David Patte ₯ wrote:
they are designations currently seem to be decided at whim by the tz maintainers according to their belief of what the most locals would use if they spoke English
It's not just locals; it's English-speakers in general.
there should be clear rules
Guidelines are here: https://data.iana.org/time-zones/theory.html Also see the most recent development version here: https://github.com/eggert/tz/blob/master/theory.html
the db should record the official political designation Although we cannot avoid politics entirely, we should strive to avoid as much as possible in tzdb. For example, tzdb should not take any position on Israel vs Palestine, North Korea vs South Korea, or Canada vs the United States. It's not our job to address such disputes and it would be a waste of our limited resources if the disputes got in the way of our job.