Talk:International Organization for Standardization

Current Map Error
The current map is incorrect; Taiwan is marked as being an ISO member, but is not - it has no representation in the organization (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countries_in_the_International_Organization_for_Standardization). The previous map got this right (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ISO_Members.svg). Should the existing map be updated, or replaced with the older, correct version? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.142.121.165 (talk) 04:09, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Edit: this one might be better, and also shows the distinction - clearly specifying "Other places with an ISO 3166-1 code who aren't members of ISO": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ISO_members.png — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.142.121.165 (talk) 04:11, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

ISO and Copyrights
What's the copyright status of the standard documents? They are for sale in the ISO website Davidme 03:29 Feb 5, 2003 (UTC)

The material on ISO Online is subject to the same conditions of copyright as ISO publications, and its use is subject to the user's acceptance of ISO's conditions of copyright for ISO publications, as set out below. Any use of the material, including reproduction in whole or in part to another Internet site, requires permission in writing from ISO.

 The short country names from ISO 3166-1 and the alpha-2 codes are made available by ISO at no charge for internal use and non-commercial purposes. The use of ISO 3166-1 in commercial products may be subject to a licence fee.

Is this GFDL-compatible? Davidme
 * No, the ISO standards are public, in that they are published, and you can use them to claim conformance. But while the standards documents are available for purchase, they are pretty expensive. You can get a license from ISO to reprint or include a standard in another publication, but the license is also expensive, and their terms for any on-line use are so prohibitve that almost no online versions exist. Lou I


 * Why no mention about this being self-defeating? Many small (or non-profit) software developers are forced to use incomplete and frequently inaccurate 3rd-party specifications or old ISO drafts due to the prohibitive cost of ISO documents. This issue works directly against the mandate of ISO. Boardhead 16:37, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

While ISO standards are copywrited, most published final standards are the result of draft versions submitted or updated by members. The U.S. government's standards body NIST maintains that since these were frequently created with public funds, the draft version is public domain. Lou I 19:48, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Discussion before Article Update
The ISO (IMHO) is not an non-governmental organization. I expect to update the article in September to reflect that opinion, but have placed this note and will allow at least two weeks for comments. Lou I 19:48, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

On the ISO website (here) I found this statement:
 * ISO is a non-governmental organization: its members are not, as is the case in the United Nations system, delegations of national governments. Nevertheless, ISO occupies a special position between the public and private sectors. This is because, on the one hand, many of its member institutes are part of the governmental structure of their countries, or are mandated by their government. On the other hand, other members have their roots uniquely in the private sector, having been set up by national partnerships of industry associations.

-- Heron

Heron and I have pretty well agreed to include something like the following statement: "While the ISO defines itself as an NGO, its ability to set standards which often become law makes it more powerful than most NGOs, and in practice it acts as a consortium with strong links to governments and major corporations." Lou I 18:56, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)

History and 4 number label: I was hoping to get a brief history which explains its special and powerful role, its origins, growth and key moments of emergence of power, and presumably of replacing other organisations (IEC is still powerful in the electrotechnical field). I was also concerned that the second last paragraph describes the "ISO 99999:yyyy:title" label format standard, and the very next para. labels a standard as ISO 9660 Garry

About that format... That was confusing. Neither of the two examples given adheres strictly to the format, which seems pretty embarrassing. Can somebody who knows what he's doing correct that in whatever way it needs to be corrected? -- Anon

Disambiguation with ISO Rating
Okay, this one's probably been done to death, and if it has feel free to point me to the discussion (assuming it's archived somewhere). BUT... has it been decided by consensus somewhere that the ISO page should be a redirect here and not a disambiguation page that also points to ISO rating? I understand that ISO rating is an American standard and all, but right now if I search Wikipedia for ISO -all- I get is pointers to this page. ISO rating gets swallowed up and is pretty much unfindable. --Bcordes 17:21, Jun 30, 2004 (UTC)
 * Replying to my own comment, ISO rating got redirected to Film speed, which is turns out is an ISO standard. So, I added an entry for ISO 5800 on List of ISO Standards and added a redirect at ISO 5800 to Film speed. Searching for "ISO film" gives you a link to ANSI, which gets you to the right place. So I'm happy now. :) --Bcordes 21:51, Jul 25, 2004 (UTC)


 * What does ISO mean when applied to a digital camera without film?  Isn't ISO the same thing as "Interval Shutter Open"?   Most digital cameras let you choose an ISO rating, or ISO level, where ISO - - - whatever the letters stand for - - - appears to have, in that respect, all the properties of a wide open aperture, and a very high sampling rate.   In this way an ISO of 3200 produces a very deeply exposed picture.   216.99.201.133 (talk) 10:21, 13 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It is not the interval shutter speed. The short answer is that the ISO rating is a way of measuring/setting the signal gain of the light sensor. A much more detailed explanation is at ISO_rating. Mitch Ames (talk) 10:18, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Connection back to IEC
I'm fairly new to Wiki, so I won't be surprised if I've missed this. Essentially, there is a very large group known as ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1, that exists to handle the overlap in responsibilities for International Standardization between ISO and IEC. It consists of a number of sub-committees which are subsequently divided into working groups. I think there should be some type of entry for ISO/IEC JTC1, but I'm at a loss at how to apporach this. Should it be a stand-alone article or is there a way to link the ISO and IEC article together and capture the material?

I did find a single entry that referenced JTC1, but there was no link, not even a link to a non-existent article. Colin 23:22, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I suggest that you create a new section in this article titled == ISO/IEC JTC1 ==, explaining what it is and linking to IEC. You can add a similar section to the IEC article, linking to ISO. If somebody later decides to make this a separate article, then that's easily done, but the most important thing is to get the information out of your head and in to Wikipedia. Hope this helps. --Heron 16:11, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Heron. I've done that, hopefully what I've added makes sense. Continuing with my attempts to get a handle on the whole Wikipedia concept, I noticed that there was an abbreviated list of national bodies that contribute to IEC listed on that page. Obviously there is also a similar list for ISO. I would guess, though, that such a list would do better as its own article, "National Standards Organizations" or similar. Sort of like the link to a list of International Standards on this page (I haven't followed it yet to see what's there). Thoughts?

I really don't want to become known as "Mr Standards", I know the perfect individual for that title and I will never be as knowledgeable nor anal about standards as he is. I will, however, contribute as I can.


 * Nice work, Colin. You'll find a long list of NSOs at Standards organization, so you won't have to type them all in. --Heron 15:11, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

W3C is open source, right?
"...businesses started creating private consortia like W3C...". Huh? If I'm not mistaken, W3C is a non-profit open source organisation and certainly not privately owned. And I even believe that it already existed before private companies started to take part in it (because they realised that they could never surpass it through individual efforts). Though I'm not sure about that last bit. I'm in the middle of another edit so I don't have the time to research this now.

DirkvdM 08:43, 2005 Apr 19 (UTC)


 * It's private in the sense that it's not government-affiliated the way ISO is (as opposed to private in the sense that it's not traded on the stock market). Although it's non-profit and it's hosted by three universities, W3C is a pay-to-play organization. No individual members are allowed; you have to be a big organization that can pay a big chunk of cash up front, and then you have to subsidize the salary of several staff members whom you send to W3C (and they now become W3C's researchers, not yours). That's why most of the W3C members are large private corporations, since it's so expensive to subsidize W3C work. Furthermore, Tim Berners-Lee is the benevolent dictator who has the final say.


