Subject: [Ltru] Clarifying Suppress-Script

From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2007 15:08:29 -0700

Hi -

Based on recent discussion on the [email-masked] list,
as a technical contributor I think we should clarify section 3.1.8
in the current draft by adding the following paragraph to that section:

  Suppress-Script is a compatibility measure, and as such is
  only appropriate for languages whose subtags were added to
  the registry before RFC 4646 was approved.  Even for such
  languages, Supress-Script SHOULD NOT be used unless there
  exists a significant body (as determined by the Language
  Subtag Reviewer) of material tagged before the approval of
  RFC 4646 without a script subtag.

Thoughts?

Randy

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https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ltru

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From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2007 20:34:43 -0400

Randy Presuhn scripsit:

>    the registry before RFC 4646 was approved.

+1

>   Even for such

Neither the LSR nor anyone else (not even people who work for
search-engine companies) is in a position to make any such determination.
Not all tagged material is open to public scrutiny.  I am therefore
opposed to adding this sentence.

-- 
With techies, I've generally found              John Cowan
If your arguments lose the first round          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
    Make it rhyme, make it scan                 [email-masked]
    Then you generally can
Make the same stupid point seem profound!           --Jonathan Robie

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From: "McDonald, Ira" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2007 08:59:35 -0700

Hi,

I object to this whole paragraph.  Because RFC 4646
*inserted* scripts between the two previously main
subtags (language and region), Suppress-Script is
necessary for MANY languages tagged in the future.
It has nothing to do with an existing body of tagged
material.

Cheers,
- Ira

Ira McDonald (Musician / Software Architect)
Chair - Linux Foundation Open Printing WG
Blue Roof Music / High North Inc
PO Box 221  Grand Marais, MI  49839
phone: +1-906-494-2434
email: [email-masked]

-----Original Message-----
From: John Cowan [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2007 7:35 PM
To: Randy Presuhn
Cc: LTRU Working Group
Subject: Re: [Ltru] Clarifying Suppress-Script

+1

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From: "Mark Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2007 10:06:14 -0700

I am pulled in different directions on this. What people should do when
tagging is inexorably linked with what implementers should do when
interpreting tags. If there is a mismatch in expectations, then we get
problems.

What I as an implementer want to know is: when I see xxx-YY and xxx-ZZZZ-YY,
what am I to do?

   1. Do I treat these as essentially synonyms for filtering and lookup?
   (eg en-US and en-Latn-US)
   2. Do I treat them as completely different for filtering and lookup
   (eg ru-RU and ru-Latn-RU, or zh-CN and zh-Latn-CN)
   3. Do I treat them as different for filtering, but as synonyms for
   lookup (eg zh-CN and zh-Hans-CN, or zh-TW and zh-Hant-TW)

On the one hand, Suppress Script, as discussed before, is a very imperfect
tool: it doesn't tell me about case 3, and it is ambiguous -- being missing
could mean that there are multiple common scripts for a language, or could
mean that there is no information available.

On the other hand, whether or not the language code was pre or post 4646
doesn't seem to make much difference as far as the question of what I should
do when interpreting these codes, so it seems from that that we should not
make Suppress-Script depend on pre or post 4646.

Mark

-- 
Mark

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From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2007 10:42:59 -0700

Hi -

As a technical contributor...

> From: "Mark Davis" <[email-masked]>
> To: "McDonald, Ira" <[email-masked]>
> Cc: "John Cowan" <[email-masked]>; "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>; "LTRU Working Group" <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 10:06 AM
...
> make Suppress-Script depend on pre or post 4646.
...

As I recall, we added Suppress-Script because there was a large body
of already-tagged material which lacked script subtags, and we wanted
to be able to process that material as though it had been given
script subtags.  In this context, suppress-script is only meaningful
for coping with such material.

Somewhere along the way, the language in what became RFC 4646 got a bit
stronger, eventually ending up as "5.  There MUST be at most one script
subtag in a language tag, and the script subtag SHOULD be omitted when
it adds no distinguishing value to the tag or when the primary language
subtag's record includes a Suppress-Script field listing the applicable
script subtag."  This is still OK with me, but...

There seems to be a bit of semantic drift in the understanding of "Suppress-
Script", from its original meaning as a legacy data compatibility kluge
to a way of indicating for a particular language that a script subtag
would probably not add "distinguishing value".  It's clear from this
discussion that not all of us (myself included) have made such a shift.

If we as a WG want to adopt such a semantic shift, we should do so consciously
and explicitly, because it has a dramatic impact on the number of languages
for which the [email-masked] list will have to debate the merits of
adding this information to the registry.

Randy

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From: "Mark Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2007 10:44:17 -0700

I agree that we need to have clearer language, whichever way we go. As I
said, I'm not sure of the right answer; I could see going either direction.

Mark

On 10/4/07, Randy Presuhn <[email-masked]> wrote:
> > Cc: "John Cowan" <[email-masked]>; "Randy Presuhn" <
> [email-masked]>; "LTRU Working Group" <[email-masked]>

---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2007 15:11:26 -0400

+1

> script subtag."  This is still OK with me, but...

The first half is just "Tag wisely".  The second half says to apply
Suppress-Script when it's available, but does not explain when it should
be made available by ietf-languages.  It's the latter that's now seen
to be needed.

-- 
John Cowan  <[email-masked]>  http://ccil.org/~cowan
Micropayment advocates mistakenly believe that efficient allocation of
resources is the purpose of markets.  Efficiency is a byproduct of market
systems, not their goal.  The reasons markets work are not because users
have embraced efficiency but because markets are the best place to allow
users to maximize their preferences, and very often their preferences are
not for conservation of cheap resources.  --Clay Shirkey

---

From: Martin Duerst <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2007 10:10:11 +0900

>It has nothing to do with an existing body of tagged

I tend to agree. For me, "tag wisely" means
"don't tag more than necessary", which implies
"don't add script information if it's just plain
obvious what script is being used, in the general case".

Regards,    Martin.

#-#-#  Martin J. Du"rst, Assoc. Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University
#-#-#  http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp       mailto:[email-masked]

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From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2007 00:40:29 -0400

> obvious what script is being used, in the general case".

"Tag wisely" also means "don't tag less than necessary".

-- 
A mosquito cried out in his pain,               John Cowan
"A chemist has poisoned my brain!"              http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
        The cause of his sorrow                 [email-masked]
        Was para-dichloro-
Diphenyltrichloroethane.                                (aka DDT)

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From: "Frank Ellermann" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 13:06:55 +0200

> Thoughts?

Wrt 639-2 languages I agree with what Ira, Mark, and Martin wrote.

For the new 639-3 languages I see the logistical review problem,
but I don't think that your "date-A cutoff" proposal is a good solution.

 Frank