Should we have dual e-mail address, one of which is in Latin only?

At 11.18 +0000 04-02-03, Paul Robinson wrote:
>On Tue, Feb 03, 2004 at 11:15:31AM +0100, Jacob Palme wrote:
>
>>  If we allow non-latin characters in e-mail addresses,
>>  we should put into the standard that all e-mail addresses
>>  which contain non-latin characters MUST also contain
>>  a version of the same e-mail address which is in only
>>  latin characters (just like the business card with
>
>Why? Why not insist that all e-mail addresses should be accompanied with a
>chinese representation, or a russian address? What is so special about the
>latin character set?

Mail should contain a variant of the address which is
possible to handle on any computer used for mail. Latin
characters is one option, only digits is another. I prefer
Latin characters over digits. Russian or Chinese won't do
because many computers do not have Russian or Chinese fonts.

The reason it should always be included is that even if you
send a message within one country, you are never sure where
it may end up rerouted.

This, however, should not be any trouble to users, because
users need only see the Latin version of the address if
they ask for it or if their mailer cannot display the
national version. Thus, if two people send letters to each
other in Mongolian, none of them need every see that there
is hidden somewhere a latin alternative of the address. But
if one of their messages end up outside Mongolia, then the
Latin address is there so that people outside Mongolia can
handle it.
-- 
Jacob Palme <[email protected]> (Stockholm University and KTH)
for more info see URL: http://www.dsv.su.se/jpalme/