[tz] Please Don't Feed the Trolls (was Kyiv not Kiev)

[Guy Harris]

On Jun 29, 2022, at 10:17 AM, Petro Ord via tz <tz at iana.org> wrote:

> Is the news about russia revoking Lithuania independence a valid notice?
> https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/1714852/russia-s-duma-mulls-revoking-recognition-of-lithuanian-independence

It's a notice that a member of the Duma has submitted a bill to revoke the resolution “On Recognising the Independence of the Republic of Lithuania”.

It's not yet a law, so Russia has not revoked Lithuanian independence.

And changing the time observed in Lithuania will take more than a bill being passed by the Duma and a signature of that bill by the President of Russia, it would also require a successful occupation of a NATO member by Russia.

So it's not a notice relevant to the tzdb.

>> When Ukraine successfully reclaims the occupied territory I assume one
>> thing they will do is revert the local time back to Ukrainian standards
> United Nations General Assembly Resolution 68/262 adopted on 27 March
> 2014 affirmed the General Assembly's commitment to the territorial
> integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders and
> underscored the invalidity of the 2014 Crimean referendum.

What affect has the resolution had on the time to which Crimean residents set their watches and that Crimean residents expect their mobile phones/computing devices to display?

> What will you do if russia decides to change time in Mariupol and Kherson?
> Will the answer be that theory.html says, "If boundaries between
> regions are fluid, such as during a war or insurrection, do not bother
> to create a new timezone merely because of yet another boundary
> change."
> (https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2022-May/031414.html)

Possibly.  Unlike the Europe/Simferopol tzdb region, which had different time zone rules post-1970 and prior to the Russian occupation, Mariupol and Kherson were, I presume, on Kyiv time, so a time change there would require the creation of a new tzdb region.

> So the question ``Why are some changes done fast while Kyiv not Kiev
> errors remained unseen?" is open.

Because that's not a change that affects time conversion.  It's like the change from Asia/Calcutta to Asia/Kolkata; the city's name was changed in 2000 or 2001, to match the pronunciation in Bengali, and the tzdb name change occurred on 2008.  That name change occurred in the tzdata2008b release, which also included a number of changes that *did* affect time conversion; it wasn't a release that *solely* changed tzdb region names.