Subject: [Ltru] Re: "Obsolete" region subtags

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 08:51:07 -0800

Frank Ellermann <nobody at xyzzy dot claranet dot de>  wrote:

>> The exchange I was talking about was actually before the WG
>> got underway.
>
> We could still find it, it's in the archive of the languages
> list - not what you wrote to the editors as summary, but the
> examples where draft 10 had some surprising effects for the
> start dates "begin of ISO 3166" and "begin of UN numbers".

I don't see any wording in draft-phillips-langtags-10 that differs in
this regard from draft-09.  Which section number or appendix are you
looking at?

>>> The draft already has many deprecated entries with pointers
>>> to new and stable canonical entries.
>
> > Not that many.  I count eight
>
> I counted some more, but less than twenty.  And about the same
> number of deprecated entries without new canonical value like
> sh or DD.

I can list the ones I found, but I think we agree the number is small
compared to 800+ generative subtags.

> You've probably not counted the 7 new grandfathered pointers.

I'm not worried about the grandfathered tags, since their number will
never increase once the draft is approved.

>> Having duplicate codes is actually something you want to do
>> as little as possible
>
> Yes, but it happened in the last twenty years, and the draft
> wants to be persistent for centuries.  Maybe this big CS mess
> was not only a bug, but also a feature, it demonstrated in fast
> forward motion that we're abusing ISO 3166-1, if we use it for
> "frozen" stable tags.

I am certain that we are not going to deprecate or phase out the use of
alpha-2 country codes in language tags.  I think continuing to pursue
this particular cause will be a waste of effort.

>> I wouldn't worry much about GB going away or being reused
>> any time soon (perhaps a different example would be more
>> convincing).
>
> Real examples in our earlier discussion were CS, GE, and SK.

Czechoslovakia, Gilbert and Ellice Islands, and Sikkim.

If the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland breaks up or
changes its name appreciably, such that ISO 3166/MA changes its alpha-2
code AND subsequently decides to reuse the code GB for some other
entity, any time within our lifetimes, I promise I will travel to your
home and personally offer my apology for my shortsightedness.  I'm not
trying to be rude, but I just don't see that particular reuse ever
happening.

> Public ISO 3166-3 sources:  I found nothing better than the
> URL you have, FOTW (flags of the world) lists the same codes
> <http://www.fotw.net/flags/iso3166n.html> reported by a FOTW
> user (see end of page).

I didn't know that very interesting site had an ISO 3166-3 page.  But in
any case, I already have a good *unofficial* source.  What I am looking
for is the real thing.

> The future tag reviewer could use corresponding newsletters.

I'm sure the future *subtag* reviewer will have as many puppies like me,
yapping at his feet with ISO change notices, as he can stand.

-Doug Ewell
 Fullerton, California
 http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/

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From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 08:37:21 -0800

In the next few days I will be working on a full description of all the
steps necessary to generate the initial draft registry, based on the
underlying standards and describing any judgments that were made.

This is not as trivial as it may seem, because of the need to consult
lists of withdrawn codes from various sources, among other things.

Also, I will submit some proposed changes to the registry that improve
its consistency with regard to underlying standards.  Some of these are
based on some of Frank's earlier suggestions.  More details later.

-Doug Ewell
 Fullerton, California