Republic of Moldova

[Doug Ewell]

"Phillips, Addison" <addison at amazon dot com> wrote:

>> As such a change is mandatory for us, ISO 3166/MA will soon publish a 
>> 3166-1 Newsletter VI-4 about this change.
>
> Actually, they're not.
>
> RFC 4646 only requires us to track and deal with *new* code 
> assignments by UN M.49 and ISO 3166-1.

I assumed that Gérard meant it was mandatory for ISO 3166/MA to follow 
the change initiated by UNSD.  I could be wrong.

> It is a Good Thing to update the official name in the record and RFC 
> 4646 certainly encourages such changes. But they are not part of the 
> mandatory list of things that must be done. Note that anyone may 
> request the update to the record using the registration process.

I agree.  While I feel we should track these ISO 3166 name changes 
whenever it does not cause a problem, I do not believe it justifies more 
regulatory language in an 88-page draft that is already heavy with 
regulatory language.  We need the latitude to deviate from 3166 in the 
rare cases where it is necessary

Of course, in cases like the Koreas and the Congos, where two countries 
have the same base name and differ only in "Republic of" versus 
"Democratic Republic of," or some such, clearly care needs to be taken 
to maintain the distinction.  But I would think common sense would be 
sufficient even in these cases.  (Surely I can't be the only one who 
bristles upon hearing that Seoul is the capital of "Korea.")

--
Doug Ewell  *  Thornton, Colorado, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
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