Hi Pascal,

I agree the discussion belongs in one central place and I will join a forum thread immediately. But since you have addressed all parties equally, let me put on record — with reference to the applicable rules — why this is not a symmetric dispute:

1. OSM tagging policy (Wiki: 'Multilingual names', 'Names'). Language-suffixed tags such as name:ber are the standard, non-conflicting mechanism for recording names in other languages. A disagreement about the format of the main name=* tag can never justify deleting name:xx tags. Yet across 7 changesets (185440364, 185440107, 185439978, 185440390, 185442255, 185440975, 185440823), name:ber tags were deleted outright from 19 elements.

2. OSM's definition of vandalism (Wiki: 'Vandalism') includes the deletion of valid data without discussion. In this very changeset, the name tag of Arrabita al Gharbia (node/1565511513) was deleted entirely, leaving the town unnamed — that is data destruction under any reading of the guidelines.

3. Verifiability (Wiki: 'Verifiability'). These names are verifiable: Tamazight is a living language of Libya's indigenous population, and several affected places (Tininai, Eshmekh) are Amazigh-speaking communities. Legally, Libya's Constitutional Declaration of 3 August 2011 (Article 1) guarantees the linguistic and cultural rights of the Amazigh, and Law No. 18 of 2013 recognizes the Amazigh language among the linguistic components of Libyan national identity. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007, adopted with Libya's vote in favour), Article 13, affirms the right of indigenous peoples to designate and retain their own names for places.

4. Process. On every one of the 7 changesets I posted a question asking for the justification for deleting the language tags. Not one has been answered — while I have replied to every comment addressed to me, including all of yours. De-escalation requires the party deleting data to participate; silence plus continued deletion is not a dispute, it is unilateral removal.

I accept your request: no further edits to the disputed tags from my side while a central discussion is open, provided the same standstill applies to further deletions of name:* tags. The current data state simply reflects the situation before the deletions began.

Best regards

Hi Pascal,

Fair point, and accepted. You're right — the published block reason only mentions an investigation, and I phrased it as more than that. I'll stop referencing users, blocks, or reports in changeset comments going forward and keep them focused on the data: what was changed, what was restored, and the sources.

For transparency, this changeset restored tags to their pre-dispute state, including one case where a town's name tag had been deleted entirely (node/1565511513). I have no further edits planned to the disputed tags, and I remain ready to discuss the sources, the language codes (I've said before that name:ber may not be the ideal code and I'm open to migrating to more specific ones), and the name=* format in one central place — a forum thread in the Libya category would work for me.

Thanks for keeping this constructive.

Best regards

Your removals of Amazigh names in this changeset have been reverted. You removed indigenous Tifinagh names and deleted name:ber tags from Al lansha, Hey al-Andalus, Bab Gorji, and Bab Akara.

A direct question: why are you deleting name:ber tags? These are correctly-tagged minority language names. Deleting them removes the Amazigh language of Libya's indigenous people from the map entirely. If you have a genuine argument, state it here or on the community forum — mass deletion without discussion is not how OSM works.

Peter Maris was blocked for 1 year by the DWG (Ticket#2026071010000268) for exactly this. A report about your edits has been filed with the DWG as well.

Your removal has been reverted. Here you removed the indigenous Amazigh (Tifinagh) name and deleted the name:ber tag from Al Marduom (المردوم).

A direct question: why delete the name:ber tag? Even if you disagree about the main name format, deleting the language tag itself erases the Amazigh language from the map — there is no data-quality justification for that.

Peter Maris was blocked for 1 year by the DWG for the same behavior. A report about your edits has been filed with the DWG.

Your removals have been reverted. In this changeset you removed indigenous Amazigh (Tifinagh) names and deleted name:ber tags from Rryayna and Lasba'a — and on Arrabita al Gharbia (node/1565511513) you deleted the name tag ENTIRELY, leaving the town with no name at all on the map. That is not an update; that is data destruction.

A direct question: why are you deleting name:ber tags? If your concern were only the format of the main name tag, you could edit that and leave the language tags intact, as OSM multilingual tagging guidelines expect. Deleting name:ber removes the Amazigh language itself from the map. What is your justification?