 * ISO is "public" in that it's an international quasi-governmental institution affiliated with the U.N., it's allegedly a "democracy" of standards institutions where each country can vote. To be part of it (that is, as an individual), you have to be credentialed by your country's "official" standards organization. In most cases the "official" organization is a government agency, with the exception of the U.S., where our official government standards agency is actually NIST but ANSI (a private organization) is the ISO representative because it has better lobbyists.


 * I put "public" in quotes, since most people don't have the government connections (or the time, money, or energy) to get credentialed so they can go participate in ISO's ridiculously inefficient meetings (try reading ISO Bulletin sometime to see what I mean). But the general idea behind ISO (at least as those clowns see it) is that if each government standards agency is careful to represent the "will" of that government's constituents, then hopefully the eventual ISO consensus on a standard will represent a delicate global consensus of consumers and businesses of all sizes (as opposed to the views of Microsoft and Adobe and any other giant corporation joining this week's consortium).


 * In contrast, the IETF approach is to let anyone join who wants to volunteer, although as Berners-Lee discovered, the IETF approach also has its problems. --Coolcaesar 09:21, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Ok, got that. But still, the text seems misleading to me. So I did a little research this time and adapted the text. Alas, the only way I could do that was to really alter it, something I don't usually like to do - I prefer to leave the text intact and add a clarification. I hope I haven't stepped on any toes :). Oh, and I've found that the W3C isn't Open Source, but Open Software, which isn't the same but comes close. DirkvdM 11:00, 2005 Apr 21 (UTC)

"or iso"?
Is "iso" (lower-case) a standard/accepted way to refer to ISO? I've never seen it -- except from slang referring to ISO-9660 disc images such as "I'll burn that iso now", which I believe to be not relevant to this article, or at least not meant as in the context "iso" was listed. I suggest removing the or "iso" bit at the opening paragraph. --LodeRunner 04:26, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Joint Technical Committee
The article states a committee was formed but give no date at all.

"To deal with the consequences of substantial overlap in areas of standardization and work related to information technology, ISO and IEC formed a Joint Technical Committee known as the..."

When, dang it?

Where are these standards followed?
In what countries are the ISO standards followed? I suppose not all standards are followed everywhere, but some overview of which countries adhere to the most important ones or at least try to follow them would be useful, if only as an indication. Especially China is interresting since it contains at least 1/5 of the world population, but I haven't a clue what they use there. Or should I limit this question to the metric system? DirkvdM 10:57, 8 February 2006 (UTC)


 * That would be a huge mess and far too large for an article. I'm sure it would make a great book, though. There are literally thousands of ISO standards, some of which are followed in most countries and some of which are followed in only a handful or none at all. Limiting the scope to "important" standards wouldn't solve the problem. For example, I could make a good argument that the ISO standards for screw threads and the sizes of shipping containers are important because of their widespread and successful global implementation, but on the other hand, most people (including much of the Wikipedia audience) would find such standards to be incredibly boring.


 * Part of the problem is that to really understand ISO, you have to read its journal, ISO Bulletin, which is ridiculously expensive and notorious for its bland content, so practically no libraries bother to carry it. For example, the only library in all of Northern California that has a large archive of ISO Bulletin issues is the engineering library at UC Davis. In contrast, almost every academic library in California subscribes to far more interesting professional journals like Communications of the ACM. --Coolcaesar 20:31, 8 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, there's an interresting one. Are any ISO standards followed in the USA. Like I said, maybe I should limit the question to the metric system (and thus ask this there), but this is the sort of thing I mean. The USA don't use the metric system, so I sort of assumed they wouldn't be bothered about other (relatively minor?) standards. But now I understand that is not the case? DirkvdM 08:40, 9 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Some ISO standards are relatively common well known in the U.S. For example, ISO 9001 (quality control) is widely observed and many companies (especially on the West Coast) have huge signs on their buildings to announce their ISO 9001 compliance to passerby. Also, JPEG and MPEG are widely used in the PC context and are well-known (at least by all computer users who regularly work with graphics). Others, like ASN.1 and most of the other OSI standards, are relatively rare and obscure, because the market has preferred to use standards from private NGOs like W3C, IEEE, and IETF. --Coolcaesar 01:21, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Just check Metric System. All countries except for Liberia, Myanmar and the United States uses the metric system as a primary or sole system of measurement. Ran4 (talk) 19:55, 9 August 2008 (UTC)


 * ISO standards are not laws. So there is no country which automatically follows them. ISO makes it very clear on their website that sovereigns do not cede any of their sovereignty by participating in ISO. ISO standards a "voluntary" standards. In general, there are three ways that a country uses ISO standards. The first is where the country's standards body adopts the ISO standard as a national standard. In some countries, this may carry some idea that people are therefore supposed to use that standard, in particular where the government runs the national standards body (which is often not the case.) The second way is where a government (for example) has preferential procurement policies which mean that tenderers etc must take ISO standards into consideration (even if to say "we don't use it because it is not optimal because of XYZ"). The third is where a government explicitly adopts a standard by law. In the case of health and safety standards, this kind of adoption may be the expectation/goal of the developers of the standards. In the case of other standards, such as the information technology standards, this is usually not the expectation/goal of the developers of the standard. But in all these cases, it is the responsibility of the adopter to decide which standards to adopt: ISO material makes it very clear, and even speaks in terms of ISO standards being a "library" (i.e. of technologies). Rick Jelliffe (talk) 08:05, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Is ISO an acronym or not?
In the paragraph "The name", ISO is referred to be a name from Greek, but in the first line, it is an acronym. Which choice to be held? --Ch. Rogel 10:10, 7 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I can't see where we say that it's an acronym. What am I missing? --Heron 11:28, 7 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I realize this question was asked many years ago, but it is of interest to me so I'm responding. The IPA pronunciation is given as (ISO ), which is how to pronounce it as an acronym. I would like to correct it, but would it be appropriate to include a mention of the controversy over its name? Many people, particularly in the photography industry, pronounce it as an acronym. For reference, Nick Highham wrote, "Looking at photography books on my shelves, I find that The Complete Photography Course (by M. Joseph and D. Saunders, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1993), Digital Food Photography (L. Manna, Thomson, 2005), and The Art of Black and White Photography (J. Garrett, Amphoto, 1990) all state that ISO is an abbreviation for the “International Standards Organization”. This is what you would guess if you reverse engineer the abbreviation, but it is not correct." --FlippingBinary (talk) 12:13, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

"Other languages" pronunciation
I've removed the added pronunciation guide for "most other languages", which read:. Given that most other languages don't even possess the vowels given here, and that each probably has their own pronunciation for the word, I can't credit that there exists a single "non-English" pronunciation for ISO (and if there did, it would more likely be [iso], or perhaps [izo]). If someone has evidence in support of the other pronunciation, though, feel free to restore it. Thylacoleo 07:03, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

The name
We have "The reason it is in all caps in writing is that it appears that way in the Organization's logo (above). " This is plainly ridiculous. There are countless organisations and companies that have all-caps logos, but we don't do this for them. Are there any better explanations? Crazeman 22:06, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
 * +1 Palpalpalpal (talk) 18:30, 17 April 2011 (UTC)


 * See TEDickey (talk) 18:44, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

ISO Guides
Can a section on ISO Guides be started? I am interested in Guide 34.TJMQAM 21:03, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

SPAM?????????
How can you possibly consider a link to the ISO website in an article on ISO to be spam? That is rediculous! Please do not revert it agvain without providing an explanation. Jerry lavoie 22:51, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

NOT SPAM —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeepcomanche1 (talk • contribs) 03:33, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Map Colors
Hey, I liked the map on the article, but people with Daltonism like me will have trouble to understand it. Would someone be kind enough to change the colors? :) Thanks. Yes,I came to the discussion page for the same request.I have the same problem. My suggestion would be to replace red with blue.Thx.

