Browser IDN display policy: opinions sought

[Tina Dam]

One more thing. Perhaps we need to treat the IDN Guidelines the same
way the protocol revision did - i.e. seperate guidelines for
registration and resolution/display? Or is that re-opening the
discussion that Gerv tried to avoid?




2011/12/12 Tina Dam <tinadam at gmail.com>:
> Trying to catch up on the many emails on this topic.
>
> 2011/12/10 Patrik Fältström <patrik at frobbit.se>
>>
>>
>> On 10 dec 2011, at 18:26, Paul Hoffman wrote:
>>
>> > D: Unicode if the label is a single script that is displayable by the browser, Punycode otherwise.
>>
>> +1
>>
>> With the exceptions for combinations of various scripts and script COMMON.
>>
>> Or in other words: If the domain name can be displayed as a U-label, in a technically safe way, why not display it as an U-label?
>
> +1.
>
> I agree with others that the three other options are not to be
> desired. But since I don't see us reaching a 100% solution anytime
> soon, so if I had to select between A, B, and C, I would select A.
> The issues between the different options have been discussed at
> lenght, so let me just say that the biggest problem I have with B is
> that it leave it up to Firefox to decide what is a good/bad TLD
> registry. I think that belongs elsewhere, namely with ICANN.
>
> An additional couple of points as I have been reading through all the emails:
>
> They reminds me a lot of the discussions we had during the IDN
> Guidelines revisions. For example, as opposed to making a list of
> scripts allowed to be mixed the rule is:
>
> "All code points in a single label will be taken from the same script
> as determined by the Unicode Standard Annex #24: Script Names
> <http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr24>. Exceptions to this guideline
> are permissible for languages with established orthographies and
> conventions that require the commingled use of multiple scripts. Even
> in the case of this exception, visually confusable characters from
> different scripts will not be allowed to co-exist in a single set of
> permissible code points unless a corresponding policy and character
> table is clearly defined."
>
> It also requires registries to submit to ICANN (for display) their IDN Tables.
>
> So I would suggest that part of the inquiry to ICANN would be to
> enforce compliance with the IDN Guidelines. This should at minimum
> help to:
>
> 1) ensure TLD registries supporting IDNs do so in a responsible manner.
>
> 2) display in one place the languages and scripts that each registry
> is supporting (I lost track but it was requested in one of the emails
> on this topic).
>
> I understand that there are linguistic requirements in the Guidelines
> that are not within ICANN's area of expertise, and that it is a major
> undertaking for the ICANN staff, but there still is the opportunity
> for a relevant entity to be contracted with ICANN to do some/all of
> this work.
>
> Tina