Tifinagh is the script of Libya's indigenous Amazigh people, recognized in the 2011 Constitutional Declaration. Peter Maris was blocked for 1 year by the DWG (Ticket#2026071010000268) for exactly this behavior. A report about your edits has been filed with the DWG as well.

Your edit has been reverted. You removed the indigenous Amazigh (Tifinagh) name and name:ber tag from the Old City of Tripoli (مدينة طرابلس القديمة).

The Amazigh name ⵟⵔⴰⴱⵍⵙ ⵍⵇⴷⵉⵎⴰ represents the indigenous language of this historic city. Removing it without discussion is suppression of minority language representation.

Peter Maris was blocked for 1 year by the DWG for the same behavior. All removals have been restored.

Your edit has been reverted. You removed the indigenous Amazigh (Tifinagh) name and name:ber tag from Bani Walid (بني وليد).

The Amazigh name ⴰⵜ ⵡⵍⵉⴷ is the original indigenous name of this city. Removing it suppresses Libya's native language.

Peter Maris was blocked for 1 year by the DWG for this exact behavior. All removals have been restored.

Your edits have been reverted. You removed indigenous Amazigh (Tifinagh) names and name:ber tags from 4 places — Nasmah, Tininai, Eshmekh, and Tarhuna.

These name:ber tags represent the indigenous Amazigh language of Libya, spoken by millions of Libyan citizens. Removing them without any prior discussion violates OSM editing norms.

Peter Maris was blocked for 1 year by the DWG for the same behavior. All removals have been restored.

Your edits have been reverted. You removed indigenous Amazigh (Tifinagh) names and name:ber tags from 5 elements in Tripoli — including Tripoli itself, Abu Salim, Ain Zara, Qasr Bin Ghashir, and Martyrs' Square.

You also changed the English name of Martyrs' Square (ميدان الشهداء) to "Green Square" — the name used under the former regime, which has been officially renamed since 2011.

These Tifinagh names represent Libya's indigenous Amazigh language. Removing them without discussion is considered suppression of minority language representation by the OSM Data Working Group.

Peter Maris was blocked for 1 year by the DWG (Ticket#2026071010000268) for doing the exact same thing you are doing — mass removal of name:ber tags from Libyan places.

All your removals have been restored. If you continue this behavior, you will be reported to the DWG.

Hallo Fizzie-DWG

Thank you

Hello Peter,

Let me correct several false statements in your message.

1. "You removed the Arabic name"

This is simply not true. I did not remove a single Arabic name from any element. Every element has its full Arabic name preserved in name:ar=*. The name=* tag contains a bilingual format with Arabic fully included — for example: name=ⵟⴰⵕⴰⴱⵍⵓⵙ طرابلس Tripoli. The Arabic "طرابلس" is right there. Nothing was removed.

If you believe I removed Arabic from any specific element, please name it. You will not find one.

2. "They are all kept in the name:ber tag"

This is also not true. You deleted name:ber entirely from several elements, including:

way/138017567 (الهروج الأسود)
way/419102982 (محاجر الجفرة)
way/152290128 (الجبل الغربي)
way/152290140 (النقاط الخمس)
way/152290141 (النقاط الخمس)
So you did not keep "all" of them.

3. "Most of the names seem to be transliterations"

You called the Tifinagh script "Moroccan Tamazight" in your changeset comment. With respect, this tells me you do not know the difference between Moroccan Tamazight, Nafusi, Tamashek, and Zuaran — all of which are distinct Amazigh languages native to Libya. If you cannot distinguish between these languages, how can you determine what is a "transliteration" and what is a genuine indigenous name?

For your reference:

Ghat (ⵖⴰⵜ) a Tuareg-speaking town where Tifinagh is the native script. Not a transliteration.
Nafusa Mountains (ⴰⴷⵔⴰⵔ ⵏ ⵉⵏⴼⵓⵙⵏ) — the Arabic name "الجبل الغربي" is the generic translation. The Amazigh name is the original. Documented in Khelifa, A. "Nefoussa," Encyclopédie berbère, vol. 33, 2012.
Ghadames (ⵖⴷⴰⵎⵙ) attested since Roman times as Cydamus, a Latinization of the Amazigh name. Pliny the Elder, 77 CE.
4. "I did not find any official or local sources"

I provided extensive academic sources in the changeset discussion Kossmann, Lewicki, Provasi, Khelifa, Beguinot all peer-reviewed. I cited Libya's Constitutional Declaration (2011, Article 1), UNESCO's endangered languages classification, and ISO 639-3 language codes. Did you read any of them?