I want to second this, it is very difficult to understand as someone with colorblindness, the dark shades look almost identical.

Languages
Does anybody else think it's amusing that the International Organization for Standardization logo is in both English and French? I guess they haven't gotten around to standardizing that yet.


 * Yes, & the English part of the logo is in "American English" not "International English". Swampy 124.179.92.243 (talk) 13:42, 21 December 2008 (UTC)


 * That's not American English. It's Oxford spelling. 86.47.108.97 (talk) 21:10, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Where is ISO?
anybody know where is the location of this organization? It's strange to look around and not to find the actual place where ISO Members meet! AshrafSS 05:07, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think they're based in Geneva. They say so right on their home page, which currently has an announcement that they just consolidated from several buildings into one building in Geneva. --Coolcaesar 05:57, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The secretariat is in Geneva. However, all standards voting is done by National Bodies, the decision-making on committees is by delegations from National Bodies. These committees have meetings anywhere in the world, as convenient to the delegations. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 08:08, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Free ANSI Standards Link doesn't work
http://webstore.ansi.org/ansidocstore/free_standards.asp link break. When I visit the link, it says “Sorry! The page cannot be found”. So anyone who know the correct link, update the link.


 * This is not suitable anyway. This page is on the toipic of ISO. Sticking links to just one national standards body (ANSI in this case) is not appropriate. ANSI is not ISO, and neither is DIN, BSI, SCC or the others. Linking to them on this page does not stack up with logic. Linking to just one of them, especially so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.127.65.218 (talk) 09:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Note that a link to that page, or the ANSI shop, is appropriate from this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansi. Ditto the content articles for the other national standards bodies. That is where such links belong, not on the ISO article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.127.65.218 (talk) 09:37, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I strongly disagree with bot-signed 75.127.65.218. The linked page as much as another one I introduced (and that works) belongs in both the ANSI and the ISO articles and probably also in the IEC article. See my reaction in the hereunder section. Thus please update that link as the first not-signing contributor asked. — SomeHuman 07 Sep2007 12:11 (UTC)

ANSI Sales Links
Regarding the link addition to the so-called ANSI search engine, this clearly states that it is a NATIONAL resource, and every result of search leads to the sales option from the ANSI shop! The sham is paper thin. It is a sales driver by a single national standards body.

If ANSI's was inserted, so should every other standards body's search facilities. It is a nonsense. These sorts of links belong on the articles for the national bodies themselves. In this case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansi


 * One other point. A link to the search facility of a standards shop isn't appropriate on an article explaining what ISO is. Even if it was, that search facility should clearly be the one on ISO's site, rather ANSI's.

SomeHuman continues to re-add the commercial ANSI sales link. The facts are above. This search 'front' returns items from the ANSI sales shop. SCC, BSI and many other orgs also have similar sale search facilities. NONE are appropriate here, because this article discusses ISO.

Also, if one WAS appropriate, it would be ISO's own search facility!

Yet SomeHuman continues to add the ANSI link, despite all these facts. Could someone from Wikipedia intervene? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.127.65.218 (talk) 10:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I responded on my talk page, where unsigning IP-er had left a message after reverting 3 times, without any edit comment on any of these reverts directing to this article talk page but addressing his concerns in the edit comment (thus I did not have to look further) and I would not have found anything here either... The above IP-er meanwhile reverted a fourth time. So far for a discussion. Hereunder the relevant copy from my talk page:

ANSI
Please DISCUSS this issue, rather than engaging in edit wars. This is why there is a discussion page for each article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.127.65.218 (talk) 10:34, 7 September 2007 (UTC) The accusation of spam in edit comments was inappropriate, the NSSN search site is provided by ANSI and merely gives a short explanation (which is free) of what a specific ISO, ANSI, DIN international standards are available. As ANSI is the U.S. National Comittee of the IEC (USNC/IEC - notice that this links to a page at www.ansi.org) that is part of ISO (ISO/IEC), it is thus appropriate in particular on the ISO article, and the only other appropriate places would be in the ANSI article and the IEC article; there is not even a specific WP page about the U.S. National Committee, and probably not about the National Comittees of 156 other countries. ANSI sets ANSI-standards and propagates ISO, ISO/IEC (and thought those, DIN, Deutsches Institut für Normung) standards that are internationally followed like no other standards, and provides these links comprehensively like no other NGO does anywhere, certainly not in English language as the NSSN does, which is the preferred language on this English language Wikipedia. The NSSN is not a black-listed spammer and ANSI as NGO not a commercial organisation. Hence "NSSN: A National Resource for Global Standards, search engine by ANSI" is a proper External link that allows readers to look up an international standard (at least what it is about, or the other way around to find the specification's code). Of course, as one looks up a specific standard, there is a link where as to buy the comprehensively detailed standard specifications, which 'products' are not available from any competitors from the institutions that have set and guard the standards in the first place. Readers of WP are not likely to "buy" the detailed specifications simply because that possibility is there, there is no publicity whatsoever. — SomeHuman 07 Sep2007 12:20 (UTC) This section will be copied into the article's talk page.
 * I do not take lessons from anonymus IP contributors that first revert three times and then start to "talk" without signing their comment. It would also have been appropriate to state what you are talking about (not about the ANSI article but about an external link called NSSN provided by ANSI in the ISO article, dear other readers of my talk page) in the page where you had introduced this section, this is not a chat box. And above IP's 4th revert without giving a chance to discuss, allows blocking. For now putting appropriate tag on 75.127.65.218's talk page and then undoing this unadmissable destruction of useful content.
 * P.S. It may be even more appropriate to put the advanced search page of the NSSN in the article instead. It facilitates searching only ISO/IEC specifications. — SomeHuman 07 Sep2007 12:29 (UTC)


