I'm not familiar with either the UN list or the ISO list but I do have a question - what would happen when a country dissolves, or when this new list is adopted, and the list of country names no longer includes a country that a DW user has listed as their country?
Maybe it's a lot of work but I don't know why the idea that the existing list can't be added to by any DW user who submits a support request indicating what country they identify as coming from is somehow less authoritative than somebody at the UN deciding what's a country. The factors for saying no would be "This is not spelled correctly" and "this country was created by an author". If anyone has a problem with a specific country name being on the list the answer can simply be "there is at least one DW user who identifies as from this country and we respect their right to say so".
(FTR I'm Canadian but 95% of my relatives would throw a bloody fit if you told them they had to identify as coming from the UK instead of from Scotland. I also used to work at the UoT Slavic Languages and Literatures department where "what country are you from" was not exactly a minor issue. Let me tell you the ranting that would go on regarding what they force Macedonia to identify as in the parade of nations at the Olympics was not pretty and that was the most minor of the issues.)
no subject
Maybe it's a lot of work but I don't know why the idea that the existing list can't be added to by any DW user who submits a support request indicating what country they identify as coming from is somehow less authoritative than somebody at the UN deciding what's a country. The factors for saying no would be "This is not spelled correctly" and "this country was created by an author". If anyone has a problem with a specific country name being on the list the answer can simply be "there is at least one DW user who identifies as from this country and we respect their right to say so".
(FTR I'm Canadian but 95% of my relatives would throw a bloody fit if you told them they had to identify as coming from the UK instead of from Scotland. I also used to work at the UoT Slavic Languages and Literatures department where "what country are you from" was not exactly a minor issue. Let me tell you the ranting that would go on regarding what they force Macedonia to identify as in the parade of nations at the Olympics was not pretty and that was the most minor of the issues.)