On Wed Feb 20 20:26:14 2008, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 05:23:52PM +0000,
lconroy <lconroy(_at_)insensate(_dot_)co(_dot_)uk> wrote a message of 23
lines
which said:
So what the heck is wrong with UK (as in the country code TLD of
the
same name),
It's true that there is a discrepancy between ISO 3166 and the root
of
the DNS. Do not worry, David Conrad, IANA, reads this list and he
will
certainly resolve the discrepancy today by renaming the TLD ".uk" to
".gb".
In case anyone hasn't understood why the choice of GB as a
country-code for the UK is somewhat contentious to some people, it's
that "Great Britain" is [the island containing] Scotland, England,
and Wales, whereas the country itself is called "The United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".
Whilst I follow the decision of avoiding "United" and "Kingdom"
within country-codes, the resulting choice is unfortunate for people
on either side of Northern Irish politics, since GB either excludes
Northern Ireland, or else implicitly convolves it with the rest of
the UK, depending on one's viewpoint.
Whilst that's not a debate I take sides in, to many people this is an
important and sensitive issue. The solution is usually to hide
country codes from the user (using country names instead), or allow
UK and translate it internally.
Personally, I just use AQ for marketing forms, and often wonder how
they handle that.
Dave.
--
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