 * You are simply not 'getting' it are you? You are also dressing ANSI up in cotton wool. One of their objectives is to SELL standards, which is why they ADERTIZE expensively, aggresively and widely.
 * This so called search engine simply returns products for sale from ANSI. Standards for sale. By them. It is a front for sales efforts.
 * Contrary to what you imply, ANSI is NOT ISO. There is no more reason to put the ANSI link here, than SCC, BSI, or any of the others. None whatsoever. All those and the rest provide product (standard) search in a similar way to ANSI. They return standards to buy, just as ANSI does. Yet again and again you place the link to ANSI on this page. Why is that?
 * No, the truth is that this article is not appropriate for ANY of those links. None at all. The article is on ISO itself. Please read it. It is not helpful to end it by saying: go here and buy some standards from ANSI, BSI or whoever.
 * Even if that was in some way useful for this article, then the ISO search engine should be linked to, and no other. There is no escaping this fact.
 * Finally, I have spent countless man days editing Wikipedia, so inuendo is not appreciated. 75.127.65.218 14:13, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * That makes it all the more inappropriate not to sign your previous comments anywhere – I'm glad to finally see an improvement here above – and certainly gives little excuse for having committed WP:4RR.
 * Whatever you have against ANSI, it is not a simple comercial business, it's a non-governmental organisation (NGO) and also the link to its NSSR happens to be on an .org domain (not that the latter gives a full guarantee). I did not imply that ANSI is ISO, but ANSI is indeed the official representative for ISO in the United States, it is also the official representative for IEC. Each of the 157 countries has such representation.
 * And the money (if any reader would like to spend it, which appears most unlikely and the site does not try to convince anyone "to please buy") for the complete detailed version of any specification (intended for businesses that have to follow the specifications and do not need WP to get the address), goes to the owner (or at least whatever part the issuer of the specification agreed with its representative). Neither ANSI nor ISO nor... are simple businesses that are on some competing market. They fulfill a unique task in the best interest of, well, just about anyone in the world, really. But their immense work cannot be free, people have to eat, you know. It does not make them commercial, and ANSI is definitely not a "shop" or "front for sales efforts"; it is the American National Standards Institute. A link to whatever representative the ISO might have in Portugal would most likely not help many readers of the English language Wikipedia, would it?
 * The interest for the readers of WP is the convenience of finding a short explanation about ISO specifications that are mostly only referred to by some non-informative ISO 0000 ... code, which occur abundantly in any line of technology etc. Or one can lookup a few keywords to see what standards exist.
 * Your idea of commercialism does not correspond to what one can find described at WP:SPAM in particular also because the ISO is represented precisely by ANSI (in the largest English-speaking country) that has a great international reputation for setting standards itself as well. The link however, does not push ANSI standards but delivers all standards from all relevant standardization organisations equally.
 * Apparently, the fact that you have encountered references to ANSI standards everywhere (mainly outside Wikipedia) has made you come to think it is something like MicroSoft. It is not. Bill Gates does not get rich by ANSI or ISO and I don't know anyone who would.
 * — SomeHuman 07 Sep2007 14:46 (UTC)


 * Sorry to intervene in your private row guys, and especially sorry SomeHuman, because IPwhatever is correct. If any search should be linked to it should be ISO's search and not one individual country delegate's. I agree as well that search adds nothing to this wikipage. 80.86.83.20 15:06, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Red IP contributors supporting red IP contributors... oh well. Of course it adds to the page, because people wanting to find anything about an ISO standard will actually intentionally come and look for a useful link precisely on this page. You do not seem to understand that people do not just see Wikipedia as some 'book' to find an encyclopaedic explication on some topic (which is often not even very reliable, unfortunately). Why, do you think, it is a normal practice on WP to provide external links? There is also a good reason to provide the ANSI link as well on this page, because not every reader will come with an ISO code at hand, some may want to find out which international standards apply for a specific topic and would like the ability to search for all related standards, without having to go to each article page and do the same repetitive job again and again. Hereunder is a copy of what I just added to the 4RR report:
 * Aftermath (?): Meanwhile I provided an even more appropriate "advanced search" link, which was replaced by the IP-contributor with one that does about the same but only for ISO standards (not necessarily an improvement, because readers might prefer a search engine that looks for all international standards as the ANSI link could do as well as looking only for ISO/IEC) though incorrectly calling it "ISO advanced search", which in turn I replaced by the actual ISO advanced search page. For me it is not worth a further 'fight' though I would prefer having both the ISO and the more general ANSI links there, for the practical reason I just stated. See current history (edits of 2007-09-07 14:13, 14:24 and 15:30). — SomeHuman 2007-09-07 15:46 (UTC)
 * Afterthought: btw 80.86.83.20, the 'private row' was not about a link going either to the ISO or to the ANSI search engine, but about having the ANSI search engine or nothing; the ISO one had been unknown. I'm happy with it being in the article now, though both would still be better.
 * — SomeHuman 07 Sep2007 16:16–17:01 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:ISO French logo.svg
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Fair use rationale for Image:ISO english logo.svg
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BetacommandBot 05:35, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

ISO Means Equal
Although ISO today generally represents the International Organization for Standards (sic *), it was orignally selected because it means Equal ... as in isobaric or isometric. I first read this back in 1995 from a quote by the Secretary General of the IOS organization when I was implementing ISO 9004 at my company. A search for further backup of this produced this quote taken from Searchdatacenter.com: According to ISO, "ISO" is not an abbreviation. It is a word, derived from the Greek isos, meaning "equal", which is the root for the prefix "iso-" that occurs in a host of terms, such as "isometric" (of equal measure or dimensions) and "isonomy" (equality of laws, or of people before the law). The name ISO is used around the world to denote the organization, thus avoiding the assortment of abbreviations that would result from the translation of "International Organization for Standardization" into the different national languages of members. Whatever the country, the short form of the organization's name is always ISO. Aspensummer 20:39, 30 October 2007 (UTC) Aspensummer & 22:07, 9 August 2008
 * *Err, that'll be International Organization for Standardization then. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.73.201.10 (talk) 22:07, 9 August 2008

Incorrect Naming within Wikipedia
Many have been tidied in recent days, and 1475+ since the beginning of the year:

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22International+Organization+for+Standardization (Correct Version: Z and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22International+Organisation+for+Standardisation (Acceptable Alternative: S and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22International+Organisation+for+Standardization (Inconsistent: S and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22International+Organization+for+Standardisation (Inconsistent: Z and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22International+Organization+for+Standards%22 (Incorrect Name: for standards and Plural and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22International+Organisation+for+Standards%22 (Incorrect Name: for standards and Plural and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22International+Organization+for+Standard%22 (Incorrect Name: for standard and Single and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22International+Organisation+for+Standard%22 (Incorrect Name: for standard and Single and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22International+Organization+of+Standardization%22 (Incorrect Name: of and Z and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22International+Organization+of+Standardisation%22 (Incorrect Name: of and Z and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22International+Organisation+of+Standardization%22 (Incorrect Name: of and S and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22International+Organisation+of+Standardisation%22 (Incorrect Name: of and S and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22International+Organization+of+Standards%22 (Incorrect Name: of standards and Plural and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22International+Organisation+of+Standards%22 (Incorrect Name: of standards and Plural and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22International+Organization+of+Standard%22 (Incorrect Name: of standard and Single and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22International+Organisation+of+Standard%22 (Incorrect Name: of standard and Single and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standardization+organization%22 (Incorrect Name: Z and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standardization+organisation%22 (Incorrect Name: Z and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standardisation+organization%22 (Incorrect Name: S and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standardisation+organisation%22 (Incorrect Name: S and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standards+organization%22 (Incorrect Name: Plural and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standards+organisation%22 (Incorrect Name: Plural and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standard+organization%22 (Incorrect Name: Single and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standard+organisation%22 (Incorrect Name: Single and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22organization+for+international+standardization%22 (Incorrect Name: for and Z and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22organization+for+international+standardisation%22 (Incorrect Name: for and Z and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22organisation+for+international+standardization%22 (Incorrect Name: for and S and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22organisation+for+international+standardisation%22 (Incorrect Name: for and S and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22organization+for+international+standards%22 (Incorrect Name: for standards and plural and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22organisation+for+international+standards%22 (Incorrect Name: for standards and plural and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22organization+for+international+standard%22 (Incorrect Name: for standard and single and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22organisation+for+international+standard%22 (Incorrect Name: for standard and single and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22organization+of+international+standardization%22 (Incorrect Name: of and Z and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22organization+of+international+standardisation%22 (Incorrect Name: of and Z and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22organisation+of+international+standardization%22 (Incorrect Name: of and S and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22organisation+of+international+standardisation%22 (Incorrect Name: of and S and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22organization+of+international+standards%22 (Incorrect Name: of and standards and plural and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22organisation+of+international+standards%22 (Incorrect Name: of and standards and plural and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22organization+of+international+standard%22 (Incorrect Name: of and standard and single and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22organisation+of+international+standard%22 (Incorrect Name: of and standard and single and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standardization+for+organization%22 (Incorrect Name: for and Z and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standardization+for+organisation%22 (Incorrect Name: for and Z and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standardisation+for+organization%22 (Incorrect Name: for and S and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standardisation+for+organisation%22 (Incorrect Name: for and S and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standards+for+organization%22 (Incorrect Name: for and Plural and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standards+for+organisation%22 (Incorrect Name: for and Plural and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standard+for+organization%22 (Incorrect Name: for and Single and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standard+for+organisation%22 (Incorrect Name: for and Single and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standardization+of+organization%22 (Incorrect Name: of and Z and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standardization+of+organisation%22 (Incorrect Name: of and Z and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standardisation+of+organization%22 (Incorrect Name: of and S and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standardisation+of+organisation%22 (Incorrect Name: of and S and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standards+of+organization%22 (Incorrect Name: of and Plural and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standards+of+organisation%22 (Incorrect Name: of and Plural and S)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standard+of+organization%22 (Incorrect Name: of and Single and Z)

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=site:wikipedia.org+%22international+standard+of+organisation%22 (Incorrect Name: of and Single and S) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.73.229.140 (talk) 09:40, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

... and then there are all of those with "intenational" instead of "inteRnational" within too.

Headline text
The current version of the article reads, literally, that International Organization for Standardization (Organisation internationale de normalisation), widely known as ISO, is a corrupt international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations... this is clearly POV and although I do not know what could be the reasons behind the claim, the link is given does not clearly state it and, even if it did, this is hardly the encyclopedic tone that one would expect from wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.45.251.100 (talk) 16:05, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

American English
In the 'Name and abbreviation' section it says American English is one of the official languages of ISO. However, their website doesn't seem to support this. I can't find any explicit statement on the style of English they use, but their usage suggests it's not American, for example, they use the spellings 'centre', 'programme' and 'aluminium'. It appears to follow the Oxford spelling style, so I suggest we change it to that, but I would like to find a reference. Potahto (talk) 17:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Pardon me for following you around ;) Yes, ISO uses Oxford spelling, but first of all, American English isn't the official language of anything on earth, since it's not even a language in the first place--according to, duh, ISO. Organization vs. organisation is just a spelling convention and has nothing to do with language; furthermore, the spelling organization is not an Americanism at all, although many British people (and even more Australians and New Zealanders) think it is. Let's just say that the logos are written in English and French--no doubt about that.  Jack (Lumber) 18:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed, that sentence used to read "English and French," but it was changed by an anonymous British editor on February 3, 2008; in addition, the same editor seems to think that "American English" is spoken in America and "English" is spoken in England. Which is not entirely wrong, although it implies two different POVs.  Jack (Lumber) 18:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, watching Hollyoaks can have side effects :). Thinking -ize is an Americanism seems to be a common mistake everywhere, perhaps a reflection of how quickly language can change (although that might be a bad example). Often the mistakes people make are more interesting than what they get right. An American friend of mine used to think 'parameter' was spelt 'parametre' in Britain... Anyway, that's off-topic. Potahto (talk) 10:19, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

no entiendo nadita de lo que esta ahi asi k me voy a salir de la pagina bye bye

International Standards may be in English and/or French. They may be translated into national languages as part of adoption as a national standard. Japan does this, for example. My understanding is that any national version of English is allowed: it depends on which spell-checker the standard's editor wants to use. For example, Australian English is mid-way between US and British English in spelling: sometimes both variants are allowed: a standard written by an editor from Australia/Pacific/South East Asia could well use that. The editor has a deal of discretion: spelling is a non-issue compared to consistency. Rick Jelliffe (talk) 08:14, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

As the talk page heading clearly shows, the article is written in British English. Why then are some words in the article written in American English? This is most unprofessional. Kslall8765 (talk) 16:36, 9 August 2011 (UTC)


 * WP:SOFIXIT. But don't change "-ize" to "-ise". And use the edit summary field to explain what you're doing; often unexplained spelling changes are considered vandalism. ~Amatulić (talk) 17:03, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Link to "Available standards" broken?
I'm not sure about this, but it looks to me like the "Available Standards" link is broken. It now links to what looks to me like a container shipping company. However, my Spanish/Portugese isn't much good, so somewhere in there _may_ be a link to some ISO standards...

A red link is added to see....
my comment at Talk:List of ISO standards —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.64.219.44 (talk) 02:44, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

BTW, where is the Agricultural microbiology located in the division of ISO then?--222.64.219.44 (talk) 02:54, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

My this question is based on the following information http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_q=Agricultural+microbiology&num=10&btnG=Search+Scholar&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_occt=title&as_sauthors=&as_publication=&as_ylo=&as_yhi=&as_allsubj=all&hl=en&lr=&newwindow=1 --222.64.219.44 (talk) 02:59, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Another red link of List of WHO standards is added and see....
my comment at Talk:Standards organization --222.67.209.134 (talk) 10:32, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

One more red link of List of Codex Alimentarius standards has been added based on...
the following info of Codex Alimentarius and the following: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&newwindow=1&q=allintitle%3A+FAO%2FWHO+standards&as_ylo=&as_yhi=&btnG=Search --222.67.209.134 (talk) 11:17, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Could someone please provide the info about....
their standard publishing process??? Do their standard publishing belong to academic publishing or governmental rule-based publishing????

