Translation tools for names and tags?

The most important thing to say is I consider that adding such names directly to OSM is inadvisable.

A mass update of locality information is not something that is likely to meet the Automated Edits Code of Conduct. The relative merits of ostensibly making data easier for non-Japanese speakers, is far outweighed by the immediate uses of OSM and its map renders by people directly in the zones affected by the earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear plant (see ). Crisis mapping is to help people affected by the crisis, not crisis mappers.

Also as far as I know there is no simple map render which will show either name:en or name:ja-ro as the default for names: therefore such an edit would not meet its purpose. Additionally, mass edits are notorious for breaking things because the person performing the edit either does not have enough experience of OSM; or does not rigorously check every object affected.

Other more minor points:

• Firstly do not try and translate tag names: the default is British English. If tags have been entered in another language you may break a specific application.

• Secondly, I imagine that in the main you wish to transliterate Japanese names to a roman alphabet (romaji) rather than provide 'English' names, which for the most part do not exist for localities in Japan.

• Thirdly, most location names for Japan in OSM are held in the name=* tag, with many having the form Kanji (Romaji). Not all will have equivalent name:ja and name:en (or better name:ja_rm) tags. Thus for the country something like this : name=日本 (Japan) , name:ja=日本, name:en=Japan and name:ja_rm=Nihon. See http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Japan_tagging#Names

If I was tackling this problem I would use one of the downloadable extracts (e.g., that of Honshu, refreshed hourly by Geofabrik) and load the data into a Postgres database using Osmosis. I would then create a simple table of OSM object ids with columns for the different name types, and identify absent tags. Obviously the same table could be the start of filling the gaps. If an application could be built separate from OSM to open an editor for people to add these additional tags then it might be worthwhile (see for instance Geofabrik's OSM Inspector, or OSM Locator Musical Chairs). An alternative then would be to build a separate layer of romaji names for, say, a Garmin device. See my blog for some ideas.