Template talk:Mexico State-Abbreviation Codes

Latest comment: 9 months ago by Zedgama3 in topic What makes Statoids.com authoritative?

What makes Statoids.com authoritative? edit

Not sure how Statoids.com is the authority here. The 2-character abbreviation seems to be from the Statoid "HASC" codes, which the site's author simply made up: "I have defined a hierarchical set of subdivision codes, called HASC codes" http://www.statoids.com/ihasc.html. Retrieved 25 June 2013. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help) —unsigned

That author, Gwillim Law, states at http://www.statoids.com/umx.html under the heading "Notes on codes" (which see) that "The Mexican authorities never got around to deciding on an official set of two-letter state codes, so anyone who wanted to use such a set, made up their own." That section says "I recently did a search and found a dozen different systems of state codes or abbreviations for Mexico, most of which were two-letter codes. They were used by industry groups (railroads, airlines) and governments (state police departments, military), among others. No two of them were identical." This would explain why FedEx's version, for example (http://www.fedex.com/us/developer/product/WebServices/MyWebHelp/ReferenceTables/r_MexicoStateCodes.html), has some differences from Wikipedia's version as of this writing. I hunted around at Correos de México (http://www.correosdemexico.gob.mx/) and found no official Correos de México list. If Gwillim Law is correct that no official MX govt standard nor de facto universal commercial standard exists (and I suspect so, given that it is obvious from reading the site that Statoids.com content is deeply researched), then Wikipedia should make that clearer to the user of this template at a glance. I suggest that the table of this template have 2 columns—one for HASC code and one for FedEx or another source of equal importance and relevance to a postal abbreviations topic (UPS? DHL?). A column for Correos de México would be nice, but there's no point in having one unless or until they declare their own list. I am pinging @Gwil: in this thread for possible comment, on the guess that this is the same Gwillim Law. Quercus solaris (talk) 00:23, 13 January 2015 (UTC)Reply
I agree, but instead of using FexEx's codes (link no longer valid), I recommend using the U.S. Department of Transportation list (https://ask.fmcsa.dot.gov/euf/assets/mcmiscatalog/states.html). This list is from a federal agency and therefore, in my opinion, should be considered authoritative lacking any input from the Mexican government. I even searched the ISO standards, but they only list three letter abbreviations for Mexico. Zedgama3 (talk) 16:39, 14 July 2023 (UTC)Reply