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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Clearly if the tz maintainers don't
want to invent designations, and don't want to use the official
political designations, that all the designations should be only
for timekeeping purposes, and should be replaced by numbers. <br>
<br>
But instead I believe that the db should record the official
political designations (perhaps translated to English), as
designated by the political entities themselves. This also
includes using the English equivalent of the country names the
people within these political regions designate for themselves. We
could start with Palestine, which is recognized as a nation by 80%
of countries, and 90% of the world population.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 2017-12-03 23:40, David Patte ₯ wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:f0a1e9db-47c2-12c9-bad6-943dfe82ce02@relativedata.com">
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">I believe that most people consider
that the tz designations are in fact the official 'American'
equivalents for the official local designations - which they are
not. There are no official 'American' designations, and the tz
maintainers repeatedly state that their designations are not
made by political bodies.<br>
<br>
At the same time they certainly are not the local designations
preferred by the locals, otherwise they wouldn't use English for
Beijing, and numbers for Greenland.<br>
<br>
In effect, they are designations currently seem to be decided at
whim by the tz maintainers according to their belief of what the
most locals would use if they spoke English, or by using numbers
if they don't know. This is their right, as it is their
database.<br>
<br>
But clearly, as a tz database is required internationally and is
of great significance, there should be clear rules stating how
designations in the db are chosen or changed, or failing that, a
database of internationally approved designations should be
developed perhaps through an arm of the UN, and used separately.<br>
<br>
David Patte <br>
<br>
On 2017-12-03 21:24, Tim Parenti wrote:<br>
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<div class="gmail_quote">On 3 December 2017 at 21:13, <span
dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:Paul.Koning@dell.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">Paul.Koning@dell.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">It seems to me the
notion of "official" doesn't always work. Sometimes a
particular term is established merely by enough usage. In
fact, that's how the English language works.<br>
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<div>Indeed. The standard isn't "official", merely "widely
accepted".</div>
<div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">So perhaps the same
thinking should be applied here: it doesn't really matter
where TZ names come from. Even if they were originally
just an acronym thought up by PE or ADO, they become
"real" if enough people use them as such.<br>
<br>
Now if you're dealing with invented names that haven't
gotten any significant currency, that's different, then
deleting them makes sense. But if the pushback is "wait a
minute, everyone around here has been using that
designation for at least a decade" then that makes it real
enough to be preserved. That assumes there isn't contrary
input from an actual "official" source, of course.</blockquote>
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Oh, certainly. Obviously official government documents would
meet that standard, but other things could, too, hence the
requests for use by newspapers and media outlets, for
example. It's a big part of why the Australian abbreviations
<a
href="https://github.com/eggert/tz/commit/62df86e10cb45ed931850f7298fa063ffea07544"
moz-do-not-send="true">were changed to reflect common usage</a>
a few years back. If it's indeed true that "everyone…has been
using that designation", then it's generally easy to point to
prominent examples.
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<div>Unfortunately, most online compendia of world time zones
— like those Thomas linked — tend to source their data,
knowingly or unknowingly, from <font face="monospace,
monospace">tz</font> or its derivations, so they don't
really count for these purposes.<br>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all">
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<div class="gmail_signature">--<br>
Tim Parenti</div>
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