[webidl] Serialization of natural language (TAG issue 178) [I18N-ACTION-623]

Hello Web Platform WG,

This email is a bit of a "shot in the dark". I was going to file a Github issue, but wasn't sure if the heycam/webidl repo was the right place for it. Please redirect me, if appropriate.

This email is regarding a recent conversation the Internationalization (I18N) WG had with TAG [1]. In that thread, we were referred to WebIDL and I drew the action [3] to reach out to start our dialog with you.

In a nutshell, the I18N WG has noticed a large number of specs that convey natural language text in String type fields. Use of Unicode means that the date can be stored, transmitted, and processed on a basic level. However, there are use cases in which language and direction metadata are needed. We attempted to document some of these cases in the document at [2] and would like to ensure that a standard approach or set of recommendations can be adopted for working with natural language data that requires this information.

How can we best engage your WG on this issue?

[1] https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/178
[2] http://w3c.github.io/i18n-discuss/notes/i18n-action-612.html
[3] https://www.w3.org/International/track/actions/623

Best regards (for I18N),

Addison

Addison Phillips
Principal SDE, I18N Architect (Amazon)
Chair (W3C I18N WG)

Internationalization is not a feature.
It is an architecture.