On 2025-12-03 01:01, James Lai via tz wrote:
I hope you are well. I am writing regarding the naming of the IANA time zone
*“Indian/Mauritius.”
*
Many users in Mauritius have reported confusion because the word *“Indian”* is
often interpreted as referring to *India* rather than the *Indian Ocean* region.
This creates misunderstandings when scheduling international meetings,
especially on platforms like Zoom, Google Calendar, and others that rely
directly on IANA time zone identifiers.
I understand that renaming time zones is avoided due to compatibility concerns.
However, I would like to kindly ask whether:
1. An alternative label such as *“IndianOcean/Mauritius”* could be considered,
or
2. A documented alias or clarification could be added to help reduce confusion
for end users.
Even a non-breaking solution (e.g., an alias) would greatly help clarify the
intended meaning without disrupting existing systems.
Thank you for your time and for maintaining this important global standard.
Hi,
See https://data.iana.org/time-zones/theory.html#naming
Preferably upgrade your interface so it uses localized time zone references
from, for example, the Unicode International Components for Unicode interface
package (using the Unicode Common Locale Data Repository info) in the users'
preferred language, rather than raw tz db identifers, never intended for display
to users, as nowadays the most populous city (at some point in the past) using
that zone may not necessarily be in the local region or may be in a different
country, or else document and explain the continent or ocean and largest city
usage to your users.
In your case, the selection list could perhaps start with "Local Mauritius
Time", before dumping a list of ASCII English identifiers in front of your users.
For third party packages, complain bitterly and publicly on their socials about
the non-localized amateurish interface with a bunch of ASCII English identifiers
that they expect users to figure out, as they really don't care, rather than a
more friendly map or list of nore local gazetteer locations.
I know I am (and probably some others are) looking at how best to migrate to
provide only data for the shortest set of currently effective time zones now
(internally zonenow.tab), which will be the most populous city (at some point in
the past) somewhere (else - mostly) in the world, where that time zone's rules
matches the local time zone rules from now on.
--
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada
La perfection est atteinte Perfection is achieved
non pas lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à ajouter not when there is no more to add
mais lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à retrancher but when there is no more to cut
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
