From the north part to the south part of Taiwan, there are several rivers is called
Qingshui Xi. The name Qingshui Xi is the number one river name in Taiwan. Same applied to the Nanshi River and Beishi River. How do you distinguish river names that are the same but in different place around Taiwan? One of the government agency have announced the river code and a list of river, but it does not included all rivers that existed in Taiwan.
The collaborative and open content project OpenSteetMap and WIkidata can help solve the same river name issue. The meta data of these two projects could linked to other public database, and also unlimited list any rivers, which could solve the same name river issue by several unique ID of external database or different descriptions. Wikidata item ID of a river could serve as an interial exchange mechanic, linking to OpenStreetMap and Wikidata. If there is missing item on OpenStreetMap or Wikidata, you could simply add by yourself, there is no need to wait for the usually slow but official update from the government agency.
Wikidata Taiwan, OpenStreetMap Taiwan and LASS community have worked together for a year. We collaborative with the government and rolls out the river code. We linked the river code to the corresponded Wikidata item ID and OpenStreetMap relation ID. I will talk about river data from the community prospective, and what is the hard part of the whole process.
About Tân, Suī-lîm
Tân, Suī-lîm is the board member of WIkimedia Taiwan. He was a technology reporter for several years. Now he is focus on OpenStreetMap and Wikidata project. Sometimes in his spare time will ride his bicycle or climb mountains, recording Mapillary image by his handheld device, then using the data he capture to contribute to the collaborative OpenStreetMap project.