consensus Call: TATWEEL

[Michael Everson]

On 26 Mar 2009, at 10:47, Alireza Saleh wrote:

> thanks for the description, but I still don't understand why this
> character has been coded as Arabic-Letter ?

It was named that way back in 8859 time, and the distinctions IDNA is  
now making between "letters" and other things was not a apart of the  
equation.

> and as it is for now then it should be in the protocol.

No, it should NOT. It has no content of its own, and ALL it can do in  
a domain name is spoof.

Please ignore the fact that it has a character property of Letter. It  
isn't a letter.

> Maybe, in Unicode 5.2 there will be a character that have the same  
> characteristics like Tatweel, then we should update the protocol  
> documents again.

Fine, if that has to be done, that has to be done.

> Besides, I still don't hear any arguments other than visual confusion.

I haven't heard a single argument FOR using this glyph fragment in a  
domain name identifier.

> I'm not arguing for permitting Tatweel as such, what I'm arguing is  
> that the way of making decisions should be changed.

More meta-discussion won't help us. Can't we get ON with it?

> If the IDNAbis working group thinks that all these problems
> should be handled at the protocol level, then please go ahead and
> resolve them ALL; there will be a long list of confusions more  
> dangerous
> than having Tatweel can be sent to the group. if not, better leave  
> them
> all to be resolved at the registry.

I don't believe that it is an either/or situation.

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com