[Latingp] Variants -- Case for Considering Upper Case

[Michael Bauland]

Hi Bill,

On 05.07.2018 19:11, Bill Jouris wrote:
> One of the classifications where we have disagreement is over Upper Case
> / Lower Case.  Here is how I see it. 
> 
> We (at ICANN, and folks at the IETF) know that domain names are strictly
> lower case.  But the vast majority of Internet users know no such
> thing.  They have decades of experience which teaches them that Upper
> Case and Lower Case are totally interchangable.  Thus, if they see
> www.icann.org <http://www.icann.org/> or WWW.ICANN.ORG
> <http://www.icann.org/> or http://www.icann.org <http://www.icann.org/>
> they will expect (correctly!) that all of those will take them to the
> same website. 
>  
> The Least Astonishment Principle therefore requires us to recognize
> that, /for our user community/, Upper and Lower case are variants. 
> Period.  We may wish that this was not the case.  But we cannot ignore
> the reality that it is. 

I agree that these letters may be confused by some internet users.
Nevertheless, our work is not the only check to avoid TLDs from being
registered that would be confused. There is always the second manual review.

> I would also note that the IP's words on this subject are "the GPs are
> not required to consider capital letters".  We do not live in a world
> where everything which is not required is forbidden -- and we have not
> been forbidden to consider the reality before us.

Ok, they say we MAY do this, but we don't have to. Therefore I'd say
that we first concentrate on the work we have to do. Let's make sure we
can finish that in time. If then there is some time left, great, we can
take a look at the capital letters and whether there will be in-script
and out-of-script variants. The additional work is not to be
underestimated. We have to compare all capital letters with all
lower-case ones, as well as all capital letters with each other.

I am not generally against doing this, just not at this time.

Cheers,

Michael

-- 
____________________________________________________________________
     |       |
     | knipp |            Knipp  Medien und Kommunikation GmbH
      -------                    Technologiepark
                                 Martin-Schmeisser-Weg 9
                                 44227 Dortmund
                                 Germany

     Dipl.-Informatiker          Fon:    +49 231 9703-0
                                 Fax:    +49 231 9703-200
     Dr. Michael Bauland         SIP:    Michael.Bauland at knipp.de
     Software Development        E-mail: Michael.Bauland at knipp.de

                                 Register Court:
                                 Amtsgericht Dortmund, HRB 13728

                                 Chief Executive Officers:
                                 Dietmar Knipp, Elmar Knipp