5. The real question

Peter, you made 7 changesets in one evening removing an indigenous language from 79 elements across an entire country you have no connection to, without any prior discussion, while another mapper (VLD0251) warned you to stop. You called the indigenous script of North Africa "vandalism."

Where are YOUR sources that justify removing an indigenous language from its own homeland?

Best regards

Your claim that I "removed the Arabic name completely" is false.

Fact 1: On way/996004768, I am the one who added the Arabic name "قاعدة الوطية الجوية" it had no name before my edit (v1 had no name tag).

Fact 2: On way/688314943, the original name was "قاعدة الوطية الجوية عقبة بن نافة". I removed "عقبة بن نافة" because the base is locally known simply as "الوطية."

Fact 3: I acknowledge that in a subsequent edit (v4), the name:ar tag was incorrectly set. That was a mistake which has now been corrected all three elements now have proper trilingual names with Arabic fully preserved.

Fact 4: The element currently had no name at all because a third user (ABDULLAH AL WERFALLI) deleted everything in v5 — not me and not you.

Before accusing others, please check the edit history carefully.

Best regards

Hello Pascal,

Thank you for the clarification and for your constructive approach. I appreciate that you took the time to review the changes and provide feedback.

You are right about ISO 639-3 jbn it refers to Nafusi, not Zuwara. I apologize for the error. Zuwara Berber is classified under ISO 639-3 as jbn for Nafusi as part of the broader Nafusi grouping, while Zuwara itself falls within the same language continuum. I will correct this in any future references.

Regarding the tagging approach: I understand your concern and I am open to discussing the best practices for key-value pairs. My priority is to ensure that Amazigh names are represented accurately and visibly. If there are specific tags or elements where you see an issue, I am happy to review them case by case.

Thank you again for engaging in good faith. This kind of constructive dialogue is exactly what makes OSM better.

Best regards

Hello,

The account is used by me personally I am one individual. I am a native Amazigh speaker from Libya.

When I used "we" in my previous reply, I was simply referring to the fact that I verify names with other native speakers before editing, to ensure linguistic accuracy. This is standard practice for any mapper working with local language data consulting knowledgeable locals to confirm correctness. It does not mean the account is shared or operated by an organization.

I appreciate your attention to ensuring proper editing practices, and I remain happy to discuss any specific name if there is a concern.

Best regards

Hello Pascal,

You are right to be concerned about an edit war but let's be precise about who started it.

I added indigenous language names. Peter Maris then made 7 changesets in one evening removing them from 79 elements across the entire country, calling the indigenous script "vandalism." That is the aggression. My restoration of indigenous names is the defense.

An "edit war" implies two equal sides in a dispute. This is not that. This is one mapper with no connection to Libya systematically erasing an indigenous language, and an indigenous person restoring it.

I agree that someone with authority needs to intervene and make a decision.

I have already:

Filed a formal report against Peter Maris with OSM moderators
Provided extensive academic sources in this very comment thread (Kossmann, Lewicki, Provasi, Khelifa, Beguinot — all peer-reviewed)
Cited Libya's Constitutional Declaration (2011, Article 1) guaranteeing Amazigh linguistic rights
Cited UNESCO's classification of these languages as endangered
Cited ISO 639-3 codes confirming these as recognized living languages
Responded in detail to every question raised here scroll up
What I ask from moderators/administrators:

Review the history of this region the Amazigh people are the indigenous population of Libya and North Africa, their language predates Arabic in this region by millennia
Review Peter Maris's edit pattern 7 changesets in rapid succession, no discussion, ignored warnings from VLD0251, called indigenous script "vandalism" and misidentified it as "Moroccan Tamazight"
Review the evidence I have provided academic sources, constitutional references, UNESCO documentation, ISO language codes
Make a binding decision so that indigenous language names are protected from unilateral removal by non-local mappers
On the forum discussion: I will open a topic on the OSM Community Forum. But I want to state clearly: if the outcome of that discussion is decided by people who have no connection to Libya and no knowledge of Amazigh languages, while actual indigenous voices are absent, that is not "community consensus" that is outsider veto over indigenous rights.

