Re: New article draft: Personal names around the world

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the comments. I'm a bit behind on this due to project 
deadlines culminating in travel last week.  I haven't forgotten, and 
will work through your points over the coming days before sending for 
wider review.

I prefer to leave the order as is.  It's based on a blog post that got a 
huge amount of visibility a while back because of that initial section 
as a draw in.  Most people are unaware of the problem, and the article 
therefore tries to convey a sense of that to then interest people in the 
guidelines.

Cheers,
RI


On 01/06/2011 00:00, Mark Davis ☕ wrote:
> It is a very nice article. I have a couple of suggestions/comments.
>
> A. The implications for design are a bit buried at the end, when for a
> lot of people that is the main focus. What I'd suggest is:
>
>    1. Move the material before that to the end, under a heading like Details
>    2. Preface the design section with a short intro, just enough to
>       understand what the design section needs. Something short and
>       sweet, like the following (but a bit expanded).
>
> Across languages, names are complicated. For example, the given and
> family name may be reversed; members of the same family may not share
> the same family name; people may have multiple family names; and so on.
> For more information and examples, see Details.
>
> Design Implications
> ...
>
> In this section, use subsubheaders for each issue that has a YOUR
> PROFILE example in it, for clarity. Also add a subsubheader before "Be
> careful, also, about assumptions built into algorithms that pull out the
> parts of a name automatically.", something like Algorithmic Issues.
>
>  > *In some cases you want to identify part of a name, such as the
> family name, so that you can sort a list of names alphabetically,
> contact them, etc. Consider whether it would make sense to have an extra
> field where you ask the user to enter the part of their name that you
> need to use for a specific purpose.*
>
> This is a bit tricky. In general, I agree with you. However, the example
> doesn't work well. I supply my full name as "Dr. Mark E. Davis", and I
> give you my family name "Davis" on a separate field as requested. But
> you will still not sort correctly. The problem is that if you sort just
> those two fields, you will end sorting my name among the Davis's, but
> then you won't sort correctly by the first name. That is, if you sort
> first by the last name, then by the full name, you'll get:
>
> Dr. Mark E. Davis < John Davis < Rev. Aaron Davis
>
> Good sorting would require at least 2 fields. You might make more
> explicit mention also that correctly sorting Japanese names requires
> having a separate "pronunciation" field.
>
>>  *try to avoid using the labels ‘first name’ and ‘last name’*, since
> these can be confusing for people who normally write their family name
> followed by given names.
>
> Strictly speaking, there is no solution. If you use the label "Family"
> name, that doesn't apply to people who don't have family names (those
> with just patronymics). However, you end up having to go with what is
> most customary for the language, and in English, "Family Name" is as
> good as we can do.
>
> Also, the following seems misplaced.
>
>>  Bear in mind that names in some cultures can be quite a lot longer
> than your own. Make input fields long enough to make it easy to enter
> long names, and ensure that if the name is displayed on a web page later
> there is enough space for it. Also avoid limiting the field size for
> names in your database.
>
>   It is a general issue that applies to all forms. I realize you're
> using it as a lead-in, but it would be better either at the top or
> bottom of this section.
>
>>  Other/given names
>
> This is too vague. What does the form-writer want? For "Rocco ("Rocky")
> Francis Marchegiano", does he want "Rocco, Rocky, Francis, Frank", just
> "Rocky", just ....
>
> Often what is just needed is what the computer will call "you". For
> example, on Amazon, the web page will use "Mark" or "Mark’s" for me.
> What is really wanted is a Nickname field, and it might be worth calling
> that out as a prominent usage: a short name that will be used by the
> system to refer to you, either to you yourself, or to other users of the
> system.
> *
> *
> *Other issue.*
> *
> *
> People who work in a different language than their native tongue often
> want to have two forms of their names, so that people can find them
> under either name. Example, "Claire Ho (賀靜蘭)". That works fine for
> the "just enter in your full name". It doesn't work well when the name
> is split. It can also run afoul of security checks (for cross-script
> spoofing). One recommendation we've made is that different scripts be
> allowed if they are in () or（）.
>
>>  implications for character encoding
> This title seems odd. It is not so much about character encoding as it
> is about repertoire restrictions, and should be stated that way.
>
>>  If you are designing an English form you need to decide whether you
