Subject: Re: [Ltru] Proposed edits (davis)

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 12:00:57 -0800

Addison Phillips <addison at yahoo dash inc dot com> wrote:

>> I think the issue was to have a clear statement that we don't want 
>> tons of text in the registry -- for that, people should look at other 
>> sources. Can you think of an alternative?
>
> In RFC 4646 (during one of the drafts) we removed the warning:
>
> --
> Long screeds about a particular subtag are frowned upon.
> --
>
> It was felt that the word "screed" was both too obscure and too 
> judgmental. Personally, I thought it did the job. Perhaps:
>
> --
> Large amounts of information about the use, history, or general 
> background of a subtag are frowned upon: these generally belong and 
> are encouraged in registration requests, but do not belong in the 
> registry record proper.
> --

Not only that, they implicitly encourage the submitter to add editorial 
text justifying the subtag or variation.  ietf-languages participants 
may remember the process surrounding the 'tarask' variant, in which 
opposing factions argued about the legitimacy of the orthography itself. 
Any additional Comments text surely would have reflected this, and would 
have been out of place in the Registry.

I support some sort of wording that encourages the limitation of 
comments to what is necessary to help users correctly identify the 
appropriate subtag.  Addison's text, above, does that for me.

--
Doug Ewell  *  Fullerton, California, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
http://www.ewellic.org
http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages  ˆ

_______________________________________________
Ltru mailing list
[email-masked]
http://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ltru

---

From: "Mark Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 12:12:03 -0800

Addison's language is ok, but I'd rather be a bit more focused. So I
suggest a slight amendation:

The primary reason for comments are for subtag identification: to help
distinguish the subtag from others with which it might be confused. In
particular,
large amounts of information about the use, history, or general
background of a subtag are frowned upon: these generally belong and
are encouraged in registration requests, but do not belong in the
registry record proper.

-- 
Mark

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 13:51:13 -0800

Mark Davis <mark dot davis at icu dash project dot org> wrote:

> particular, large amounts of information about the use, history, or 
> general background of a subtag are frowned upon: these generally 
> belong and are encouraged in registration requests, but do not belong 
> in the registry record proper.

+1

---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 09:31:40 +0100

On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 12:12:03PM -0800,
 Mark Davis <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 6 lines which said:

> The primary reason for comments are for subtag identification: to
> helpdistinguish the subtag from others with which it might be
> confused. Inparticular,large amounts of information about the use,
> history, or generalbackground of a subtag are frowned upon: these
> generally belong andare encouraged in registration requests, but do
> not belong in theregistry record proper.

So, to be sure I'm understand, a Comment such as this one (which was
actually proposed on ietf-languages:

Subtag: gsw
Type: language
Description: Swiss German
Description: Alemannic
Comment: gsw-FR is the recommended way to tag Alsatian

would be OK? (It seems so but I want to be sure I understand your
proposal before writing +1)
_______________________________________________
Ltru mailing list
[email-masked]
http://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ltru

---

From: "Mark Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 08:15:52 -0800

That is exactly the kind of comment that is meant -- it helps to identify
the subtag, and distinguish it from others.

---

From: Addison Phillips <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 08:32:16 -0800

> proposal before writing +1)

That comment is okay to register, in that it is legal to register.

I think that particular comment wouldn't be appropriate (I'd probably 
prefer something like "This subtag also encompasses Alsatian as a 
dialect", leaving region subtag selection to the user). But that's a 
personal opinion for another list.

So:

- it's okay to propose such a registration (it's okay to propose nearly 
ANY text for registration; that's what Comment is for)

- it might or might not be appropriate to register that particular 
comment: the ietf-languages list and the reviewer would need to decide

- Mark's text merely recommends that information be relevant to registry 
users: the registry is not intended to be Wikipedia.

Addison

-- 
Addison Phillips
Globalization Architect -- Yahoo! Inc.
Chair -- W3C Internationalization Core WG

Internationalization is an architecture.
It is not a feature.
_______________________________________________
Ltru mailing list
[email-masked]
http://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ltru