Re: ISSUE-88 / Re: what's the language of a document ?

On Apr 1, 2010, at 12:27 PM, Richard Ishida wrote:

> Issue-88 was discussed last night at the i18n telecon.  These are our
> current thoughts about the change proposal at
> http://www.w3.org/International/wiki/Htmlissue88

Thanks for the update.

> The i18n WG is now satisfied with regard to proposals [1], [4] and  
> [5] and
> thanks the editor for the changes made to the specification.

Would you be willing to update the Change Proposal to remove points  
[1], [4] and [5], so that we can be clear about the proposed changes  
still under discussion?

>
> There are two items remaining.

Ian, comments on the two points below would be appreciated.

>
> [[
> [3] Change:
> "For meta elements with an http-equiv attribute in the Content  
> Language
> state, the content attribute must have a value consisting of a valid  
> BCP 47
> language code. [BCP47]"
> to
> "For meta elements with an http-equiv attribute in the Content  
> Language
> state, the content attribute must have a value consisting of one or  
> more
> valid BCP 47 language codes, separated by commas. [BCP47]"
> ]]
>
> Since the algorithm just above this text now allows for treatment of a
> comma-separated list of values in determining the pragma-set default
> language, we suspect that it might be an oversight that this text  
> wasn't
> changed.
>
>
> [[
> [2] Add an additional note just before the numbered list in the  
> section
> about Content language state, with the following text:
>
> "Note: Declarations in the HTTP header and the Content Language  
> pragma are
> metadata, referring to the document as a whole and expressing the  
> expected
> language or languages of the audience of the document. On the other  
> hand, a
> language attribute on an element describes the actual language used  
> in the
> range of content bounded by that element (and so values are limited  
> to a
> single language at a time)."
>
> Rationale: To clarify why the HTTP and pragma declarations are  
> different
> when it comes to values, and how they should be used. This is a  
> constant
> source of confusion.
> ]]
>
> On balance, we would still prefer to see a note of this kind in the  
> spec, if
> the editor agrees.