[tz] Comments and mapping of tz zones to the real world

[Tobias Conradi]

was: [tz] proposed changes: past Altai/Tomsk time zone shifts

On Sat, May 5, 2012 at 8:48 PM, Robert Elz <kre at munnari.oz.au> wrote:
>    Date:        Sat, 5 May 2012 04:11:55 +0200
>    From:        Tobias Conradi <tobias.conradi at gmail.com>
>    Message-ID:  <CAAGevbVsY5SEs=3NGyau7T_aLW+W0cV18tofP3d_aDfjTw1M0w at mail.gmail.com>
>
>  | Putting something into the wrong timezone is by definition having a
>  | bug in the TIMEZONE database.
>
> No, once again, it is not, or not in any way that is important.
There was no claim of importance, the claim only was that there is a bug.


>  | > If the comments in the zone file are wrong,
>  | > we should certainly fix them sometime,
>  | Now you change your opinion?
>
> No, not at all, we fix erroneous comments, but erroneous comments are
> not a bug, as they don't affect the results,
Of course they do. If one selects timezone Asia/Baku based on a
comment that this is the tz zone for Chicago then one would get false
offsets and false transitions.

> they're just a minor
> insignificant error.
Not to me, and maybe not for the people trying to find the Chicago zone data.

>  Like any error, such things should get fixed,
> but like other irrelevant errors, fixing them isn't urgent.
Not for me.

>  | Any prove that all the view at
>  | http://stats.grok.se/en/201204/List_of_tz_database_time_zones
>  | are from list members?
>
> List members can do whatever they like, and some of the people on
> this list (and associated with this project) certainly do attempt to
> make maps of timezones in one way or another.   That's all fine, but
> it is not this project.
I didn't claim that.

Your claim was " ...comments .... have no real importance and are
generally only ever even
seen by the people on this list (no-one else is really very likely to
read through all of that stuff -...)"

You provide no proof that the views of the Wikipedia page in question
came only from list members. In absence of this, I think your claim is
false.


>  | >(no-one else is really very likely to
>  | > read through all of that stuff - zic certainly doesn't care.)
>  | I read the comments before I was a list member.
>
> Sure, there are people who look at this stuff, but not very many
> compared with the number of people who use the real product of this
> project - which is the zone database.
Can you tell a way of how a user determines the correct zone for a
random location in Indiana, selecting between

America/Indiana/Indianapolis
America/Indiana/Vincennes
America/Indiana/Winamac
America/Indiana/Marengo
America/Indiana/Petersburg
America/Indiana/Vevay
America/Kentucky/Louisville
America/New York

without reading the comments?

-- 
Tobias Conradi
Rheinsberger Str. 18
10115 Berlin
Germany

http://tobiasconradi.com/