Avoiding Problems by Avoiding Decisions

Allan Sandfeld Jensen kde at carewolf.com
Mon May 17 18:55:20 BST 2004


On Monday 17 May 2004 15:42, Charles de Miramon wrote:
> >I agree that doing that would remove the most offensive part of it, but
> >unfortunatly the flags are there for a purpose:
> >
> >They help non-english speakers to find their own language from a default
> >installation, and they help people like me if I accidentenly select a
> > wierd language I can't decifer.
> >
> >Because of this I believe the flags should stay.
>
> The problem is that flags are also liable to crazy nationalistic conflicts
> like the ex-flag of Macedonia where Greece objected that they "stole" a
> national Greek icon (a symbol depicted on the tomb of Philippe II of
> Macedonia). So, if we don't want any problem, we should remove flags even
> if I like them and they are cute.
>
> With Georges' solution, what do we do with linguistic groups that span
> between several countries and have nationalistic claims. If KDE is fully
> translated in Basque, the Basque team will certainly wan't an Euskadi entry
> not subordinated under Spain or France. Personnally, I don't care.
>
> By the way, I've spotted that in KDE 3.2.2, Liechtenstein is classified in
> Western Europe but Austria and Switzerland in Central Europe ; Germany outs
> itself in Central Europe ; Estonia in Nordic Europe but Lettonia in Central
> Europe. Classifications are never neutral.
>
Those clasifications is f***ed up, if a spanish user is looking for Spain 
should he look in southern of western Europe, and why exactly is Estonia 
northern european if Latvia is eastern and Lithuania is central european? And 
what on earth is Azerbeijan doing in eastern Europe?? (especially if Georgia 
is supposed to be in Asia)

Fixing Africa and Asia to have shorter list is easy, touching the boundaries 
of asia and eastern europe, and between central and eastern Europe is more 
political trouble.

I propose we either allow duplicates or make a list based upon geography, 
somehow dividing Europe, Asia and Africa into the following categories:

Europe: Nordic, Baltic, Western(Atlantic?), Central, Middeteranian and Eastern
Asia: Middle-east, Central, East
Africa: North, Central, West and Southern


`Allan




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