Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:16:11 +0100 From: "Clive D.W. Feather" <clive@davros.org> Message-ID: <20111020131611.GD27386@davros.org> In a message that started out on another thread I don't want to get involved with ... | While it would be nice if they sent us updates, we can't force them. That's true, but I kind of suspect, that we have never even asked. I had been wondering about that, and considering doming something about it, for months now - and just possibly "considering" is all it would ever have been, however, perhaps we should attempt a little better than that. Attempting to contact everyone responsible, directly, would be a lot of work, just identifying the parties involved, so I thought it might be possible to take an easier route, and just ask the UN to do the contact work for us - that is, we write to the UN Secretary General, and ask that the message be redistributed to all member states - the message being a request that they ask whoever (whatever agency) is responsible for actually implementing time issues, to please inform us of any planned or actual changes - and perhaps, if they're able, any historical data they have. If people think this is a reasonable idea then I will implement it. Note: I don't much care if you expect it to actually succeed - if it fails, it has cost almost nothing, but if anyone can see an actual negative possibility from this, then I'd like to hear about it. Also, while I'm happy to draft (and circulate to the list before sending) the letter involved, it would probably be nice from the UN's viewpoint, if we could send in both English and French (and anything else? I doubt we need to consider attempting all 6 official languages.) That I cannot do, so I'd need assistance with translation into French (and anything else suggested as a good idea) - and that assistance needs to be from a fluent (native) speaker I believe, not someone who learned the language in school. Any volunteers? (It won't be very long.) kre