Long "short names" (was: Re: Request to register private-use variant subtags)

[Doug Ewell]

Gordon P. Hemsley wrote:

> There are other problems with accepting the Registry verbatim, as
> well. For example, the value the Description field is often much more
> verbose than it needs to be. In particular, it would be undesirable to
> accept name a like "Islamic Republic of Iran" when "Iran" would do
> just fine. Space is at a premium in a user interface.

By the way, I also don't like ISO 3166 "short names" such as these, 
which seem to be more about national pride than clarity. How many people 
do you know who would speak of "United Republic of Tanzania" or "Lao 
People's Democratic Republic"?

Lately we have begun to establish a precedent that changes to short 
names in ISO 3166 such as "Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of," which add 
nothing to clarity but make some NB happy, need not be copied slavishly 
into the LSR. Unfortunately, efforts to simplify or clarify some of the 
existing names ran into obstacles, as it is hard to draw the line 
between big improvements and minuscule ones not worth the effort.

--
Doug Ewell | Thornton, Colorado, USA
http://www.ewellic.org | @DougEwell ­