[tz] Belarus is listed in MSK timezone

Hank W. hankw1 at austin.rr.com
Thu Apr 9 12:03:33 UTC 2015


Dzmitry Kazimirchyk <dkazimirchyk <at> gmail.com> writes:

> 
> I am in Belarus and I have recently noticed that my local timezone is 
> displayed as MSK (Moscow Time) instead of FET (Further Eastearn European 
> Time)....


The number of countries and territories whose current time zone
abbreviations are their ISO-3166 standard two-letter country/territory
abbreviation with a time suffix ("T", "T"/"ST", "ST", or "ST"/"DT") is 62
(AFT, AMT, ART, AZT/AZST, BDST, BNT, BOT, BRT/BRST, BTT, CCT, CKT, CLT, COT,
CVT, CXT, ECT, FJT/FJST, FKST, GET, GFT, GST, GYT, HKT, IOT, IRST/IRDT, KGT,
MHT, MMT, MUT, MVT, MYT, NCT, NFT, NPT, NRT, NUT, NZST/NZDT, PET, PGT, PHT,
PKT, PMST/PMDT, PWT, PYT/PYST, RET, SBT, SCT, SGT, SRT, TFT, TJT, TKT, TLT,
TMT, TOT, TVT, UYT/UYST, UZT, VET, VUT, WFT and WSST/WSDT).  With such a
well-established precedent, I cannot disagree that BYT is the most logical
choice for representing the time zone in Belarus.  Kudos to Garrett Wollman
for suggesting it first!  It is such a logical choice that at least one time
zone web site, Time Genie
(http://encyclopedia.timegenie.com/time_zones/time_zone_names_and_abbreviations/),
has been displaying BYT rather than FET as the time in Belarus for at least
several months.

Furthermore, I would like very, very much to see ISO-3166-based replacements
for at least some of the ambiguous abbreviations.  In my opinion, saying
that IST means UTC+1 AND UTC+2 AND UTC+5:30 is as ludicrous as if an inch
were equal to 2.54 cm AND 3 cm AND 4 cm.  For example,...
Change Irish Summer Time from IST to IEST.
Change Israel Standard/ Daylight Saving Time from IST/IDT to ILST/ILDT.
Change India Standard Time from IST to INST.
(Please DON'T change Iran Time from IRST/IRDT to IST/IDT.)  ;)
Change Cuba Standard/ Daylight Saving Time from CST/CDT to CUST/CUDT.
Change China Standard Time from CST to CNST.

For the rest of the currently-used abbreviation ambiguities I have the
following suggestions:
AAST for Arabia Standard Time
ANT/ANST for Amazon (Summer) Time
BOUST for Bougainville Standard Time
GUST for Gulf Standard Time

With thanks... Happy communing...
Hank W. of Austin, Texas, U.S.A.





More information about the tz mailing list