"Choose country" in Debian Installer
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> > You are right to notice that the word "country" should be changed. I
> > don't know the installer enough to make a proposal, but "location"
> > seems more appropriate.
>
> Yes, "country" in that context is not very accurate.
When the first releases of countrychooser were being thought, I
imagined this problem and thought about using "Choose location"
I was however told further that indeed "location" may seem pretty
vague as this may be a country, region, land, state, city, school,
whatever in the mind of the reader.
Because the list is far closer to a list of countries rather than a
list of "regions", the menu entry was finally made to "Choose
country". Note however that the official wording of iso-3166 is used
in the main countrychooser screens ("country, region or other area of
geopolitical interest").....this coming from a bug raised by the
Chinese people (mostly because it lists "China", "Taiwan blah blah",
"Hong-Kong" and at least one of these isn't a country, strictly
speaking)
So, sure, changing the entry for "Choose a country or region" may seem
appropriate, but then I fear that we receive complaints asking why
this or that region is not listed (examples: Catalunya, Corsica,
Basque Country, Bretagne and so on..).
There's also another argument in not putting "country or region" :
avoid nightmares to translators for keeping their translations short.
In some countries (not English speaking ones as far as I know, but
several European countries), including mine, the word "region" has a
very specific meaning : administrative subdivision of the country.
So, for instance, in France, I suspect the word "région" could be
highly confusing.
Maybe "area" or "territory" could be more appropriate.
> I believe locale names specify the second part of a locale to mean
> country or region. See <URL:http://rfc.sunsite.dk/rfc/rfc3066.html>
> for info on this part.
>
> As the listing is in fact a map from the second part of locales to
> names, it should probably ask the user to select "country or region".
This is a good argument also, sure.
I expect other people bring their opinion also.
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