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Ping?

 

It’s been over a week; I’d like to see us move toward closure on this issue, please.

 

 

Peter

 

From: ISO 639 Joint Advisory Committee [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Peter Constable
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 3:45 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: decision required: "other" collections

 

I want to revive this discussion so that hopefully we can bring closure on it. I introduced two issues at the same time last April, “other” collections, and “mis”. The latter got people’s attention, and the former never got resolved. (The mis issue was resolved, so the passing mention of it below can be ignored.)

 

Millicent replied that removing “Other” may be a problem for those using ISO 639-2 but not ISO 639-3. I responded to that suggesting that this can be considered an application decision. Havard further responded mentione 639-5 in the context of the entire 639 family suggesting that 639-2 may be one of many possible subsets in which the meaning of “other” would differ – the implication being that each subset needs to define the intension or extension of collections considered to be “other” collections in relation to the given subset. (Havard’s message, which includes what Millicent and I wrote, is attached.)

 

I note that the code table in ISO 639-5 FDIS does not include “(Other)” in any entries, including the entries for all of the “other” collections currently in 639-2.

 

My proposal to remove “other” as described below stands.

 

 

Peter

 

From: ISO 639 Joint Advisory Committee [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Peter Constable
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2007 1:28 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: decisions required: "other" collections, mis

 

One of the issues I had identified was that the exclusive “other” collections no longer make sense in a general application of ISO 639 since now every known language has its own identifier. It was not an issue that absolutely needed to be addressed before part 3 was published, but part 3 is now published, and users of the standards are encountering this issue. Specifically, the group that works on IETF language tags is currently revising that spec to incorporate part 3 and would like to see all the collections handled consistently in a way that allows their application to treat them all as inclusive.

 

So, I propose that “other” be removed from all collection names (except perhaps mis – I’ll discuss that in another thread). I understand that some applications, such as MARC, would still want to treat some collections as exclusive. I don’t see this change as contradicting that: we simply need to clarify that, in a particular application that does not use all of the identifiers in the combined parts of ISO 639, particular collections may be used in an exclusive manner, at the discretion of the particular application.

 

Proposed change: make all collections to be of one type with one pattern for naming.

 

Action if accepted:

·         ISO 639-2 tables and the draft table for ISO 639-5: all names of the form “Foo (Other)” changed to “Foo languages”. A note added in appropriate places explaining that applications may use collections in an exclusive manner according to the needs of the particular application. (Corresponding changes should get made in a revision to the text of ISO 639-2.)

·         ISO 639-3: A note added in description of collection scope explaining that applications may use collections in an exclusive manner according to the needs of the particular application.

 

 

 

Peter