[Foundation-l] Automatic username transliteration for SUL

Thu Dec 21 17:04:31 UTC 2006

Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> David Gerard schreef:
>   
>> On 21/12/06, Neil Harris <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>   
>>     
>>> And, as I keep on saying, the addition of the correct fonts to the
>>> user's browser does not magically grant the ability to read or even
>>> recognize characters in scripts that a reader is unused to. ("His name?
>>> It's three little boxes, and in the boxes there are a lot of little
>>> straight lines, apart from the ones that are like little hooks or
>>> squares. In the leftmost box, there's a bit of a gap at the bottom left,
>>> and then there's a sort of hooky bit hanging out at the right of the
>>> middle box, which has a few less lines, and then...")
>>>     
>>>       
>> Obviously, with SUL any en:wp editor who does not learn to read all
>> other scripts used on Wikimedia is simply being a cultural
>> imperialist.
>>
>>
>> - d.
>>     
> Hoi,
> There is at the moment a big row brewing over the way the Internet 
> insists on having URLs in Latin script. People who do not write in Latin 
> have to use Latin to be able to use the Internet. This notion of being 
> able to enter URLs in your own script is really intuitive. When this 
> change is going to be implemented you will still be able to access the 
> websites that will no longer be available with a Latin script.
>
> It will be a big change when it happens, this issue raised about the 
> insistence of the English language Wikipedia is a harbinger of many more 
> issues that will come.
>
> Thanks,
>      GerardM
>
>
>   
Gerard,

You might be surprised to hear that I'm one of the many people working 
on that particular problem. The sub-problems needed to be solved in 
order to implement native-script display for all of the components of 
IRIs in a way that is secure, interoperable, and reliable are 
non-trivial. Sorting out Wikipedia usernames is a relatively trivial 
problem when compared to IRIs.

-- Neil