[RFC] Country list for specifying location

[denise]

So, one of the things people bring up to us sometimes is that our country list -- used, for example, for setting your Location on the Edit Profile page -- is out of date. Which is absolutely true, and we admit it freely: the list is, more-or-less, the initial list of countries from 1998 when brad was creating LiveJournal, tweaked only slightly. There have been times in the intervening 15 years (oh God, it has been 15 years) whenever people reported countries having been created, renamed, or merged with others, but the updates were haphazard. Adding to the problem is the fact that national and geopolitical identity is often contentious, and is extremely personal. We don't want to step on anyone's toes.

It's well past time we figure something out, though, and right now, the best solution (though still far from being perfect) we can come up with is to use the list of United Nations member states plus permanent UN observers as the most definitive source. We thought we'd kick that out to y'all and see if anybody would be negatively effected by doing it that way, though.

(Not that I think I need to say this since y'all are generally awesome, but: when weighing in on this discussion, please be respectful of other commenters; national and geopolitical identity is, as I said, an often-contentious and extremely personal topic.)

Comments

[spockette]

This is tricky, because what you consider the country you live in is often all tied up in national identity.

The problem I can see is that this would remove Scotland from the list, meaning people in Scotland would have to choose "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."

Whilst Scotland is one of the constituent countries of the UK, a lot of people here consider themselves to be Scottish, not British (polling data for the past 10 years is here, showing that, for the years with data, somewhere between 72 - 80% identify as Scottish, not British).

Especially now, with the SNP (pro-independence party) holding a majority government, and an independence referendum scheduled for next year, the issues of Scottish vs. UK identity is an incredibly contentious issue, and I am concerned that removing the location 'Scotland' and replacing it with 'United Kingdom' is kind of like pouring gasoline on an already raging fire.

[sorchasilver]

I agree.

[denise]

Yeah, that's the sort of thing we're concerned about. But on the other hand, it's making decisions like that on a case-by-case basis that's given us the mishmash of countries, former countries, territories, regions, regional subdivisions with a substantial nationalist/separatist movement, etc, that we have now -- for a while, inclusion on the country drop-down was basically "did you catch Brad in a good mood and convince him your national/geopolitical identity should be included in the list", which leads to really inconsistent results :/

So it's really tough. On the one hand, I can totally sympathize and agree with the desire for people in the UK-but-not-Britain to want to list the country they feel they belong in rather than the UK. (As well as many other issues.) On the other hand, doing anything other than "UN member countries and permanent observers" opens us up to having to make a judgement call in each particular situation, rather than simply deferring it to the UN, and we aren't experts there and would no doubt misstep.

It's a really hard problem. I don't think there's any one perfect solution. (At least, if we do go with this route, people whose self-identity is strongly tied up in a country that doesn't have official UN recognition would still be able to list their city and region, and specify detail in their bio: 'country' isn't a required field.)

[ratcreature]

But even putting the contested places aside, what do you do with territories that just aren't countries, but aren't properly part of another country either? Like those British Colonies that haven't become independent, but aren't part of the "United Kingdom" either? Like the British Overseas Territories or closer to the UK the Crown Dependencies? They aren't part of the UK like Scotland is (for now at least), but self-governing possessions of the British Crown.

Or Puerto Rico for that matter with the US. Right now it's on the list as "country".

[jd]

To make things even more fun, Puerto Rico is also in the US list of "states", so it (and a few other US insular areas) has a double listing.

[sara]

for a while, inclusion on the country drop-down was basically "did you catch Brad in a good mood and convince him your national/geopolitical identity should be included in the list", which leads to really inconsistent results :/

What is the problem with starting with any of these lists (UN, ISO, whatever) and then adding everything you get a user request for?

[ninetydegrees]

Not D, but I would say, in addition to making decisions about whether the request is a 'valid' one or not, maintaining that list, which is one of the current problems.

[sara]

Why would it be appropriate for a web hosting provider cum social networking service to make decisions about the "validity" of someone's national self-identification?

[ninetydegrees]

Because you get things like Hogwarts, which I haven't a problem with, but then you're back to the idea of a text field and not a drop down menu because it has little purpose then.

[arethinn]

I think that's kind of the point - they don't want to be put in the place of having to make those kinds of decisions.

[amadi]

That seems to run the risk of a mile long list diluted by the inclusion of every place someone has a strong feeling about declaring as their home country, even in absence of meaningful political movements or line of belief that it actually is a country, will be, or should be. This is also an area where someone could ostensibly be persecuted (or prosecuted) for their "political activities" on the internet. Messy business.