Subject: [Ltru] Re: 003 vs. 021

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2005 22:05:47 -0700

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

>> I suppose I could write to [email-masked] and see if they
>> can tell me the "official" status of 003 and 021.
>
> Good idea, or ask their Web master what (s)he used as source.
> If you get no reply drop 003 for the moment, adding it later
> is no problem, removing it later is more or less impossible.

We should be able to get the source.

One possible problem that I'm wondering about is how much thought the UN
Statistics Division has actually given to these codes.  After all, UNSD
publishes a quite a few databases of "real" statistics.  If you need to
know how many left-handed Protestant longshoremen were employed in each
nation in 2000, and how much their mean salaries were, and how those
figures compare to 1990 and 1980, chances are good UNSD can tell you.
The list of region codes may be just an incidental mechanism to help
them prepare these other statistical compendia, not a true database in
its own right, which is how we are using it.

>> It doesn't take long, in discussions about the coverage of
>> ISO 3166-1 and decisions made in its creation, for somebody
>> to point scornfully at codes like BV and HM
>
> Sure, using ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes to define regions is one
> of these simple but stupid ideas - sometimes my KISS-religion
> doesn't work as expected.

People criticize the existence of BV and HM for reasons having nothing
to do with language tags.

>> Do I tag this as es-HN, es-013, es-419, es-019, or just plain
>> es?  The answer is, none of these is incorrect.
>
> That doesn't answer your question.  It's an excellent question,
> it should be added to the registry draft.

The draft already says, "Use as precise a tag as possible, but no more
specific than is justified. Avoid using subtags that are not important
for distinguishing content in an application."  I would interpret "as
precise as possible" to mean that if I know the language variant is
Honduran, then I should use -HN and not the others, whereas if all I
know is that it's from somewhere in Latin America, I should use a more
general numeric code.  If I can't even tell anything except "it's
Spanish," then I go with plain es.  As the one tagging the data, I am
responsible for making decisions like this.

> I note that you did not propose es-003.
>
>> IMHO it does not cause "major havoc."
>
> I'd know how to implement HN < 013 < 419 < 019 < 001.  It's a
> clear structure.  But 003 breaks this simple structure, neither
> is 419 < 003 nor 003 < 419, and the intersection of 419 and 003
> is not empty.
>
> So yes, it could cause havoc for smart geo-matching strategies.

I agree with your analysis of this situation.  003 is an odd bird that
does not fit into the nice, neat "Geographical region and composition"
hierarchy.  Frankly, it reminds me of the economic codes.  I'd like to
see it disappear.

But you need to understand that the registry is not just a reflection of
what I'd like to see.  Its contents need to be determined on the basis
of stable, defensible rules, applied to references that people trust,
devised by authorities that are in a position to devise them.

So if the UN Statistics Division says that 003 is a quasi-economic code
that really doesn't belong in its hierarchy, and that's why it only
appears in a footnote, that would probably justify its removal.  If Doug
or Frank don't like it, that probably isn't good enough.  If the Working
Group came to a rough consensus that it should be removed from the
registry, that would be fine, but we'd better have a good, solid
justification for this "cherry-picking" (to use the term Bruce Lilly
applied to a situation much like this one).

BTW, I'd love to see matching algorithms implement a "smart geo-matching
strategy" like the one you described.  I hope that view is more
prevalent in the future than the view that says "remove subtags blindly
from right to left."

> The "same piece of land" rule was something invented by you in
> our region-code-discussions on the languages list before LTRU.

The "same piece of land" rule was *only* intended to explain why certain
withdrawn codes were or were not mapped to certain current codes -- for
example, why BU was mapped to MM but DD was not mapped to DE.

You'll notice I haven't mentioned the "same piece of land" rule since
the LTRU WG came into existence.  If you hadn't noticed, we abandoned it
and adopted your rule, "either use ISO 3166-3 completely or not at
all" -- and as you can see, DD is now mapped to DE as you wanted.  As
Randy says, we are starting fresh with this WG.

> Addison's related articles here, just remove the angle brackets
> and add e.g. news://news.gmane.org/ or http://mid.gmane.org/ in
> front of the Message-ID to see the complete article:
>
>  <[email-masked]>
> | perhaps the UN M.49 codes should be notes in the registry to
> | assist with clarity in the future
>
>  <[email-masked]>
> |> (a) by preserving all assigned ISO 3166 codes with their
> |> original meaning, except those that have already been
> |> reassigned, and using UN numeric codes in the case of future
> |> reassignments
> [...]
> | I support (a).  Frank has convinced me that I would be in
> | favor of a fourth option (d): same as (a) but include the
> | M.49 codes in the description.

OK, I see what you're talking about.  He meant referencing the UN codes
in comments, not making them part of the language tag itself (and I note
that you never said otherwise).

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

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