On Sun, 4 Oct 2026 at 13:01, Brooks Harris <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> That said, putting it in red letters on the IANA page is not likely to > >> accomplish much. > > But is wouldn't hurt, would it? > If framed wrongly, or without care, it could. Ultimately, the goal is cooperation — "help us help you". Any sort of "tsk, tsk" with big red letters could cause our guidance to be perceived as scolding or adversarial, which would work against our actual goal. We can only really *advise* interested parties on how best to achieve a desired outcome with minimal disruption — primarily from a technical standpoint, but also to a lesser extent in other regards that ripple outward from there. We can also point to the potential risks and consequences of hastier decisions, so that decision-makers can better weigh them against the relative importance of other factors — not the least of which is the ever-fickle public opinion. That said, as Kim and Mark have discussed, I absolutely agree that we should make our official guidance more prominent and more replete — even if only so *I* can find it better when necessary! While we hear quite a bit from CLDR as some of our "closest neighbors" project-wise, it could help considerably if we were able to partner with IATA and ITU contacts on this as well. I'd imagine these sorts of last-minute changes can be rough on them, too, but they may also have some established processes that would be illustrative — e.g., beyond a certain point, the planes have already been scheduled, regardless of what local clocks may say! On Sun, 4 Oct 2026 at 14:28, James Bellaire via tz <[email protected]> wrote: > I am not sure how well the public in Canada would have taken it if all > of this year's changes were proclaimed effective March 2027 instead of > immediately. The end users didn't want to wait a year for the change. > > Perhaps the presentation can include illustrations (without insulting > specific policymakers) of where short notice caused a problem? That's arguably the hardest part. One way to be neutral and not risk offending anyone is to simply publish observed timelines for the rollout of all changes — good, bad, and everything in between. But to be more effective, we would likely need to point to specific examples where short leadtimes have led to adverse impacts. The two strategies could perhaps work best in tandem. > Perhaps through the ITU? While there is no international approval > required for a country to change their time zones, educating the right > agencies in each country might help the decision makers in their > countries. (Although with local politics the decision makers may still > decide to ignore the technical hurdles.) > Yes, even if the best possible advice is made readily accessible through multiple channels, it will still occasionally fall on deaf ears. And even among those that *will* hear it, their tolerance for disruption in order to achieve a policy goal will vary considerably. It all comes with the territory. At the end of the day, it's just our job to document and translate — proactively when possible and prudent, and reactively (albeit measuredly) otherwise. On Sun, 4 Oct 2026 at 15:55, James Bellaire via tz <[email protected]> wrote: > I am just considering a path to their policymakers. I expect there is > some staff involvement. > Even just having this information in a prominent, dedicated spot would help a lot for visibility if a staffer is asking a colleague, search engine, or LLM such things as "we want to do this; what do we need to consider first?" -- Tim Parenti
