Re: FYI: BOF on Internationalized Email Addresses (IEA)

On Tue, 28 Oct 2003, Mark Davis wrote:
> I would wager that anyone who cares to have his
> email used by foreigners would have dual email addresses, or perhaps even more;
> e.g. Tamil, Latin, and Chinese.

I wonder if the full implications of this statement are understood by
those who blithely advocate its position.  The Law of Unintended
Consequences severely punishes those who disregard it.

Just as a few off the cuff-examples:

Is ASCII formally abolished as the lingua franca of email addresses,
meaning that some people will be unable to use ASCII addresses?

If so, how many email addresses will a diplomat (or any other individual
engaged in multinational business) need?

If not, doesn't that create a two tier world of persons who have usable
international addresses and those who have domestic-only addresses?  It is
not difficult to envision that in many countries, an ASCII address would
be a privilege available only to select individuals (much as a phone line
with international dialing).

Authors of spam-blocking software (including me!) will be delighted.
Here will be yet another weapon in our arsenal.


I am not arguing any particular course of action.  I am tossing a few
paper airplanes at the clay feet of those who seem to disregard some
serious problems.  Those problems need to be addressed; but every time
these problems are mentioned, we keep hearing about the email needs of
illiterate villagers in the third world who will have high-speed Internet
before they have safe drinking water.

Nobody has disputed the desirability of enabling computer users to use
their native scripts to the maximum extent possible.  What we are
discussing is what is "possible", and how to make the "impossible" become
"possible".

Many decades ago, one of my professors told me something that I have
always kept in mind since: "you have to learn to walk before you learn to
run."

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.