On Sat, Jun 18, 2016, at 21:54, Matt Johnson wrote:
Those are official abbreviations. Kosciusko is Ko, Madison is M. http://www.in.gov/dnr/historic/files/countysite_designations.pdf
Hmmm... The list appears to be about the county designations used in archaeological site numbers. I'm not sure that makes them the official abbreviations, nor would a typical Hoosier know about them.
As someone who lives in Indiana, I think people are more likely to know their county _number_ (which appears on car license plates) than an obscure 'official' abbreviation. Not that I'm suggesting actually using the numbers for this purpose. I'm not sure a systematic "list all the counties" approach is best in general. For one thing, it misleadingly excludes the counties that need to be on a non-"Indiana" zone (Chicago is the big one, and Louisville and IIRC New_York are also represented). It may be that trying to capture all the information people need to pick a timezone in the descriptions is futile. To a typical user setting up a new computer and not caring about the exact local-timezone hour of timestamps from before it was set up, there isn't a single place the state that isn't adequately served by Chicago and New_York. Would it be too much to ask for someone to whom it is important to read a few paragraphs of actual documentation rather than a half-line description?