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

On Tue, 28 Oct 2003, John Cowan wrote:
> But if they write you for support, they have to use a language you
> understand; people who can only handle Hindi can't get support from you
> and don't need to be able to type your email address (assuming wlg that
> you have no Hindi).

This is confusing apples and oranges again.  We are not talking about the
language of the email text.  We are talking about the email address, and
whether or not the individuals at each end can read and enter the other's
email address.

We are, in effect, talking about the equivalent of extending the 10 digits
of telephone numbers to have letters.  And I'm not talking about the
strange American convention of saying "my phone number is 555-COOL-GUY"
when in fact the number is 555-266-5489.  I'm talking about adding
entirely new discreet things that can be dialed.  And phones which only
have digits can't call these numbers.  Or can they?

If so, how?  That, more than anything else, is what any IEA solution will
have to address.  We can safely assume that if Hindi IEA addresses are
possible, Hindi environment software will quite capably provide a means
for Hindi users to use these addresses.  We can even safely assume that as
long as there is a way (any way), it doesn't really matter what format the
bits are in; the Hindi user interface software will smooth over any rough
edges.

The messy part is how software that doesn't know Hindi from Martian is to
cope with such an address.  It is in this case that the format of the bits
becomes important.

> > Furthermore, we are not talking about the language used by any support
> > messages to/from me.  We are talking about whether someone in Lower
> > Slobbovia can enter the developer's email address, and whether the
> > developer can enter the Lower Slobbovian address.
> What's the point of their entering your email address if they can only
> write to you in Slobbovian?

Maybe he only knows Slobbovian, but the village schoolteacher may know
enough English to cobble together something that I can comprehend, and
decypher my response.

Like most other developers with an international audience, I've become
fairly skilled in determining the meaning from broken, ungrammatical
English, and in framing my response so that the village schoolteacher (who
dimly remembers learning English in grade school decades ago) can do
likewise.

Alternatively, I may know of a Slobbovian restaurant downtown where I can
either have his letter, or my response, translated.  Or perhaps find a
Slobbovian student.  Or there may even be a Department of Slobbovian
Studies at the nearby university.

This sort of thing is quite common.  It is fallacious to assume that two
people do not communicate just because neither speaks the other's
language.  This is not a major barrier.

An incautious implementation of IEA, on the other hand, would be a major
barrier.

-- Mark --

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