[tz] Grouped country lists are confusing

[Stephen Colebourne]

On Sun, 30 Oct 2022 at 04:41, Paul Eggert <eggert at cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
>
> On 2022-10-29 10:20, Stephen Colebourne via tz wrote:
> > Can I propose these comments be altered to something like:
> >
> > # Germany
> > # also applicable since 1970 to Denmark
> > # also applicable since 1970 to Norway
> > # also applicable since 1970 to Sweden
>
> That wording would suggest that Germany is "more important" than the
> other countries. I expect we'll be better off deemphasizing the role of
> politics in the data commentary as much as we easily can, and this is
> why the names are currently listed in simple alphabetical order.
>
> Although we'll get political flames no matter what, we'd likely get more
> flames if we habitually listed what appears to be the biggest and most
> powerful country first, followed by a list of its neighbors as seeming
> appendages.

The definition of Belgium/Luxembourg/Netherlands:

Title: 3 lines - Belgium/Luxembourg/Netherlands
Commentary about Belgium: 31 lines
Rule Belgium: 39 lines
Zone Europe/Brussels: 10 lines

Apart from the last 2 lines of the Zone, all the remaining lines of
the section (97.5%) are exclusively about Belgium.

In `backzone` you find

Title: Luxembourg
Commentary about Luxembourg: 2 lines
Rule Lux: 23 lines
Zone Europe/Luxembourg: 7 lines

Title: Netherlands
Commentary about Netherlands: 41 lines
Rule Neth: 23 lines
Zone Europe/Amsterdam: 6 lines

No independent observer will ever describe the data in the main file
as equally representing Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Anyway, I don't care that much, it is your business if you want to
leave the section titles claiming something that clearly isn't
supported by the section's data.

thanks
Stephen
https://github.com/JodaOrg/global-tz