See my complaint about their publishing Talk:Dairy product --222.67.209.144 (talk) 03:50, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I've got amused again ^___^. See my search http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=buy+site%3Awww.iso.org&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi= --222.67.209.144 (talk) 03:58, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

The president of the org is not entirely traceable....
The description of the page is not precise and see the following search results


 * http://www.iso.org/iso/about/principal_officers/alan_morrison.htm--222.64.222.139 (talk) 10:11, 25 August 2009 (UTC)


 * http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&q=chartered+institute+of+management+United+Kingdom&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

--222.64.222.139 (talk) 10:14, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=chartered+institute+of+management&btnG=Google+Search&meta=cr%3DcountryUK|countryGB&aq=f&oq=

--222.67.213.223 (talk) 11:54, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.managers.org.uk/search_1.aspx?id=10:147&keywords=Alan+Morrison&x=24&y=4

--222.64.222.139 (talk) 10:31, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.whitepages.co.uk/

--222.64.222.139 (talk) 10:29, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.192.com/all/search/?looking_for=Chartered%20Institute%20of%20Management&location=

--222.67.213.223 (talk) 11:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&q=Alan+Morrison+site%3Awww.managers.org.uk%2F&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryUK|countryGB

--222.64.222.139 (talk) 10:10, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=Institution+of+Engineers+Australia&btnG=Google+Search&meta=cr%3DcountryAU&aq=f&oq=

--222.64.222.139 (talk) 10:24, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.yellowpages.com.au/search/postSearchEntry.do;jsessionid=AB75330BCB8C5134C2E8AC784E9802C8.12?clueType=0&clue=Institution+of+Engineers&locationClue=&x=42&y=13

See my comment for terminology at Talk:List of ISO standards--222.64.222.139 (talk) 10:29, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

ISO website itself has got Systems Interconnection problems
The term of FDIS is not searchable within the site but enabled by an external search engine
 * http://www.iso.org/iso/search.htm?qt=FDIS&searchSubmit=Search&sort=rel&type=simple&published=on

--222.64.21.59 (talk) 23:07, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&q=FDIS+site:www.iso.org&start=0&sa=N

--222.64.21.59 (talk) 23:10, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&q=Information+technology+--+Open+Systems+Interconnection+site%3Awww.iso.org&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

Can the org establish the standards of Information technology -- Internal Systems Interconnection to some extent...???--222.64.21.59 (talk) 23:14, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Naming convention of the sub-committees...???
Why are there two formats...??? - see the main topic--222.64.26.227 (talk) 22:33, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

The question is associated with the organizational management charts--222.64.26.227 (talk) 22:37, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=allintitle%3A+%22management+chart%22&btnG=Search

--222.64.26.227 (talk) 22:46, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_q=management+chart&num=10&btnG=Search+Scholar&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_occt=title&as_sauthors=&as_publication=&as_ylo=&as_yhi=&as_allsubj=all&hl=en

--222.64.26.227 (talk) 22:51, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=allintitle%3A+%22organizational+chart%22&btnG=Search

Move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:46, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

International Organization for Standardization → ISO — per WP:COMMONNAME and this discussion. Note that the ISO frequently bills itself as "ISO" for internationalization purposes and ISO redirects here. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:59, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose The respective ISO standards often use the acronym but I think there is value is using the full name for this organization, not th mention there is also a file format .iso.--Labattblueboy (talk) 15:21, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose Whilst common, the acronym is not universally understood.  In other words, not common enough.  Skinsmoke (talk) 17:42, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Please explain the following unusual document codes/identifiers.....

 * http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_ics/catalogue_detail_ics.htm?ics1=35&ics2=240&ics3=80&csnumber=37890

--222.64.22.162 (talk) 03:04, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_ics/catalogue_detail_ics.htm?csnumber=44084&ICS1=35&ICS2=240&ICS3=80

--222.64.22.162 (talk) 03:07, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_ics/catalogue_detail_ics.htm?ics1=35&ics2=240&ics3=80&csnumber=44428

--222.64.22.162 (talk) 03:13, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_ics/catalogue_detail_ics.htm?ics1=03&ics2=100&ics3=30&csnumber=41216

--222.64.22.162 (talk) 03:15, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_ics/catalogue_detail_ics.htm?ics1=67&ics2=100&ics3=01&csnumber=31879


 * http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_ics/catalogue_detail_ics.htm?ics1=07&ics2=100&ics3=30&csnumber=42703

--222.64.22.162 (talk) 03:38, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_ics/catalogue_detail_ics.htm?ics1=07&ics2=100&ics3=30&csnumber=42704

--- --222.64.22.162 (talk) 03:23, 2 April 2010 (UTC) --222.64.22.162 (talk) 03:33, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=document+nomenclature+site%3Awww.iso.org&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=
 * http://www.iso.org/iso/products/standards/catalogue_ics_browse.htm?ICS1=35&ICS2=240&ICS3=30&
 * http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=%22document+identifier%22+site%3Awww.iso.org&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=
 * http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=%22ISO+documentation%22+site%3Awww.iso.org&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

Unusual ISO document codes/identifiers....continued......
--222.64.22.162 (talk) 04:19, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_ics/catalogue_detail_ics.htm?ics1=03&ics2=120&ics3=10&csnumber=41768
 * http://www.iso.org/iso/products/standards/catalogue_ics_browse.htm?ICS1=03&ICS2=120&ICS3=10&

Legal issue between IWA and formal standards.....
To me IWA can only become voluntary compliance if one wish whereas formal standards do not --222.64.22.162 (talk) 04:30, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Wiki admin, please be aware of the following......it affect the site publishing.....

 * http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?as_q=ISO+Guide+34&num=10&btnG=Search+Scholar&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_occt=title&as_sauthors=&as_publication=&as_ylo=&as_yhi=&as_sdt=1.&as_sdtp=on&as_sdts=5&hl=en
 * http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_ics/catalogue_detail_ics.htm?ics1=03&ics2=120&ics3=10&csnumber=50174

Unless to notify all the editors in a deliverable way. Otherwise please close this site, in case of misleading the public --222.64.22.162 (talk) 04:39, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Added then Deleted following content under crisisms
Wasn't paying attention and absolutely do not represent my employer in this issue. My dislike of this organization is my own. Still if someone wants to add the very amusing content below feel free to. Everyone knew ISO would end up with egg on its face all the way through the M$ farce xml standard.

Alex Brown, who presided over the ISO vote in April 2008 that ratified the spec as ISO convener of the OOXML Ballot Resolution Meeting, accused Microsoft of acting in bad faith for implementing a "transitional" variant of the OOXML spec and not the strict version in Office 2010.

"If Microsoft ships Office 2010 to handle only the Transitional variant of ISO/IEC 29500 they should expect to be roundly condemned for breaking faith with the International Standards community. This is not the format 'approved by ISO/IEC', it is the format that was rejected," —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.94.94.105 (talk) 21:23, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Hard copy publications of ISO....???
for the sake of traceability. Otherwise a third party validation is required

The same principle is applied to Google scholar kind of services and this site --222.67.211.10 (talk) 09:58, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Reference section need to be closely examined.....
and I leave it for ISO 690 panelles to fix it up --222.64.223.117 (talk) 01:10, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

P-members
I think this text has been more or less copied from the ISO webpage on the stages of standard development, which would explain the British spelling. (I didn't look closely, though, so I could be wrong.) At any rate, it talks about "P-members", but there's no explanation of what such a person (organization?) is. What is a P-member? Mcswell (talk) 19:15, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Look at the search results from the site.....
--222.67.207.250 (talk) 02:37, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
 * http://www.iso.org/iso/search.htm?qt=ISO+639&searchSubmit=Search&sort=rel&type=simple&published=on
 * http://www.iso.org/iso/search.htm?qt=639&published=on&active_tab=standards

The reason for the topic of List of ISO guides

 * http://www.iso.org/iso/search.htm?qt=guide&searchSubmit=Search&sort=rel&type=simple&published=on

From the above search results, it can be seen that the ISO guides may not be less than ISO standards. Therefore, a topic for the list is very much necessary --222.64.218.64 (talk) 09:53, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Info about the standard expiry date.....

