The limit of language codes

[Gerard Meijssen]

John Cowan schreef:
> Gerard Meijssen scripsit:
>
>   
>> When we can convince the tool makers that they ALWAYS enter the
>> language code as part of the meta data of a document and, when they
>> were to allow for all the linguistic entities that are recognised we
>> would have a much rosier situtation.
>>     
>
> Unfortunately that doesn't really help.  See Doctorow's classic "Metacrap"
> rant <http://www.well.com/~doctorow/metacrap.htm>; it's a little overstated,
> but content-creators gain little from providing accurate metadata, and
> often have much to gain by lying.
Hoi,
It is exactly for this reason why I want to address the tool makers of 
this world. If the tool by default does a decent thing, then people may 
be lazy, it is done for them so they do not need to bother. When it is 
in the interest of people not to lie, they can be lazy. When the tool 
does it for people, they can be stupid but it does not matter. By being 
really specific to what we want to achieve, ie correct language tagging, 
adding the meta-data becomes less problematic. Schemas may not be 
neutral, but we at least make an attempt to get it right. We are 
agnostic about what is presented .. we could not care less about the 
message as long as the message about the language of the message is loud 
and clear. Indeed there is more than one way to describe a language.. so 
we make it something that a program does for you.. You do not have to 
worry your pretty head about it.

So yes, lets talk to the toolmakers.

Thanks,
    GerardM