- From: CE Whitehead <cewcathar@hotmail.com>
- Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:57:22 -0500
- To: <xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no>, <ian@hixie.ch>, <www-international@w3.org>, <ishida@w3.org>, <fielding@gbiv.com>
- CC: <public-html@w3.org>
- Message-ID: <SNT142-w55CBFFE3B444F99ED49401B3410@phx.gbl>
It was suggested that the user's settings be used to determine a page language I think--however I tend not to change my language preferences when I want to view content in another language (it takes time to change settings)--so don't think these should ever be used to determine the language of a page I receive except where no other information is available or else where no other information is valid. I just cannot stress this enough. From: Leif Halvard Silli <xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:50:48 +0100 > Also, when it comes to CSS - it seems as if is typical to expect that > <meta> element wins over server's header. Again, a example of this can > be seen in Richard/I18Nwg's tests [3]. > I think part of the solution to ISSUE-88 is to realize that > (A) User (agents) should have the option override the language tags > - this option should not be reserved to search engines ... > (B) overriding also applies to CSS (unless we spec that it don't) > {My preferences may be set for English but I may have searched for text in another language and may want to read a particular > page in that language so how is this a solution? > These should only be able to override language tagging when it is obviously wrong. I don't go off resetting all my preferences > every second because that would mess up my typing since I am used to certain keys equating with certain symbols > when I type notes about a page} > - and specify more detailed > rules for how user agents should interact with the user and with the > document, when @lang is lacking. Then perhaps the user agents should search through the document text to determine the language and give that precedence over other methods-- because I never set my language preferences for a particular page--but only set them to make my keyboard work [I'm not as fast on a European keyboard so set my keyboard to English] -- although I read pages in multiple languages. Is that feasible? If not then I think we are stuck with meta Content-Language (and for the pages I create, it's the only setting I have access to since I don't have access to my web host's server settings) * * * From: Roy T. Fielding <fielding@gbiv.com> Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:35:29 -0800 >> On Mon, 22 Feb 2010, Phillips, Addison wrote: >>> >>> The problem that Mark (and Richard) are referring to (I think) is the >>> <meta> pragma, which is not currently and should not be changed to be, >>> IMHO, considered the "primary" language of the document. This pragma can >>> contain a list of languages. One of these might be inferred to be the >>> primary (outer) document processing language if the 'lang' attribute is >>> missing. And that, in a nutshell, is what I think we're wrestling with >>> here: whether the pragma should be wired up to 'lang' in that case, and, >>> if it has more than one language, which language should be applied. >> >> The spec's definition of the Content-Language pragma is specified as it is >> because that's what user agents do with that pragma. Making it do >> something else would require changing user agent implementations. > Sorry, that simply isn't true. Most of what is written in the section > on "Pragma directives", aside from the behavioral algorithms that only > apply during browser rendering, is just made up constraints that don't > actually exist in practice and don't make any sense regardless. The > Content-Language value, for example, has only recently been used as a > default for primary language by a few user agents; the fact that a > default only makes sense when one language is given does not in any way > change the definition or purpose of Content-Language. It should only > affect the language choice algorithm, which doesn't even belong in > that section. I agree completely with Roy here. > the most common examples of that are found in > language-learning exercises and poetry/lyric translations. Regarding on line language-learning content: I still think that it is often best to specify both the native language of the learners, where there is a single one, and the target language--the one they are trying to learn; since instructions, etc. are in both and since presumablythese people must speak/read/write to some degree however small both. > Likewise, content-language metadata in HTML is often used to > populate content negotiation data on the server, and to influence > workflow decisions for multilingual websites when an author updates > the content on one page (e.g., triggering language-specific alerts to > the people responsible for translating the page to other languages). Hmm. Best, C. E. Whitehead cewcathar@hotmail.com
Received on Wednesday, 24 February 2010 20:57:55 UTC