Re: Language selection per 2.5 in techniques

Nir Dagan wrote:
> 
> In http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/WD-UAAG10-TECHS-20000128/
> article 2.5 there are several unclear statements.

Hi Nir! Thank you for your comments. I'm editing the techniques document
and will incorporate them.

 - Ian
 
> "Provide an interface which allows users to indicate their preferred language
>  separately for each kind of equivalent. The selection can be based on user
>  preferences in either the user agent (cf., the Content-Language entity-header
>  field of RFC 2616 [RFC2616], section 14.12) or the operating system."
> 
> This is a little confusing as the content-language HTTP header may
> be included in a response of the server, but not in a request of the
> browser.
> 
> On the other hand, the user may set a value for the Accept-language
> request header. See the section "14.4 Accept-Language" in RFC2616.
> 
> Another statement is
> "In addition, international users may prefer to hear the program audio in its
>  original language while reading captions in their first language, fulfilling
>  the function of subtitles or to improve foreign language comprehension."
> 
> It is not clear what "international users" are. Non-Americans? User who
> understand more than one language?  I think "some users" is  more accurate.
> 
> Also it may be the case that both languages are foreign to the user,
> both native, or that the captions are foreign and the audio is native.
> Thus, this preference is not limited to the case of foreign audio and
> native captions.
> 
> Later in the text we have:
> "The next image illustrates how users select preferred language in the
>  Windows operating system under properties for Regional Settings. This
>  preference could be inherited by the user agent."
> 
> It should be clarified that user agents should not
> send accept-language request header based on the language settings
> of the operating system because:
> 1. The operating system defines one language, while the accept-language
>    header may include many languages in different priorities. Automatic
>    setting of accept-language the operating system language may
>    result in the user receiving 406 messages from servers that do not
>    have a match to this single language although they have acceptable
>    other languages to the users. This coupled with IE's un-informative
>    "friendly" error messages may result in not accessing the document at all.
> 2. This may be a privacy problem as indicated in RFC 2616 "15.1.4 Privacy Issues
>    Connected to Accept Headers" That is, users may like to hide the languages they
>    understand from servers although they tell it to the operating system.
> 
> Regards,
> Nir.
> ===================================
> Nir Dagan
> Assistant Professor of Economics
> Brown University
> Providence, RI
> USA
> 
> http://www.nirdagan.com
> mailto:nir@nirdagan.com
> tel:+1-401-863-2145

-- 
Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel/Fax:                     +1 212 684-1814 or 212 532-4767
Cell:                        +1 917 450-8783

Received on Tuesday, 29 February 2000 16:53:25 UTC