> are expecting people to enter names in their own script or in an
> ASCII-only transcription, or both. What people will type into the form
> will often depend on whether the form and its page is in their language
> or not. If the page is in their language, don’t be surprised to get back
> non-Latin or accented Latin characters.
>
> I would make this clearer, more like:
>
> To deal with people's names correctly you need to handle non-ASCII
> characters even in English, such as Zoë. There are some circumstances,
> such as a log-in name, where you can't permit non-ASCII characters.
>
>>  If so, you may want to ask for a Latin transcription.
> A Latin transcription may also include non-ASCII. Are you meaning this
> section to refer to ASCII issues alone? The issue of asking for a Latin
> transcription is not an "implication for character encoding", and would
> to go better in the previous section.
>
> You should also look over all of the problem cases that you discuss at
> the start, and see if you are give clear guidance on how to deal with
> the problem in your design section. For example, you mention that
> sorting in some languages is done by given name. In the design section,
> you'd have in the Algorithmic Issues a recommendation to allow users who
> sort names to be able to pick whether to sort by given name or family name.
>
> Mark
>
> /— Il meglio è l’inimico del bene —/
>
>
> On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 22:40, Richard Ishida <ishida@w3.org
> <mailto:ishida@w3.org>> wrote:
>
>     Hi Martin,
>
>     Thanks for your suggestions.
>
>
>     On 30/05/2011 02:54, "Martin J. Dürst" wrote:
>
>         Hello Richard,
>
>         Just a few comments:
>
>         Background
>
>         "People who create web forms, databases, or ontologies in
>         English-speaking countries are often unaware how different people’s
>         names can be in other countries."
>         Why is this specific to English-speaking countries? It can
>         easily happen
>         in any country. In some places, people may be aware of two or three
>         (rather than just one) convention, but they'll still just miss
>         most of
>         the others.
>
>
>     Thanks. Missed that. Was text from the original blog post, where i
>     did call out English-speaking developers in particular.
>
>
>
>
>         "Don't forget to allow people to use hyphens, apostrophes, etc. in
>         names. Don't require names to be entered in upper case - this can be
>         difficult on a mobile device.": These two advices don't seem to be
>         related, better to take them apart. Re. upper case, why would
>         anybody
>         want to force that? What exactly does it mean: All upper case,
>         or just
>         partially upper case? All upper case is a bad idea because casing is
>         often part of the name.
>
>
>     Both of these are based on comments Timbl made to me this year while
>     we were travelling.  I added 'all' before 'upper case'.
>
>
>      > Also, you should probably say something about
>
>         prefixes and suffixes (de,... in French, von in German, jr. in
>         the US,...).
>
>
>     I added "Allow the user to enter a name with spaces, eg. to support
>     prefixes and suffixes such as de in French, von in German, and Jnr.
>     in American names.".
>
>
>
>         "ask the user to submit their name": to avoid gender complications
>         without being ungrammatical, why not "ask the users to submit
>         their names"
>
>
>     It is grammatical English in the version that I speak.
>
>
>
>         "Name (in your alphabet)" doesn't work for scripts that are not
>         alphabets.
>
>
>     True in a strict sense. Can you think of a better way to put it for
>     the general user?
>
>
>
>         "Herr Doktor Profesor Schmidt" would sound weird, "Herr
>         Professor Doktor
>         Schmidt" is correct.
>
>
>     Fixed. Thanks.
>
>     Cheers,
>     RI
>
>
>
>         Regards, Martin.
>
>         On 2011/05/29 19:54, Richard Ishida wrote:
>
>             Folks,
>
>             A while back we agreed in a telecon that it would be a good
>             idea to
>             convert my blog post on personal names to a w3c article. In
>             my free time
>             this weekend I have produced a first draft (that extends the
>             blog
>             post) at
>
>             http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-personal-names
>
>             Please take a look at it with a view to whether we should
>             send for wide
>             review at this point.
>
>             Thanks,
>
>             RI
>
>
>
>             PS: Addison, can we agenda+ this for the next meeting?
>
>
>
>
>     --
>     Richard Ishida
>     Internationalization Activity Lead
>     W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)
>
>     http://www.w3.org/International/
>     http://rishida.net/
>
>

-- 
Richard Ishida
Internationalization Activity Lead
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)

http://www.w3.org/International/
http://rishida.net/

Received on Thursday, 16 June 2011 19:58:52 UTC