[tz] Request for change to the tz database

Tom Lane tgl at sss.pgh.pa.us
Tue Feb 9 01:23:20 UTC 2021


[ disclaimer: I just lurk here ]

Robert Elz <kre at munnari.OZ.AU> writes:
> I don't much care what Kiev/Kyiv is called in English (Kiev is what it
> has always been to me, and will probably remain that way, but it isn't
> as if I use the name anywhere other than here).    However, the content
> of recent messages makes it appear that someone has started a campaign
> ("Please help get the name changed, by sending e-mail to... and in it
> say ...").   Because of that I am (for now) opposed to making any change
> at all to this one (and I don't care what Google, or various newspapers,
> etc, have decided to do).   If we start paying attention to this kind
> of thing we're simply inviting it to happen again.   So say, "Sorry, no,
> your campaign has caused us to decide to retain the current name" and
> nothing else.

I get where you're coming from, but I think that would be the opposite
of helpful; it'd just draw more complaining.

I think you are right that there's a campaign going on to get people to
switch the spelling, and not just in tzdb.  (Wikipedia, for instance,
seems to have switched years ago.)  So what?  English spellings of foreign
places change all the time, and tzdb has generally followed along without
much complaint.  Just looking through the existing links:

L America/Adak America/Atka
L America/Nuuk America/Godthab
L Asia/Ashgabat Asia/Ashkhabad
L Asia/Kolkata Asia/Calcutta
L Asia/Dhaka Asia/Dacca
L Asia/Kathmandu Asia/Katmandu
L Asia/Macau Asia/Macao
L Asia/Yangon Asia/Rangoon
L Asia/Thimphu Asia/Thimbu
L Asia/Ulaanbaatar Asia/Ulan_Bator
L Atlantic/Faroe Atlantic/Faeroe
L Pacific/Pohnpei Pacific/Ponape
L Pacific/Chuuk Pacific/Truk

How is Kiev/Kyiv different from any of those cases?

So I think tzdb should just add Kyiv as a link and be done with it.
I don't much care which end of the link is considered the primary
name, and I doubt the complainers would notice the difference
either.

			regards, tom lane



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