 * http://scholar.google.com.hk/scholar?hl=en&q=allintitle%3A+standard+expiry+date&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=&as_vis=0

--222.64.218.64 (talk) 10:00, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
 * http://www.google.com.hk/search?hl=en&safe=strict&q=standards+expiry+date&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

--222.64.218.64 (talk) 10:01, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
 * http://www.google.com.hk/search?hl=en&safe=strict&q=standard+expiry+date&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

--222.64.218.64 (talk) 10:02, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
 * http://www.google.com.hk/search?hl=en&safe=strict&q=%22standard+expiry+date%22&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

From my experience, reviewing of outdated standards are very labor intensive and it's impossible to renew them on time at all time. However, a warning sign should be given if outdated standards are in use. This measure can only apply to the cases when no scientific contradictions are present --222.64.218.64 (talk) 10:48, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

The same principle could be applied to the food items bought from supermarkets, which could be expired and discouted before sale but still in good conditions. Such measures can prevent unnecesary disposals enormously, since in many cases the expiry dates are not set on the bases of scientific data especially in food industry. However, for the shelf life decided based on scientific data, no compromise should be waived

--222.64.218.64 (talk) 10:45, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Info on food expiry date.....

Food?
Why does this discussion page concern milk expiration dates? The article has nothing to do with food and doesn't mention it, and I don't see any information regarding a merger. Is this attached to the wrong article? &mdash;Długosz (talk) 15:29, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

ISO standard infobox?
I can't seem to find any infobox template for an ISO standard. That seems like an obvious omission to me. Am I missing something? If there really isn't such a beast, what sort of fields should be included in such a template? Macwhiz (talk) 17:23, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Official Languages
In the infobox it says that the official languages are English, French, and Russian. Under the Name and abbreviation section, though, it says there are only two official languages: Enlish and French. Is this a mistake? --Akhil 0950 (talk) 18:37, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * From the early days of ISO, they used to publish standards in English, French and Russian. However I have not seen any recent standard in Russian, so it is possible that nowdays the current languages are only English and French. SV1XV (talk) 19:50, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Archive early sections of this talk page?
I suggest that we should archive some old sections of this talk page. Does anyone want to set up an auto-archive? Does anyone object to my setting one one up? Does anyone have any preferences for MiszaBot or ClueBot III? (I've not set up an auto-archive before, but I'm prepared to give it a go if no-one else does it, and no-one objects.) Mitch Ames (talk) 02:38, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Date formats for this article
I propose that the accessdate formats for the references should all be yyyy-mm-dd per ISO 8601, in line with the spirit of WP:STRONGNAT. (This would reverse some, but not all, of this edit.) ISO itself uses ISO 8601 on its standards. Mitch Ames (talk) 09:39, 17 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Does any else have an opinion on this? This edit suggests that at least one editor disagrees with me. Mitch Ames (talk) 01:45, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

As the editor who made the most recently cited edit, I think this is a really good idea which never occurred to me. Frequently, when I find a non-British-related article that uses the dmy date format, I will check the article’s history and find that it used the mdy format for many years before someone arbitrarily changed it to dmy. In these cases, as in this article (I never saw your July post), I will change it back per WP:DATERET. However, it seems only appropriate that ISO formats should be used in the article about the ISO itself. One problem is that there is no equivalent template to use mdy dates and use dmy dates, so one would have to be created, which should be easy as these templates don’t really do anything except add the article to the appropriate category. Hgrosser (talk) 05:15, 14 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Most of the dates were in DMY format already before my edit, thus WP:DATERET doesn't apply. WP:STRONGNAT also doesn't apply here, I think, because there's no such thing as ISO language. That is, ISO standard only defines one common way to express dates, but this doesn't mean most people will commonly use this format, or will find it appropriate. I don't say this is the case here, only that WP:STRONGNAT doesn't prefer any of the formats even when the article is about ISO itself. 1exec1 (talk) 11:21, 14 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I realise that there's no such thing as "ISO language", so the letter of WP:STRONGNAT does not apply. But I still think that the spirit of STRONGNAT applies. Articles about Australia use Australian format, articles about US use US format, articles about ISO use ISO format. WP:TIES includes something slightly closer to the mark on this:
 * Again, the spirit of the guideline: "for articles about modern organizations or their works, ... use [the same variety as the organization]". Mitch Ames (talk) 13:09, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Again, the spirit of the guideline: "for articles about modern organizations or their works, ... use [the same variety as the organization]". Mitch Ames (talk) 13:09, 14 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I think it's pushing the boat out a bit far to suggest that ISO 8601 format should be used for access dates, in that the article has evolved predominantly with dmy dates; even more 'far out' that the above interpretation (ie WP:STRONGNAT), taken to its logical extreme could be used, to justify changing all the dates in the article to ISO. --  Ohconfucius  ping / poke 01:43, 15 October 2012 (UTC)


 * The first date format for accessdates was introduced on 2007-SEP-07. That format persisted until this 2010-May-07 edit that contravened WP:DATERET.--JimWae (talk) 18:33, 18 October 2012 (UTC)


 * For accessdates, this may be the one article on Wikipedia where the ISO numeric style seems appropriate. As for body text, note that DMY is the norm for international bodies such as UN, EU and is the convention at ISO e.g. their English news page. The DMY style for body dates has no disadvantages here, and would be more appropriate than the MDY format with its US-regional impressions. Dl2000 (talk) 15:23, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I would like to suggest no longer adding accessdate but instead to start adding archivedate and archiveurl. These are infinitely more useful when the original content is no longer available. - 82.153.110.222 (talk) 18:14, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

For-profit or non-profit?
It is not explicitly mentioned in the article whether this organisation is for-profit or non-profit. The hefty fee just to look at a standard seems to indicate the former but since there are other financial sources than fees mentioned, they don't seem to cover the expenses. Also, if the ISO should indeed be non-profit, are there tendencies within the ISO to cease being a dinosaur and embrace the 21st century by CCing their standards? --Mudd1 (talk) 15:41, 2 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I had a look at their website and could not find a definitive answer, but:
 * "How is ISO financed?" on the Structure and governance page suggests that they are not-for-profit.
 * A search for "profit" on their web site finds many member bodies that are "non-profit".
 * Mitch Ames (talk) 07:46, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

organization states that ISO is not an acronym or initialism
I've requested a reference for "The organization states that ISO is not an acronym or initialism for the organization's full name in any official language." Neither nor  state that "ISO is not an acronym ... in any ... language".

Criticism section
65.121.228.201 deleted the entire Criticism section with the comment "It's rife with POV and isn't proper encyclopedic style". I disagree, and have restored it. The section appears to be well referenced. Perhaps it needs editing for neutrality, but simply deleting the entire section seems inappropriate. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:30, 15 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree with the suggestion by @Mitch Ames that this section could be improved in terms of neutrality. While the criticisms raised are attributed, it does not add anything to quote those sources in the article. In particular use of 'old boys club' seems excessive in its scope: the person cited (Shuttleworth) is referring to one particular standard or group of standards, yet delivers a pejorative assessment of the entire organization, including those standards of which he has no experience, i.e. the vast majority of ISO standards.
 * I would like to suggest the text can be made more useful and balanced in the following way:
 * Some ISO standards are available free of charge, but the vast majority must be purchased. The purchase price of ISO standards may make them less attractive to some parties, including those from smaller open-source projectsopen source.
 * The ISO/IEC JTC1 fast-track procedures ("Fast-track" as used by OOXML and "PAS" as used by OpenDocument) have garnered criticism in relation to the standardization of Office Open XML (ISO/IEC 29500). Martin Bryan, (previous convenor of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34 WG1) is quoted as saying: I would recommend my successor that it is perhaps time to pass WG1’s outstanding standards over to OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), where they can get approval in less than a year and then do a PAS submission to ISO, which will get a lot more attention and be approved much faster than standards currently can be within WG1.
 * The computer security entrepreneur and Ubuntu founder, Mark Shuttleworth, alleges that the Standardization of Office Open XML process was flawed. He also noted that Microsoft had intensely lobbied many countries that traditionally had not participated in ISO and stacked technical committees with Microsoft employees, solution providers, and resellers sympathetic to Office Open XML" 138.81.146.37 (talk) 10:10, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

What kind of a "body"?
It is said in the article that ISO is a "body."

