[UA-EAI] [Ext] EAI Working group Archives

[Mark Svancarek]

If the fonts aren't installed, you may see boxes.  That's system-specific and user-specific and app-specific.   I agree with you that it's pretty weak circa 2017.  You may be right that boxes have been completely eliminated at this point, but I am not sure sure.

While true that local parts aren't U-LABELS, and that punycode isn't defined for use outside of U-LABELS, some email services do resort to using ACE-style conversion in the local part as a downgrading technique - I've received them.  They mostly work because in actual practice there are very few local parts that start with the "xn--" prefix.  I agree that they are very phishy and are undesirable.  

-----Original Message-----
From: John R. Levine [mailto:johnl at iecc.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, November 8, 2017 10:09 AM
To: Mark Svancarek <marksv at microsoft.com>
Cc: John C Klensin <klensin at jck.com>; Don Hollander <don.hollander at icann.org>; Joseph Yee <jyee at afilias.info>; HEALTH Yao <yaojk at cnnic.cn>; Barry Leiba <barryleiba at computer.org>; ua-eai at icann.org
Subject: RE: [Ext] EAI Working group Archives

> I suspect that a typical non-user of Arabic would find Arabic script more desirable than boxes or punycode.  That's something usability folks can test.  Personally, if I were expecting an email from an Arabic-scripting colleague, it would make a big difference to me.

In my (mostly non-Microsoft) experience, any system that handles Unicode will show Arabic as Arabic.  What it won't do is to handle messy cases like combined roman and Arabic, nor will it have a usable input method. 
But it shouldn't show boxes.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl at iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fjl.ly&data=02%7C01%7Cmarksv%40microsoft.com%7C82373bb4314448128d0308d526d3d66f%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C636457613638873595&sdata=8NVyIVf01ZzCK5tBoDxCU9WWa%2FSZLLV4T2e%2BeBg30Zk%3D&reserved=0

PS: EAI maiboxes are not U-labels so punycode isn't relevant.