[tz] Proposal to change Macquarie Island to be Australian territory

[Mark Davis ☕]

> Variable length and inconsistent country code usage:

This is a misunderstanding.

CLDR is specified to use 5 letter UN LOCODEs where they exist. Where they
do not exist, it is specified to use a non-5-letter code, precisely so that
they do not overlap with future UN LOCODEs. When the codes are not 5
letters, the first two letters have no meaning.

The codes are stablized, meaning that they will not change no matter what
changes happen in the base codes. So if Hawaii leaves the US and joins
Canada as a new province, "ushnl" would not change in CLDR even if the UN
LOCODE changes to "cahnl" or something else.




Mark <https://plus.google.com/114199149796022210033>
*
*
*— Il meglio è l’inimico del bene —*
**


On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 9:43 PM, Tobias Conradi <mail.2012 at tobiasconradi.com
> wrote:

> On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 8:11 PM, Guy Harris <guy at alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>
> > Perhaps both databases should be using the same LOCODE-derived
> identifiers as the "official" identifiers, with all the region/city names
> used as legacy backwards-compatibility names?  Using those as the
> "official" identifiers has the advantages that:
> >
> >         1) they look like line noise to humans,
>
> UN LOCODEs are structured and not noise to all humans. For US people:
> USNYC, USPDX, what may these refer to? Germans: DEBER ...? Italians
> ITROM ?
>
> > so UIs for setting the zone will perhaps make an effort to do something
> better than offer you a choice of zone identifiers or zone identifiers with
> underscores replaced by spaces;
>
> Programmers that feel like doing so can do so already.
>
> >         2) they look like line noise to humans, so perhaps people won't
> get quite as bent out of shape because The Wrong City was used;
>
> An often mentioned case is Asia/Shanghai where people request
> Asia/Beijing - with UN LOCODEs that would be CNSHA vs. CNBJS
>
> >         3) they look like line noise to humans, so perhaps people won't
> get quite as bent out of shape because The Wrong Region was used;
>
> The first two letters of UN LOCODEs are the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes,
> likely not noise to all humans.
>
> >         4) advantages 2 and 3 mean they won't have to change over time;
> ISO codes can change, the current region names are not affected by
> changes in country names and mergers or splits of countries.
>
> But CLDR ads a layer of problems on top if UN LOCODEs
>
> Some feedback regarding CLDR zone identifiers has been provided at:
> http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2012-May/017974.html
>
> Variable length and inconsistent country code usage:
> USNAVAJO (larger region, not a simple locality)
> MXSTIS
> JERUSALEM (This is not in JE JERSEY!)
> GAZA (This is not in GA GABON) - certainly not "line noise"
>
> It would have been easy to have at least fixed length identifiers,
> based on the UN LOCODEs:
> http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2012-May/017980.html
>
> It is common for identifiers created by ISO to have fixed length, e.g.
> ISWC, ISSN, ISMN, ISRC, ISBN, ISNI, ISAN, ISO country codes, ISO
> language codes.
>
> But maybe CLDR had limited understanding of UN LOCODEs and that is why
> they choose to not use five digits for places that they couldn't find
> a LOCODE for.
>
> --
> Tobias Conradi
> Rheinsberger Str. 18
> 10115 Berlin
> Germany
>
> http://tobiasconradi.com
>
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