Re: International standards for various forms of profile data

Andrea,

That is why I love this list. It is the first list I have found where 
actual standards and definitions are developed outside of corporate think 
tanks, for me the most important reason of open source. And maybe some of 
the stuff I collect and publish will some day find its way into some 
standard, www or national, or become a global recommendation by the major 
players in the market. I think we are still far from being global, but we 
are heading in the right direction.

David 




"A. Vine" <avine@eng.sun.com>
Sent by: andrea.vine@Sun.COM
08/30/01 03:01 PM

 
        To:     David_Possin@i2.com
        cc:     www-international@w3.org
        Subject:        Re: International standards for various forms of profile data


David,

As far as I know, getting national standards bodies to come up with one
set of locale-related info for each locale in their jurisdiction has not
been too successful.  There is a site which publishes official standards
of this nature, but there are so few that it is not very useful.

This is a problem for platforms providing this information.  Periodically
customers will complain that the locale-related formats are "wrong", but
of course if the platform changes them then other customers complain that
the changes are "wrong".

In addition, the areas you are looking for are typically not available in
standard locale information.

In other words, your best efforts combined with others will probably be
your best bet for that type of info.

Regards,
Andrea
-- 
Andrea Vine, avine@eng.sun.com, iPlanet i18n architect
"We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce 
the Complete Works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know 
this is not true."
--Robert Wilensky

David_Possin@i2.com wrote:
> 
> From: David_Possin@i2.com
> To: www-international@w3.org
> Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2001 8:47 PM
> Subject: International standards for various forms of profile data
> 
> Hello everybody,
> 
> I am currently working the i18n/l10n requirements for creating and
> maintaining company and person profile data for our ecommerce
> framework. Due to the large diversity of our customers we want to offer
> standard base data for international support in all supported
> languages. This was originally done by our customer in their respective
> local offices, but the magnitude is getting overwhelming and our
> support staff cannot keep up with their requests.
> 
> I am looking for resources for specific profile data information in as
> many languages/locales/cultures/regions as possible, preferably backed
> up by national standards organizations. Here are the major areas I have
> started to research:
> 
>    * Common Honorifics, Salutations, Titles; their placement rules and
>      correct usage (regular expressions)
>    * Gender and Marriage Status specifications (some countries do not
>      allow divorces, but may allow the term separated or legally
>      separated)
>    * Surnames and Additions (like Henry III or the Third)
>    * Usage of Maiden Names and other genealogical information (I
>      remember Spanish heritage listing as a nightmare: uuuu y vvvv y
>      wwww y xxxxx and so on)
>    * Religions and Sub-Groups (like Protestant, Lutheran or Reformed)
>    * Legal business identifications (like in Germany: AG, KG, GmbH,
>      GmbH & Co. KG, etc.)
> 
>      There are probably dozens more parts of information that should be
>      used to be complete, there are probably additional fields that
>      don't even apply to a Western culture. I would appreciate getting
>      as much info as I can, I will compile a list and send it out to
>      the group once it looks like I have all. I am especially
>      interested in native standards in the respective languages.
> 
>      Thanking all in advance,
> 
>      David Possin
>      International QA Engineer (i18n & l10n)
>      i2 Technologies - Austin
>    *
>    *