[Ltru] action item: "other" collections in 639

In our teleconf, I took an action to push the ISO 639 JAC for action on getting rid of "other" collections.

Last status was that I raised the issue within the JAC back in April. There was a bit of discussion, but I had also raised the "mis" issue at the same time, and that got all the attention. There were just a couple of comments wrt "other": someone from LOC mentioned that "other" was still meaningful for those using 639-2 and not 639-3 (implying a desire not to change). I suggested that that was an issue to be handled by applications of a 639 standard. Another member replied that, in the context of 639 as a whole, there can be applications using different subsets, and so "other" would need to be defined in the context of the particular subset.

Also relevant here is that the code table in ISO/FDIS 639-5 does not include "other" in *any* of the entries (which are a superset of the collections in 639-2). That itself suggests to me that getting rid of "other" is very likely to happen and that it's just a matter of how long it takes for that to get reflected in data tables provided by either LOC or SIL.

At any rate, I have restarted discussion on this within the JAC and will try to push for quick action.

Peter

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