[tz] Politics of TZ changes

[SM]

At 09:41 14-05-2014, Kim Davies wrote:
>My suggestion would be to focus on what you have proposed without 
>the "official international governance" part. What seems to be 
>lacking is a best practices document that describes the optimal way 
>for the powers-that-be to enact time zone changes. Such a document 
>could explain which communities should be advised or consulted in 
>enacting such a change, and the recommended amount of lead times 
>that different industries need for changes to propagate. It could 
>also describe potential risks (such as economic impacts) of making 
>such changes, particularly with a short lead time.

I agree that it would be better to focus on the suggestion without 
"official international governance".  The intent of the time zone 
database is a record of the time set on the clocks in a region.  The 
database can be used as a source of information for someone in a 
different location to find out the local time in a region.

The  problems could be:

   (a) The short lead time

   (b) Lack of information about the time change

   (c) Politics

I gather that everyone agrees that it is better to stay far away from (c). :-)

>If such a best practices document existed, that would be a good 
>foundation that one could use to pursue awareness with the relevant 
>governing agencies. Jumping straight to official governance route 
>seems to me to less likely to achieve anything. In my experience, 
>governments are generally quite eager to have practical documents 
>developed by experts that they can use to help guide them. They do 
>not have to have to be enforced by treaty to have utility.

The suggestion might be about having a best practices document for 
(a) and (b).  It's a good idea.  One of the issues is how to do that 
without getting near (c).  I would suggest having a file similar to 
the Theory file to explain (a) and (b).

Regards,
-sm