I will provide the forum link here once created.

Best regards

Hello Pascal,

You keep asking me to open a forum discussion and seek "community consensus." Let me ask you a direct question:

Who exactly would participate in this discussion?

Look at this changeset's comment section. It is you and me. You have already stated that you are "not a local contributor in Libya" and "not a specialist in multilingual name tagging." The person who reverted my edits (Peter Maris) also has no connection to Libya and has been reported for calling indigenous script "vandalism."

The Libyan OSM community is extremely small. There is no active Libya talk page, no active Libya mailing list, no active Libya forum thread with regular local contributors waiting to weigh in. If I open a forum discussion, the participants will be: me, you, and perhaps Peter Maris two people with no connection to Libya and one actual Libyan.

You are asking an indigenous person to seek permission from non-local outsiders to name places in their own country in their own language.

Think about what that means. Would you ask a Welsh speaker to open a forum discussion and get consensus from non-Welsh outsiders before adding Welsh names to villages in Wales? Would you ask a Sámi speaker to prove community consensus before naming their own towns in Sámi?

I have already:

Provided detailed academic sources (Kossmann, Lewicki, Provasi, Khelifa, Beguinot)
Cited the Libyan Constitutional Declaration (2011) guaranteeing Amazigh linguistic rights
Cited UNESCO's classification of these languages as endangered
Cited ISO 639-3 language codes confirming these are recognized living languages
Explained that these are indigenous names, not transliterations
Shown OSM precedent from Morocco, Algeria, Wales, Basque Country, Ireland, and Sámi regions
As for your unanswered questions: I responded in detail to every point you raised — scroll up. I addressed Brussels, provided evidence for specific places, explained the legal basis, and cited academic references. If you have a question about a specific place name that I have not addressed, please ask it and I will answer.

But I will not submit indigenous language rights to an approval process run by people who do not speak the language, do not live in the country, and have no local knowledge. The Amazigh people of Libya do not need outside permission to exist on the map.

Best regards

Hello Pascal,

Thank you for the thoughtful follow-up. You raise a fair point, so let me address it directly.

You are right that Brussels is not a perfect comparison but not for the reason you think.

In Brussels, French and Dutch are both imported languages overlaid onto a historically Brabantian-speaking area. In the Nafusa Mountains, Ghat, and Zuwara, Amazigh/Tifinagh is the original indigenous language it has stronger claim to the name=* tag than Arabic does, since Arabic arrived with the 7th-century . If anything, the Arabic names are the "generated transliterations" of the indigenous Amazigh originals.

A better comparison than Brussels:

Wales: name=Caernarfon Welsh name in name=*, not relegated to name:cy=*, because Welsh is the local spoken language there. Nobody asks Welsh speakers to provide "signage evidence" for each village.
Basque Country: name=Donostia / San Sebastián bilingual name=* because both are locally used. The Basque names predate Spanish.
Gaeltacht areas of Ireland: name=An Daingean Irish in name=* in Irish-speaking areas.
Sámi areas of Norway: name=Guovdageaidnu / Kautokeino indigenous Sámi name first.
The Nafusa Mountains are Libya's equivalent of a Gaeltacht an area where the indigenous language is the primary spoken language of the majority of the population.

These are not "generated transliterations." Here is concrete evidence:

Jadu (ⵊⴰⴷⵓ): The entire town speaks Nafusi Amazigh as their first language. Berber texts from Jadu are documented in Provasi, E. "Testi berberi di Žâdo (Tripolitania)", 1973. The Italian colonial-era name "Giado" is itself a transliteration of the Amazigh name — not the Arabic.
Nalut (ⵏⴰⵍⵓⵜ): Pure Amazigh toponym. Its famous qasr (fortified granary) is an Amazigh architectural tradition. The town's Amazigh Cultural Center uses Tifinagh on its signage. Post-2011, Tifinagh was introduced into local schools — documented by Karlos Zurutuza, Middle East Eye, 9 Jan 2018.
Yefren (ⵢⴼⵔⵏ): Amazigh-majority town. The name has no Arabic etymology — it IS the Amazigh name. Documented in T. Lewicki, Études ibadites nord-africaines.
Ghadames (ⵖⴷⴰⵎⵙ): Known to the Romans as Cydamus — a Latinization of the Amazigh name, attested in Pliny the Elder's Natural History (77 CE) and Ptolemy's Geography (150 CE). The Ghadames Berber language has its own ISO 639-3 code (gha) and is documented in Kossmann, M. A Grammatical Sketch of Ghadames Berber, Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, 2013.
Zuwara: The indigenous name Tamurt n Wat Willul is still used by locals in daily speech. Zuaran Berber has its own ISO 639-3 code (jbn).
Ghat (ⵖⴰⵜ): Tuareg-speaking town. The Tuareg Tamashek language uses Tifinagh natively — this is not a transliteration but the actual local script. Tifinagh was born among the Tuareg.
Nafusa Mountains (ⴰⴷⵔⴰⵔ ⵏ ⵉⵏⴼⵓⵙⵏ): The Arabic name "الجبل الغربي" (Western Mountain) is a generic geographic descriptor. "Adrar n Infusen" (Mountain of the Infusen/Nafusa people) is the indigenous toponym, confirmed in Khelifa, A. "Nefoussa," Encyclopédie berbère, vol. 33, 2012.
On signage: Libya has been in civil conflict since 2014. Demanding formal government signage as evidence from a conflict zone is an unreasonable standard that OSM does not apply elsewhere. Despite this, post-2011 Tifinagh signage appeared across the Nafusa Mountains — schools, cultural centers, municipal buildings — before the second civil war disrupted governance. The absence of state-maintained bilingual road signs does not mean the language is not locally used. OSM's name=* policy says "the most common name(s) used locally," not "the name on government signs."

Best regards

All Amazigh (Tifinagh) names you removed have been restored. Tifinagh ⵜⵉⴼⵉⵏⴰⵖ is the indigenous script of Libya — not vandalism, not "Moroccan Tamazight." It belongs to all Amazigh people across North Africa.

Stop reverting indigenous language names from a country you have no connection to.

Where are you from, Peter? And from which country? Because your mass revert of indigenous Amazigh (Tifinagh) names across Libya looks like it carries an agenda. You call Tifinagh "vandalism" — but Tifinagh is the native script of Libya, older than Arabic, spoken by millions of Libyan Amazigh people. This is not vandalism, this is indigenous language representation.

You removed Tifinagh from the name tag of 39+ elements across Libya — from Tripoli to Kufra, from Sirte to Ghat — and called it "data quality improvements." Who gave you the authority to decide that an indigenous people's language is not quality data?

The name:ber tags you left untouched prove these are real, documented Amazigh names. Removing their visibility from the main name tag while keeping the subtag is not "restoring standards" — it is suppressing indigenous languages.

Libya's Amazigh people have the right to see their language on the map of their own country. Your interference in this matter, especially as someone who appears to have no connection to Libya, is political — not cartographic.

All changes have been restored.

1. Language tags:
name:ber is the ISO 639-2 macro-language code for Berber/Amazigh it is the correct tag when using standardized Neo-Tifinagh script, which is not dialect-specific. The codes tmh (Tuareg) and taq (Tamasheq) are ISO 639-3 codes for specific spoken varieties and would be appropriate if transcribing those dialects' phonology. The Tifinagh forms used here are standardized transliterations, not dialect transcriptions the same way name:zh is used across OSM for standard Chinese rather than requiring name:cmn on every element. Additional dialect-specific tags can be added alongside name:ber, not instead of it.

2. Sources:
The names follow standard Arabic-to-Tifinagh transliteration using the Neo-Tifinagh Unicode block (U+2D30–U+2D7F), consistent with IRCAM standards. For major cities, the Amazigh names are well-established and used by Amazigh communities across Libya.

3. Algeria:
You are right a few localities in the Tassili region were in Algeria, not Libya. This has already been corrected: Arabic (name:ar) and French (name:fr) have been added to all of them. The Tifinagh names remain, as Tamazight is an official language in Algeria since 2016. Standard Tifinagh is the same unified script used across both countries there is no conflict.