I don't think this definition is an appropriate one. What is a "body"?


 * 1) Is it a foundation?
 * 2) Is it an association?
 * 3) Is it an LLC?
 * 4) Is it a part/department of a certain government?

This "body" word should be crlarified.

It should also be mentioned who assigns the members of the board (or executives).--144.122.104.211 (talk) 21:41, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Logo, name and abbreviation
According to the wayback machine, the logo changed sometime between May 2012 and September 2012. The logo no longer includes the words. Hence the whole 'Name and abbreviation section is now incorrect. The logos are not in two of the official languages. The 'usually referred to by its short name' does not seem to accurately capture what ISO says about itself.

It would be best to say:

The three official languages of the ISO are English, French and Russian.[3] The organisation is known as the International Organization for Standardization in English, l’Organisation internationale de normalisation in French and Международная организация по стандартизации in Russian.

As the organisation's website makes clear:

However, one of the founding delegates, Willy Kuert, recollected the original naming question with the comment: "I recently read that the name ISO was chosen because 'iso' is a Greek term meaning 'equal'. There was no mention of that in London!"[5]

The logo and the name ISO are both registered trademarks, and their use is restricted.[6]

None that back-formation of ISO into International Standards (or Standardization) Organisation is ambiguous. This would be unclear as to whether International was qualifying Standardization (an Organisation for International Standardization) or Organisation (an International Organisation for Standardization).87.112.25.173 (talk) 21:54, 7 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I've updated the article accordingly. Mitch Ames (talk) 09:28, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Adding ISO 21500 Guidance for Project Management
I am writing several articles on project management as part of the ASCE Body of Knowledge project ( or ASCE BoK) as well as the  Project Management Institute Body of Knowledge project  ( or PM BoK). ISO cites and parallels a lot of the materials.... Thanks ...

Risk Engineer (talk) 17:53, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Namibia's Membership Discrepancy
The graphic on this page lists Namibia as a "Correspondent member", while the table here lists Namibia as a "full member (member body)"  — Preceding unsigned comment added by DaemonBreed (talk • contribs) 22:10, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

ISA foundation - 1926 or 1928?
Atleast 2 apparently reliable sources (the Czech standards office and a professor in Die Zeit) mention 1928 as date of foundation for the predecessor organization ISA - the date is also shown in the article's plague image. I have added a maintenance tag about this contradiction with the current article (1926) for now. According to the Die Zeit article it seems like negotiations may have begun in 1926, but the organization was formally established in 1928. If these sources are correct, the date should be changed to 1928; preparatory negotiations usually do not count as "foundation" for an organization without a formal act. I am not sure which version is correct - a more knowledgeable editor should check and clarify this detail. GermanJoe (talk) 07:33, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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Removal of content by Diannaa
Diannaa removed content without telling me what it was. Do I have the right to defend? Seems no. S/he portraits me as copyright violator, but does not show any proof. . In the history it says Diannaa (talk | contribs) at 20:38, 25 July 2017 (remove copyright content copied from http://qms-service.blogspot.ca/2011/04/how-to-use-iso-catalogue.html or elsewhere).

I have never been at that blog!!! Aleksander2017 (talk) 20:48, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Your addition was flagged by a bot as a potential copyright violation and was assessed by myself. Here is a link to the bot report. Click on the iThenticate link to view the overlap. The material I removed appears at the webpage I mentioned in my edit summary as well as at various other locations online. All content you add to Wikipedia must be written in your own words. — Diannaa (talk) 20:51, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

create table of ISO standards
Could we create a table of the standards that can be sorted? The ISO website is un-navigable and it would be very helpful to have all standards listed somewhere. I know this will be huge piece of work but wanted to flag it would be of immense value, especially for non-experts people searching for a way in! Jack Nunn 04:24, 11 May 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jacknunn (talk • contribs)


 * Is List of International Organization for Standardization standards the list of ISO standards you wanted? --DavidCary (talk) 03:48, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you it's a good start but I meant a table that could be sorted, say by category, date etc. Structured data. Also didn't realise they are not open access!!Jack Nunn Jacknunn ([]) 13:09, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

"Iso" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Iso. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 December 3 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. ev iolite  (talk)  23:43, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Pronunciation of ISO
The short name ISO is pronounced as and not. This incorrect latter form is frequently encountered, especially in photography when referring to film speed ("ISO setting"). In fact there are many books and videos which refer to ISO as an initialism for International Standards Organization, also incorrect. See earlier discussion, especially FlippingBinary's comments. For this reason, I think it would be good to explicitly state that ISO is *not* pronounced as separate letters, but as one word to help deter these commonly held misconceptions. Syu5488 (talk) 03:33, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

How many people work for ISO
Can someone add some rough estimate? Right now I don't know how many people work for ISO in total. I understand this is hard to measure but some approximate number would be fine + source. Right now I simply don't know and I came to wikipedia with that question. 2A02:8388:1600:A200:7F68:61BB:BDB:FB57 (talk) 04:08, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Iso role in international trade
What are the iso role in international trand in need the information for my monograph thanks 203.171.100.12 (talk) 05:35, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 1 November 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Per consensus. (closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky (talk) 14:24, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

International Organization for Standardization → ISO – Per WP:COMMONNAME and MOS:ACROTITLE: "Acronyms should be used in a page name if the subject is known primarily by its abbreviation and that abbreviation is primarily associated with the subject". PhotographyEdits (talk) 13:36, 1 November 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. BilledMammal (talk) 00:51, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Acronyms should generally be avoided unless they are almost exclusively used. Otherwise we'd be moving Royal Air Force to RAF. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:15, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Personally, I think that ISO is more used than International Organization for Standarnization. 77.221.89.89 (talk) 16:28, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * As is RAF. That's not the point I'm making. It's not almost exclusively used and the full title is well-known. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:37, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose per above comment. Station1 (talk) 05:06, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Move. The new name would be easier to understand and manage. 77.221.89.89 (talk) 16:31, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Support move Were it not for a redirect placed on "ISO", I would've move the page a long time ago. I feel the opposers like a redirect on this than the plain obvious.Intrisit (talk) 18:04, 10 November 2023 (UTC)


 * • Oppose same with the RAF comment. Lucifer in a maid outfit (talk) 22:59, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Oppose per Necrothesp, some other organisations use ISO, to make it hard to determine exclusive use.  Dank Jae  03:36, 13 November 2023 (UTC)