[UA-discuss] Language - how do you refer to non-ASCII to a non-technical audience?

[Richard Merdinger]

Of course, my daughter would assume that “your way of writing” includes emojis ☺

Point taken, but I couldn’t resist.  When I talk to people, I “colloquialize” with terms like “local character sets” or “local language.”  The problem is, when we are “technically correct,” confusion ensues.

Richard Merdinger
VP, Domains - GoDaddy
e: rmerdinger at godaddy.com
m: +1.319.530.4100
s: Richard.Merdinger

On 7/29/16, 3:34 PM, "ua-discuss-bounces at icann.org on behalf of Andrew Sullivan" <ua-discuss-bounces at icann.org on behalf of ajs at anvilwalrusden.com> wrote:

    On Mon, Jul 25, 2016 at 02:32:14PM +0000, Andre Schappo wrote:
    >Unicode Domain Name indicates that the Domain Name can be composed of characters across the range of available Unicode characters and thus multiple human language scripts.
    >
    
    Of course, it has the notable disadvantage that it isn't true.  For
    instance, IDNA doesn't permit emoji.
    
    > For a single term for non techies (actually for most techies as well) I would go for and have used many times myself the term "non-English Domain Names".
    
    I know I've already said it, but suggesting that traditional LDH
    domain names are in "English" reinforces a pernicious myth that has
    caused a great deal of trouble already.  A big part of the confusion
    exposed in the Variant Issues Project was attributable to this
    extremely bad idea that domain names are "in English", and the
    attempts by many people to make rules requiring linguistic clues for
    domain names is hurting the very deployability that this project is
    supposed to care about.  For there is literally no way to make
    linguistic rules that aren't subject to attacks, which tends to
    encourage exactly the sort of in-client responses that prevent the
    acceptance we want.
    
    This is why talking about "your way of writing" or similar kinds of
    things are better.
    
    A
    
    -- 
    Andrew Sullivan
    ajs at anvilwalrusden.com