no, accountability is for the poors.
  Anyway, enjoy the sound of the keys jingling, folks

As I explained to Google (from Dan McClellan) _references do not assert from fiat what things are called. A dictionary definition is not an official definition but what a word means or what a thing is called at the moment.
Most of the world calls it the Golfo de México or in English speaking regions, the Gulf of Mexico. Changing all the maps of the world won't change this.
Now granted, a state chooses what to call itself (such as the changing of The Ukraine to simply Ukraine but that is the incorporated entity that is the sovereign nation of Ukraine.
As the US does not have sovereign control of the Gulf of Mexico, it doesn't get to declare the name of a region of international waters.
This whole thing just makes the GOP, MAGA, the Trump administration and by proxy the people of the United States xenophobic and barbaric as hell. It's not a good look.
- As an American, I will refuse to call it fuckass gulf of america.
  
  I dunno. That could be kinda snappy on a map. "Ok, let's see, here we have the North Atlantic, the Sargasso Sea, and the Fuckass Gulf of America."
  
  ... what's a fuckass?
- it was never “the ukraine”, russia just called it that because the ukraine was a region to them… like the great plains is to america…
  
  Russian doesn't even have definite articles, to them it was always just Ukraine.
- Its just a distraction meant to throw people off the smell of the real crimes they are committing. Call it the gulf of dogshit i dont care

It’s calles the Gulf of Mexico, people should stop using different names in different languages and use the actual name.
Like The Netherlands is called The Netherlands and two of it’s provinces are called Holland
- it's a tricky question, arguably there are more people on this planet that call countries by their Mandarin name, followed by their Spanish name, followed by their English name, than the name in the native language.
  De Guo > Alemania > Germany > Deutschland for example
  
  Which is why I'll never call Turkey "Türkiye", though they're free to call themselves that. I don't see Germany insisting I call it Deutschland, after all.

Golfo de México is just as annoying, well done.

For the next four years I also propose renaming en_us to an-us.
- derp_us
- Aragonese?

I'm going to be looking for ways to make the name even more Mexican now. Maybe just perfect my Spanish at least for that one phrase. Gwalfo de Meh-hee-co

As an american. I want the option to display it as Gulf of Mexico. Like it's always been before that fat sack of shit was trying to win points wit hracists to distract them from the hand reaching up their ass to fuck them.
- As an American and long time OSM contributor, I also vote extremely no on Gulf of America.
  Also no on renaming New Mexico.
  
  Wait there's talk of renaming New Mexico‽
  after some digging
  Oh thank god it was just a joke
  
  "Petition to rename New Mexico to Freexico, and Mexico to Cartelistan"
- They could add a snowflake option that when activated makes it display as Gulf of America.
  
  A checkbox labelled "Triggered" on the phone.
- So now that is in the hands of the folks who use the OSM data. It's in a somewhat exotic tag, so by default any map that uses OSM will still show Gulf of Mexico, unless they actively intervene to show Gulf of America. So if you see an OSM based map showing the latter, you know they made that choice consciously.
- As an American I have to second this. Please don't fall in line to lick trump's boot

Literally no one ever called it "Gulf of America" until January. I appreciate the generally thoughtful conversation on OSM, but there's no reason that declaration should be taken seriously.
- The maintainers were doing a good job reverting contributions for a while. Here's a good example: https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/gulf-of-america-gulf-of-mexico/124571/16
  They follow names assigned by https://unstats.un.org/unsd/ungegn/, and use the labels like en_US for official single-country names. While I would much prefer it remain an alt_name, I understand their rational. Ugh.
  
  Yeah I feel like there needs to be a huge asterisk by name declarations that, while formal/official in the barest sense, are blatantly arbitrary.

How is it the "official name" even for en-US? Trump isn't the be all and end all of naming things. Every single rational, thinking person in the USA, and many, many people who aren't so rational (Trump voters), still call it the Gulf of Mexico and always will. Official, my ass.
The early proposal of alt-name: en-US=Gulf of America seemed the most logical.
Holy hell, I hate this cursed timeline.
- Because the United States Board on Geographic Names now says so, as demanded by Trump by Order No. 3423. They are the government body that defines what places are officially called.
  But unless you are a US federal employee, as Nick Fury once said, "I recognize the council has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I've elected to ignore it."

