[minutes] Internationalization telecon 2018-06-21

https://www.w3.org/2018/06/21-i18n-minutes.html






text extract follows:


- DRAFT -

            Internationalization Working Group Teleconference

21 Jun 2018

    [2]Agenda

       [2] 
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/member-i18n-core/2018Jun/0015.html

Attendees

    Present
           stpeter, addison, Richard, David, xfq, Katy, chaals,
           xiaoqian, job, sangwhan, Mallory, fantasai, JcK

    Regrets

    Chair
           Addison Phillips

    Scribe
           addison, stpeter

Contents

      * [3]Topics
          1. [4]Action Items
          2. [5]HTML Issue 1424
          3. [6]issue 1039 in html
          4. [7]Validation of<input> type='date' not conforming to
             ISO 8601-2 (#3767)
          5. [8]RTL non-Semitic text
          6. [9]AOB?
      * [10]Summary of Action Items
      * [11]Summary of Resolutions
      __________________________________________________________

    <addison> trackbot, prepare teleconference

    <addison> ScribeNick: addison

    Dial in info:
    [12]https://www.w3.org/2017/09/i18n-meeting-info.html

      [12] https://www.w3.org/2017/09/i18n-meeting-info.html

    that link is member-only

Action Items

    [13]https://www.w3.org/International/track/actions/open

      [13] https://www.w3.org/International/track/actions/open

    action-726?

    <trackbot> action-726 -- Richard Ishida to File utf-8 issue on
    html53 -- due 2018-06-07 -- OPEN

    <trackbot>
    [14]https://www.w3.org/International/track/actions/726

      [14] https://www.w3.org/International/track/actions/726

    close action-726

    <trackbot> Closed action-726.

    action-727?

    <trackbot> action-727 -- Addison Phillips to Invite
    stakeholders for html issue 1424 to next teleconference and say
    that we are doing this on the issue itself -- due 2018-06-21 --
    OPEN

    <trackbot>
    [15]https://www.w3.org/International/track/actions/727

      [15] https://www.w3.org/International/track/actions/727

    close action-727

    <trackbot> Closed action-727.

HTML Issue 1424

    <stpeter> scribenick: stpeter

    addison: we have a few issues on HTML 5

    <addison> [16]https://github.com/w3c/html/issues/1424

      [16] https://github.com/w3c/html/issues/1424

    addison: can someone introduce this?

    chaals: in HTML we try to put in things that are interoperable
    and deployed
    ... the pairing model for ruby is only implemented in Firefox
    as far as we know
    ... if there are no other implementations we would remove from
    the Recommendation version
    ... however we understand that there might be more
    implementations now or on the way
    ... also want to clear up the text that we have
    ... it's not clear how the various ruby features are
    differentiated

    k

    fantasai: some of this is stylistic

    r12a: you don't need styling for the mono/group ruby
    distinction, just markup; for jukugo ruby you need styling
    rather than markup

    chaals: is there a CSS thing that explains the different
    renderings?

    <r12a>
    [17]https://www.w3.org/International/articles/ruby/markup

      [17] https://www.w3.org/International/articles/ruby/markup

    fantasai: some of this needs to be explained in the HTML spec
    because people aren't used to thinking about ruby in semantic
    terms
    ... different markups are needed for different renderings

    <r12a>
    [18]https://www.w3.org/International/articles/ruby/markup#mono_
    group_etc

      [18] 
https://www.w3.org/International/articles/ruby/markup#mono_group_etc

    chaals: I'm preparing a pull request and will ask for feedback

    fantasai: I wrote a blog post on this

    r12a: there are examples in the last URL I posted

    <xiaoqian> [19]http://fantasai.inkedblade.net/weblog/2011/ruby/

      [19] http://fantasai.inkedblade.net/weblog/2011/ruby/

    chaals: what I'm finding difficult is that the markup in the
    current spec is the same for group vs. mono

    xiaoqian: thanks for the link

    chaals: as I read the issue we have a pairing implementation in
    Firefox and one in a print project (Antenna House)

    fantasai: the Antenna House implementation is used in
    production

    chaals: and we've heard that the Chrome folks are working on an
    implementation, too
    ... so that's probably enough to remove the threat of "at risk"
    ... so I think we can close this issue
    ... and continue working on a pull request to improve the text
    ... this would be an editorial cleanup and we'll run that by
    the i18n wg

    addison: we had another HTML-related topic?

issue 1039 in html

    <xfq_> [20]https://github.com/w3c/html/issues/1039

      [20] https://github.com/w3c/html/issues/1039

    chaals: my understanding of the issue is that we need to clear
    up what we say if you don't use UTF-8 - those other encodings
    should work in predictable ways

    r12a: I would gloss that to say there are some legacy encodings
    that shouldn't break if the browser follows the spec, and
    encodings that are not covered by the Encoding spec if used
    will lead to problems - but you shouldn't actually use any
    legacy encodings, only utf-8

    addison: and you really shouldn't use some of those :-)

    chaals: best to say "must not generate an encoding other than
    UTF-8" but if you receive other encodings you should handle
    them appropriately

    addison: historically, pages without an explicit encoding are
    not in UTF-8
    ... assuming that those are in UTF-8 would break things
    ... there are also locale-based vagaries

    chaals: so it sounds like we need to do more work on this?

