From: timk@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca (Tim Kuehn)
Subject: Re: locality abbreviations 
Organization: TDK Consulting Services
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 00:37:43 GMT

In article <1993Jan07.212332.1610@xenitec.on.ca> eah@xenitec.on.ca (Ed Hew) writes:
>In article <1993Jan6.224037.15946@sol.UVic.CA> klassen@sol.UVic.CA (Melvin Klassen) writes:
>>In article <1993Jan5.174007> timk@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca (Tim Kuehn) writes:
>>>
>>>However, if we took the first four letters of all the city name(s), 
>>>would that generate a unique identifier within a province? 
>>Hmm.  In B.C., there are:
>>
>>Port Moody           Bella Bella
>>Port Alberni         Bella Coola
>>
>>so "four" or "five" isn't enough!
>
>Four or five, or sometimes even two or three characters might be
>adequate.  They need only be unique and generally accepted for a
>given locality.  They don't all have to be the same length.

They don't have to be the same length, and if some other better-
working naming convention is proposed which has a variable-length 
name abbreviations of geographical sites, I'll be all for it.
My "first 4 of each word" is a proposal only, and I for one am 
certainly not joined at the waist to it. :-)

>For example, "Kitchener-Waterloo" is generally accepted within the
>community as "KW".  Most people I know abbreviate "Vancouver" to
>"Van" when they feel like applying an abbreviation at all.  I'd
>consider "Tor" as a logical abbreviation for "Toronto", "Miss" for
>"Mississauga", "Ott" for "Ottawa", "Lon" for "London", although
>in many of these instances I'd want to question why we would want
>to bother abbreviating six character locality names.  

You could have it both ways -- put both "toronto" and "toro" in the 
name space, and people can use either domain with an assurance
of it getting there.

One of the reasons for establishing a .ca-wide naming system is consistency 
over the entire name space. If "first-4 of every word" or some variant 
is adopted, it needs to exist and apply over all the involved namespace 
involved without exception to avoid confusion by those who may not be as 
familiar with our local abbreviations as others are. A simple naming rule 
can be published, and made widely known a lot easier than an ad-hoc naming
system based on who submits an application first. New sites/domains can
be added in a consistent and logical manner, without worrying about which
name to apply to a given area, and if a given name applies at all.

This does not mean that other, generally and popularly accepted names 
such as "KW", "Miss", "Ott", "Lon", etc. can't be registered as well. 
One then can have their cake both ways, and consume them both 
simultaneously. :-) But we need to have one *standard* naming system
that can be applied .ca-wide, and allow any exceptions to be just that - 
exceptions, and not make the naming rule more contorted than it needs to 
be.

>Being semi-silly
>for a moment, how would one abbreviate "Ayr" (a small Ontario
>locality)?  Why bother?  IMHO, this discussion really only applies
>to long, unwieldy locality names.

Ayr can't be abbreviated. The "First 4 of every word" would only
return 3 chars because that's all that locality has.

>Getting back to the examples in the posting this is a follow-up to,
>it's my opinion that since we don't have any sort of official list
>to go by, the first applicant to ask for a particular reasonable
>locality abbreviation would result in that abbreviation becoming
>the "standard" for that locality.  So, if someone registers
>foo.edm.ab.ca (vrs foo.edmonton.ab.ca), then both "edm" and "edmonton"
>would forever more be the "official" allowable ways of specifying
>Edmonton in CA domain registrations.  

And in that direction lies (shudder) chaos and more headaches than
I care to consider.

>Please remember, all the above is IMHO.  Nothing on this has yet
>been decided.

Understood.

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