Alan Barrett said:
As a general rule, I think that existing information should never be replaced by other information with the same or worse quality, but should only be replaced by information of greater quality. In other words, rules should be changed only when the new rules are clearly superior to the old rules. Even if the old rules are known to be inaccurate, they should be retained for the sake of stability until such time as more accurate information is known.
I don't agree. If we know or have good reason to believe that the data is completely bogus, then there's no point in retaining it. And having different data for two zones produces a subconcious belief that both are higher quality than if we just have the same. So where the data is completely wrong, I vote for these merges.
I also prefer retaining at least one first class zone for each ISO3166 country, for ease of menu or map based selection, and to allow users to see that the selected zone name contains the name of a familiar city in their country. I think that some users will be upset to see a time zone name that contains the name of a city in another country, especially if the two countries have a history of conflict.
I completely agree with this part. -- Clive D.W. Feather | If you lie to the compiler, Email: clive@davros.org | it will get its revenge. Web: http://www.davros.org | - Henry Spencer Mobile: +44 7973 377646