[tz] [PATCH 0/2] Follow Australian common usage and update CST/CST to CST/CDT and EST/EST to EST/EDT etc [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Timothy Arceri T.Arceri at bom.gov.au
Fri Apr 12 00:38:09 UTC 2013


Hi Tobias,

I feel we are going around in circles here. As I have said before I understand what you are trying to do but I dont agree. All I'm trying to do is to get the database to use the abbreviations we use in Australia. I'm not trying to get all timezones to use a common international approach to abbreviations, I agree it would be excellent if there was some kind of international effort to create one but that is not something that the tz database should be creating and pushing. If there ever is such a standard created and countries actually start using it, only then should tz adopt it. 
As for any abbreviations created by this database I do not know the background of the creation. Nor do I know if this is what is actually used in those countries therefore I can not comment on them. If they are not in common use its up to someone to show this. maybe they don't use abbreviations in those countries so that's why they were created, I dont know therefore I can not comment. Its clear that you and I are trying to achieve two different things here.


________________________________________
From: tobias.conradi at gmail.com [tobias.conradi at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Tobias Conradi [mail.2012 at tobiasconradi.com]
Sent: Friday, 12 April 2013 8:28 AM
To: Timothy Arceri
Cc: tz at iana.org
Subject: Re: [tz] [PATCH 0/2] Follow Australian common usage and update CST/CST to CST/CDT and EST/EST to EST/EDT etc [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 11:44 PM, Timothy Arceri <T.Arceri at bom.gov.au> wrote:
> David makes the point very well here. As I stated in my email there was never any references of the current abbreviations use given when it was implemented and it has been a mistake from the beginning. As David says "I don't think its the responsibility of tz to report what tz did in the past - but to represent what was in common use in the past."

> This is also set out in the 'Procedures for Maintaining the Time Zone Database' document. "To be clear, the TZ Coordinator SHALL NOT set time zone policy for a region but use judgment and whatever available sources exist to assess what the average person on street would think the time actually is, or in case of historical corrections, was."

This is not applicable. "the average person on street would think the
time actually is" - /time/ not /abbreviation/

And it is common practice that the maintainer invents new abbreviations.

Did you look at inventend abbreviations as suggested at
http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2013-April/019001.html ?

So, here some lines from the Europe file:
----------
I invented the abbreviations marked `*' in the following table;
# the rest are from earlier versions of this file, or from other sources.
#       -3:00       WGT WGST      Western Greenland*
#       -1:00       EGT EGST      Eastern Greenland*
#        0:19:32.13 AMT NST       Amsterdam, Netherlands Summer (1835-1937)*
#        0:20       NET NEST      Netherlands (1937-1940)*
#        1:00:14    SET           Swedish (1879-1899)*
----------


--
Tobias Conradi
Rheinsberger Str. 18
10115 Berlin
Germany

http://tobiasconradi.com



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