Honestly, I think that we the people need to assert our own right to name things more often. I don't recall the latest name of the Brewers stadium in Milwaukee, for example. Whatever company that paid to have them put its name on the front didn't pay me. It's "the new County Stadium" as far as I'm concerned.
(I have no philosophical objection to the name, by the way. Reps of the new company can DM me, we can work out a deal.)
- Ask any illinoisan what the tallest tower in Chicago is and you won't hear the name that's on the building. And good for them
- An acquaintance helped close a deal for a stadium naming rights. It had been a multi year process, the negotiations were crazy, the company deliberated forever trying to decide if this was the best way to increase brand recognition and man that shits expensive.
  So like a shit head that thinks he’s funny I started calling the stadium by its sponsor like 3 sponsors ago when I was around them. You could see the anxiety spike when I did it.
  Your comment made me think of that. It’s hilarious. They would have had a fucking breakdown if they had heard someone say that out loud.
- Frankly I agree. From my personal experience, every single native Chicagoan has been calling that particular building "Sears Tower". Even though the name has been officially changed for more than 15 years by this point...
  And I thin OSM actually handled this quite well! The original Sears Tower name is still available as an "alt_name" tag on OSM as well, I just double-checked and yep it's still searchable on the map
- There's a county cricket ground near me that was named the Hampshire Rose Bowl when it was first opened 25 years ago. In that time it has been renamed a number of times in honour of a selection of insurance companies I'd never heard of before, but to pretty much everyone in the area it's the Rose Bowl.
  So yeah.

name:en: Gulf of Mexico
stupid_name:en-US-confederate-bootlicker: Gulf of Amerikkka
That should suffice.
- OSM has a tag for everything, wow 😇❤️

Fun fact, per the executive order, the whole body isn't being renamed the Gulf of America, only the "U.S. Continental Shelf area bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the States of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and extending to the seaward boundary with Mexico and Cuba". That is, less than the northern half, as indicated in this map: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_ECS_Regions_2023.png
I hope this is due to someone intentionally wording it to sound correct, but in reality being extra screwy so that they look like fools.
- That’s like… slightly more reasonable than I thought it was. But it’s still deeply fucking stupid.

Just like I never called french fries freedom fries, I will never call the gulf of mexico the gulf of america

Since Trump is slang for fart in UK, I propose it be re-renamed to Guff of America in his honour. I bet he wouldn't even notice.
- Apparently the family name moving to America was "Trumpf", so that fits well given its a fart with a little trailing 'pfff', likely caused from the subtle loosening of a well used asshole.

Can we poll the community for alternate names that would enrage Trump? If it's gonna change, let's have fun with it.
Gulf of Veganism and Low Cholesterol
Gulf of Checks and Balances
Gulf of 34 Felony Counts
Gulf of Cheetos (let's get those sweet advertising dollars while we're at it)
Gulf of Insecurity
Kamala-Clinton Gulf
- Gulf of 34 Felony Counts
  We could tell these fuckers that Trump broke 34 rules and to Google "trump rule 34", but given a) Trump's history in the sexual department, and b) the fact most of them will actually jack off to this, I don't think it's a good idea
- How about Gulf of they/them?
- Gulf of Musk
  
  🤢🤮

Let's rename Montezuma's Revenge to Trump's Revenge while we are at it.

To reiterate, GNIS and GNS are only relevant to an appropriately qualified official_name tag, not a name tag, because of the on the ground rule. For this kind of feature, common sense would place a lot of weight on overall common usage, since sending someone to survey the facts “on the ground” would be… difficult.
Yeah that certainly seems difficult

If he is just going to make executive order to change shit he doesn’t like and not follow the law. Who says I have to follow them too? Still the Gulf of Mexico to me! 😂

Mexicogolfen is pretty good.

Persian Gulf or Gulf of Iran?
- I just checked, and OSM has it as Persian Gulf, with the alternative name Arabian Gulf.
- Comes down to the language/data of the user I guess
  Edit: I'll be using this with my Gulf War veteran father tho, bet your ass

99 comments