    addison: actually it's very specific in the spec
    ... all of this machinery hangs together
    ... what's weird is to say "must UTF-8" but that's not the
    default encoding

    r12a: this is the most practical way even though it's strange

    <JcK> And before it was Windows 252, it was ISO 8859-1. Not
    worth splitting these hairs as long as the text doesn't make a
    recommendation equivalent to requiring breaking things.

    addison: as guidelines to authors I don't think anyone would
    object

    chaals: we will continue to look at this and check it with you
    again

    addison: wording it carefully so that we don't break things is
    the goal

    chaals: we share that goal, just need to get the right words in
    the right places

    addison: the pitfall is always the summary version, which is
    all some people might read

Validation of<input> type='date' not conforming to ISO 8601-2 (#3767)

    <xfq_> [21]https://github.com/w3c/html/issues/1340

      [21] https://github.com/w3c/html/issues/1340

    <r12a> [22]https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/3767

      [22] https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/3767

    <xfq_> [23]https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/3767

      [23] https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/3767

    addison: this one is a sticky wicket, isn't it? and it has
    additional messiness because data types don't deal with unknown
    date fields (milliseconds since epoch)
    ... blank fields not supported

    Sangwhan: maybe we could delay this

    addison: not whether 8601-2 is stable, but what is the effect
    of taking this on? the side effects are the challenge here

    chaals: there is real usage all over the place (e.g., counting
    miillseconds since epoch)
    ... lots of bad things will happen on first day of month, last
    day of month, etc.

    r12a: this is not a theorectical problem - people need to enter
    these date formats

    chaals: dates are harder than you think - both non-theoretical
    and difficult

    r12a: maybe have a different date type for birth days?
    ... perhaps because only certain kinds of dates need this?

    addison: might apply to things other than birth dates

    fantasai: holidays in general might need this

    chaals: a new date type is worth considering, but the challenge
    is getting people to use them
    ... for instance some people will leave off the year but
    include the month or day

    Mallory: authors don't know if you're putting in a vague date
    beforehand

    not as scribe, I seem to recall that the vCard specs defined
    some relevant usages, see for instance
    [24]https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6350#section-4.3.1

      [24] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6350#section-4.3.1

    chaals: the uncertainty might arise in the middle of a date
    ... if there's not enough apparent demand to support an
    uncertain date type, web authors will handle things themselves
    (e.g., in JS or polyfill)

    addison: needs a good deal of thought about how to do this
    across the web architecture

    Sangwhan: could address this in a revision of web forms

    Mallory: we've seen people get this front-end validation wrong
    (e.g., with telephone numbers)

    chaals: the short answer is we're probably not going to solve
    this today

    addison: I tend to agree with Sangwhan
    ... thanks to the HTML folks for joining us today

RTL non-Semitic text

    addison: shall we talk about the substantive topic or info
    share?

    r12a: I don't think we'll solve this problem today either

    <r12a> [25]https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/2754

      [25] https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/2754

    r12a: this started with someone saying Chinese is written RTL,
    how do we do that?
    ... this got confusing because it was suggested that one could
    do this with vertical text and one character per column
    ... this has been suggested before, but I think it's not the
    right approach
    ... normally one recommends using BDO to override the direction
    of the characters which are inherently LTR
    ... but there's a wrinkle because Latin numbers would go RTL
    and BDO needs to be applied there as well to make them go LTR
    (same for Latin-script acronyms etc.)
    ... problem is that each character has direction - it would be
    cleaner to change the default direction for a page or a range
    of characters
    ... things are clunky now because you can't do what's desirable

    addison: might make it script-based, but also want to pull in
    the common script
    ... it's complicated

    r12a: this is not just Chinese - can see the same thing in
    other places

    addison: a lot of older scripts are not deterministically
    directional
    ... this is an interesting problem and sounds like it could use
    some attention
    ... might need to educate people that using bidi overrides are
    not the right tool for the job

    JcK: the bidi stuff is instrinsically favoring scripts that are
    usually or always in one direction or the other

    addison: this is a relatively corner case, but perhaps because
    it's hard to do

    JcK: some of the examples adduced are at least a century or two
    old
    ... I've heard from colleagues in China that they've mostly
    thrown up their hands about addressing these corner cases in
    the computer age

    r12a: much of the feedback we receive is for historical scripts

    JcK: I wasn't suggesting this problem doesn't need to be solved
    - my concern is layering even more complexity on top of
    something that's already complex

    fantasai: should this be handled in CSS, not semantics?

    addison: this is almost another writing mode

    r12a: I think you need to bake in ranges here?

    addison: my tendency is to say scripts, not ranges

    <fantasai> .special, .special * { unicode-bidi: bidi-override }

    <fantasai> .special { direction: rtl; }

    <fantasai> ACTION r12a and fantasai to write an article on LTR
    scripts historically written RTL

    <trackbot> Created ACTION-729 - And fantasai to write an
    article on ltr scripts historically written rtl [on Richard
    Ishida - due 2018-06-28].

    <addison> ACTION: richard: write an article about RTL usage for
    non-semitic text particularly historic scripts

    <trackbot> Created ACTION-730 - Write an article about rtl
    usage for non-semitic text particularly historic scripts [on
    Richard Ishida - due 2018-06-28].

    <addison> richard: reminds that line breaking article wants
    comments!

AOB?

    <addison> stpeter: TC39 has some i18n stuff, will info share
    next time

Summary of Action Items

    [NEW] ACTION: richard: write an article about RTL usage for
    non-semitic text particularly historic scripts

Summary of Resolutions

    [End of minutes]

Received on Thursday, 21 June 2018 16:21:17 UTC