Dzmitry Kazimirchyk <dkazimirchyk <at> gmail.com> writes:
I am in Belarus and I have recently noticed that my local timezone is displayed as MSK (Moscow Time) instead of FET (Further Eastearn European Time)....
The number of countries and territories whose current time zone abbreviations are their ISO-3166 standard two-letter country/territory abbreviation with a time suffix ("T", "T"/"ST", "ST", or "ST"/"DT") is 62 (AFT, AMT, ART, AZT/AZST, BDST, BNT, BOT, BRT/BRST, BTT, CCT, CKT, CLT, COT, CVT, CXT, ECT, FJT/FJST, FKST, GET, GFT, GST, GYT, HKT, IOT, IRST/IRDT, KGT, MHT, MMT, MUT, MVT, MYT, NCT, NFT, NPT, NRT, NUT, NZST/NZDT, PET, PGT, PHT, PKT, PMST/PMDT, PWT, PYT/PYST, RET, SBT, SCT, SGT, SRT, TFT, TJT, TKT, TLT, TMT, TOT, TVT, UYT/UYST, UZT, VET, VUT, WFT and WSST/WSDT). With such a well-established precedent, I cannot disagree that BYT is the most logical choice for representing the time zone in Belarus. Kudos to Garrett Wollman for suggesting it first! It is such a logical choice that at least one time zone web site, Time Genie (http://encyclopedia.timegenie.com/time_zones/time_zone_names_and_abbreviatio...), has been displaying BYT rather than FET as the time in Belarus for at least several months. Furthermore, I would like very, very much to see ISO-3166-based replacements for at least some of the ambiguous abbreviations. In my opinion, saying that IST means UTC+1 AND UTC+2 AND UTC+5:30 is as ludicrous as if an inch were equal to 2.54 cm AND 3 cm AND 4 cm. For example,... Change Irish Summer Time from IST to IEST. Change Israel Standard/ Daylight Saving Time from IST/IDT to ILST/ILDT. Change India Standard Time from IST to INST. (Please DON'T change Iran Time from IRST/IRDT to IST/IDT.) ;) Change Cuba Standard/ Daylight Saving Time from CST/CDT to CUST/CUDT. Change China Standard Time from CST to CNST. For the rest of the currently-used abbreviation ambiguities I have the following suggestions: AAST for Arabia Standard Time ANT/ANST for Amazon (Summer) Time BOUST for Bougainville Standard Time GUST for Gulf Standard Time With thanks... Happy communing... Hank W. of Austin, Texas, U.S.A.