[CPWG] Variants and Process

[Bill Jouris]

After some of the discussion in the chat in this morning's meeting, I feel like a little more extended discussion about variants might be helpful. 
The repertoire for the Latin script consists of "codepoints" -- some are letters and some are letters plus diacritics.  "Variants" are pairs of codepoints which are indistinguishable.  That is, in the process that the Panel used, 5 of the 7 experts on the panel couldn't see a difference.  The Latin GP did not look at diacritics per se.  Just at codepoints which might involve diacritics. 
Thus, a codepoint consisting of a letter with a caron diacritic ( ̌ ) and a codepoint with the same letter combined with a breve diacritic (  ̆  ) may always result in a variant pair, but only because the Panel's comparison worked out that way.  For example, a G with caron (ǧ) and a G with breve (ğ) are variants.   On the other hand, a caron and a macron ( ¯ ) never result in a variant pair.  
However some cases with diacritics are mixed.  For example, a codepoint consisting of letter with a dot above ( ˙ ) and a codepoint consisting of a letter with an acute accent results in a variant pair for letters C (ċ vs ć), N (ṅ vs ń), and Z (ż vs ź ). But, in the Panel's original finding, not for letters E (ė vs é), and I (i vs í).  
(Note that a majority of the Panel found the vowels to produce variants as well.  Just not a supermajority, as required by the process the Panel had adopted.  As a result, the Panel's official position is that, in various cases not just this one, even though a majority of the experts, looking side by side, could not see a difference, the average "reasonably careful user" will somehow magically notice the difference when looking at a domain name.) 
Then we have cross-script variants, including those identified by other Panels.  For example, the Greek Panel found that the Greek letter Iota was a variant both of the Latin letter I and the Latin letter I with acute.   As a result I and I with acute became variants.
But there is no Greek letter which is a variant of the Latin letter E.  So we are left with a situation where the dot above diacritic and the acute produce variants for all letters EXCEPT for the letter E.  (When I suggested that, for consistency, we should make the letter E case a variant as well, the response was "It is more important that we follow our process than that we have consistency.")  
TLDs consist of a series of codepoints.  Proposed TLDs which differ only by one or more variants from another TLD will be automatically be rejected in the software.  For example, .çom  would be allowed, despite its similarity to .com, because C with Cedilla is not a variant of C.  Also .сом (using Cyrillic letters) would be allowed because, while C and the Cyrillic letter Es are variants, and O and the Cyrillic letter O are variants, the letter M and the Cyrillic letter Em are not variants (the Panel was directed to ignore Upper Case when deciding what might confuse users).  But .cóm could be rejected, because O and O with acute are variants.
"Confusables" are pairs of codepoints which some for the experts could not distinguish, just not enough to be designated as variants.  Confusables are intended as suggestions for the panel which will manually review the proposed TLDs.  

I hope this all will help everyone understand what we are looking at here. 
Regards,Bill Jouris
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