Encoding scripts in tags: evil or just unpleasant?

[Addison Phillips [wM]]

>
> I am beginning to think that it was a great mistake to encode
> yi-Latn. It appears indeed to have opened the gates to a great
> dumping ground of fixes for underspecifed software. Mark even
> specifically cites the "precedent set by yi-Latn". Thanks. Now the
> Language Tag Review can be *forced* to encode things, right?

How do we know when Cyrillic is the default text for Serbian (or not)?
Consensus (but less than 100% agreement) often emerges from these
discussions once some data is gathered and the relative merits of each piece
is examined. We seem to have consensus on at least six of the nine tags and
merely need to finish considering the default script issue for the remaining
three. If there is no concrete objectsion to the others, why are they
stalled here?

Of course, the question of whether it is a mistake or not would be moot if
an "RFC3066bis" were to emerge with a purely generative mechanism for
scripts. I'm not thrilled about the registry to start with and would be much
happier with a generative mechanism such as John Cowan's suggestion:

http://eikenes.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/2003-April/000631.html

>
> Mark, Addision, you guys go talk to Peter Constable, Peter Edberg,
> Ken Whistler, Rick McGowan, John Cowan and whomever else you like.
> I'll meet Ken and Rick in Baltimore before the UTC and they can talk
> to me about consensus.
>
Since all or most of those people appear to be subscribers to this list, I
surmise that I am talking to them by writing to it. Why not give folks time
to de-lurk and express opinions? Then we can all see if there is emerging
consensus. I believe the 2-week timeframe in the RFC was designed for this
purpose. At the end of it, I would prefer to see each (and every) tag
proposal, individually, given the thumbs-up or thumbs-down with reasons
(regardless of whether I agree with them).

thanks,

Addison