consensus Call: TATWEEL

[Ebw]

John,

It is clear from your response that you didn't see where my concern  
lies. If, in our choices of allowable code points, we constrain Arabic  
(and Farsi and ...) to choices which look correct to Latin  
expectations, non-descending rather than descending, inaesthetically  
dense rather than combining and extended, to "2nd gen" computer Arabic  
(and ...) -- then we may be "solving" one problem by creating another.

The choice of which "harm" to choose is easy if all we know is one  
"harm", and easier when that "harm" is "spoofing" (or last year's  
child porn or the year before that's Arab terrorist or the year before  
that's WMD), but we do have the choice to ask if the people who create  
the basic tools for writing Arabic (and ...) need what we are asked to  
ban, and because of our shared Latin (and other scripts lacking one or  
both of the properties, descent and vertical and horizontal  
interaction) limitations, simply fail to appreciate.

If you really do think this is "bold" and "italic" you simply aren't  
getting it.

Eric

Sent from my iPhone, painfully.

On Mar 22, 2009, at 3:41 PM, John C Klensin <klensin at jck.com> wrote:

>
>
> --On Sunday, March 22, 2009 11:43 -0500 Ebw
> <ebw at abenaki.wabanaki.net> wrote:
>
>> ...
>> I propose we ask modern (3rd gen) Arabic (and Farsi, etc)
>> typographers   for guidance. I'm not certain the UTC
>> motivation is sufficient, nor am   I certain the ASIWG, the
>> process of which I find insufficiently   trasparent, and
>> unacceptably vendor-specific, hasn't overlooked use in   their
>> excessively narrow construction of text labels as "necessary
>> words" with the excessive constraints arise from the incorrect
>> statement of purpose.
>
> Eric,
>
> "Consult typographers" sets off an alarm for me.   Unicode isn't
> supposed to be about typography and certainly domain names
> historically have not been.   If we do get ourselves into a
> situation in which we are consulting typographers, don't we need
> to go back and examine the list of Unicode compatibility
> characters  --many of which seem to be about typographic and
> other subtle variations on base characters -- to figure out
> which ones the typographers think should be distinguishable
> characters (not mapped or prohibited)?
>
> For example, I would certainly like boldface and italics in my
> domain names, even though I recognize that they would cause far
> more confusion and problems than they could possibly be worth.
> I'd also like to be able to utilize the full range of variations
> and artistry in, e.g., Arabic and Chinese calligraphy.  And I'd
> like a pony :-(
>
> Vint,
>
> Yes. I agree with disallowing Tatweel and its N'Ko counterpart.
> I do not believe that we should disallow one and not the other.
>
>    john
>
>