Re: Question about language tag formalism

Hi Luc,

This list is probably as good as any. Getting a real reply to such a  
detailed question from the WCAG group is generally extremely difficult.  
Getting an official reply is, in my experience, more or less impossible  
even on very common questions.

An alternative would be to ask the I18N group, who are effectively the  
people who will determine how language tagging should be done for W3C  
specs.

Anyway, to the problem at hand, in my humble opinion...

On Tue, 28 Mar 2006 19:24:53 +0200, Luc Pardon <lucp@skopos.be> wrote:

>     I have a discussion with IETF/IANA on language tagging and would  
> invite your opinion.
...
>     Finally, the question: can I tag with el-Latn and (on this aspect)  
> claim WCAG conformance _today_  ?
>
>     * The IETF people tell me to go ahead and use el-Latn because "the  
> fact that [RFC3066bis] hasn't been published yet as an RFC is an  
> administrative detail".
>
>     * I maintain that I cannot tag with el-Latn and claim conformance.  
>  From my point of view, all I see of RFC3066bis is a draft that says it  
> will expire in about three weeks from now and forbids me from referring  
> to it (2), and all other specs still indicating that RFC3066 remains in  
> force until the RFC editor has done his/her part.
>
>     Am I wrong? What would your judgment (and your reasoning) be if you  
> had to evaluate a site with lang="el-Latn".

I would judge that you had correctly tagged the *language* and thus met  
the strict legalistic requirement.

Further, I would suggest that despite rfc3066bis not having been formally  
published, what you have done with regards to the script is clearly the  
logical thing, and you should therefore go ahead. In the unlikely event  
that something contradictory is published you willl probably have to  
switch to maintain conformance.

Cheers

Chaals

-- 
Charles McCathieNevile                     chaals@opera.com
   hablo español  -  je parle français  -  jeg lærer norsk
      Peek into the kitchen: http://snapshot.opera.com/

Received on Wednesday, 29 March 2006 11:30:06 UTC