[tz] permanent DST and North American time zone names

Tim Parenti tim at timtimeonline.com
Wed Mar 16 16:03:57 UTC 2022


On Wed, 16 Mar 2022 at 11:47, Chris Walton <crj.walton at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 16, 2022 at 11:15 AM Tim Parenti via tz <tz at iana.org> wrote:
>
>> Complicating matters somewhat is that, because of the prevalence of tzdb,
>> in a sense we're "victims of our own success".  That is, whatever we end up
>> picking will likely show up fairly automatically in a lot of public-facing
>> places, and so even if it isn't what the public would've naturally used in
>> the immediate aftermath of a change, many will be fairly quickly informed
>> by what they start to see, and may start adopting and spreading whatever
>> nomenclature we've picked.
>>
> This is a good thing.  It is my opinion that the people who are best able
> to choose the time zone names and abbreviations are those that have the
> complete understanding of all North American time zone practices and
> idiosyncrasies.  Those people happen to be the members of this mailing list.
> If decisions on standard time zone naming are left up to the politicians
> and the general public, the results will be unpredictable and inconsistent.
>

Sure, but it *is* fundamentally at odds with the prevailing idea that we
aim to be descriptive, not prescriptive.  There is certainly always a role,
though, for us to be good stewards and use our expertise to help guide best
practices, so it's inevitably a balancing act.  But we need to be
clear-eyed that there is balancing being done and, as such, maintain the
flexibility needed to manage that push and pull.

--
Tim Parenti
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