[At-Large] UA Days

Thu Apr 4 06:39:05 UTC 2024

Hi Olivier,

Thanks for the input.

As you know I'm just a lowly ALS rep and have not been in any leadership
position for quite a while.

If these powers that be (all of whom I would assume are subscribed here)
can be brought to consensus that IDN acceptance must be driven bottom-up
and cannot succeed without research and end-user support, I'll gladly
co-author a draft statement for ALAC's consideration. And you know I've
written some good ones in the past ;-).

- Evan

On Thu, Apr 4, 2024 at 2:23 AM Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond <ocl at gih.com>
wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> if you feel strong enough about this and can convince the powers that be
> in our community perhaps could you suggest the ALAC makes a Statement about
> this?
> Kindest regards,
>
> Olivier
>
> On 04/04/2024 06:45, Bill Jouris via At-Large wrote:
>
> Hi Evan,
>
> Consider that some of the apps in play are open source. ICANN could simply
> contribute code to Mozilla, Thunderbird, Wordpress, Signal and other
> projects to make their IDN support seamless. If that support is an
> in-demand feature it will make those applications more desirable in a
> competitive environment.
>
> And I've been arguing, without apparent success, for ICANN to do exactly
> that.
>
> Bill
>
> Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
> <https://go.onelink.me/107872968?pid=InProduct&c=Global_Internal_YGrowth_AndroidEmailSig__AndroidUsers&af_wl=ym&af_sub1=Internal&af_sub2=Global_YGrowth&af_sub3=EmailSignature>
>
> On Wed, Apr 3, 2024 at 11:27 AM, Evan Leibovitch
> <evanleibovitch at gmail.com> <evanleibovitch at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Bill,
>
> On Wed, Apr 3, 2024 at 12:18 PM Bill Jouris <b_jouris at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> It seems to me that the function of UA day is inherently NOT directed at
> end users.  It is directed at getting vendors, those who provide software
> interfaces for end users, to make provision for IDNs.
>
>
> Is it really directed at apps developers?
>
> Consider that some of the apps in play are open source. ICANN could simply
> contribute code to Mozilla, Thunderbird, Wordpress, Signal and other
> projects to make their IDN support seamless. If that support is an
> in-demand feature it will make those applications more desirable in a
> competitive environment.
>
>
> End users are, of course, wildly unlikely to be writing their own
> browsers, email systems, etc., so they don't really need to be involved.
>
>
> People aren't writing browsers, email systems, etc. to satisfy the needs
> of ICANN, they're trying to meet the needs of end-users. So if end users
> don't care about IDNs, neither will apps developers, since they have other
> priorities such as speed, security, and *end-user* focused features such
> as VPNs, form auto-completion, spell-checkers, incognito modes and so on.
>
>   (Except to the extend that it would be useful to show some user demand
> when trying to convince vendors to become IDN compatible.)
>
>
> End-user demand for IDNs isn't "useful", it's a mandatory prerequisite.
> Without such bottom-up demand, app developers have no incentive to divert
> resources. In the service of i18n developers place far more emphasis on
> Unicode support, multilingual UI and multilingual integrated search
> engines. If these features satisfy end-user needs then there is no reason
> for them to spend extra effort on IDNs. Developers may well see IDNs as
> just a way for ICANN and its contractors to peddle more domains, and
> without end-user interest they have no incentive to facilitate that.
>
> One must again remind that ICANN is not a treaty-backed organization. It
> has no means to impose, let alone enforce, its decisions on the world. Its
> solutions must be superior and *desired*. Thus, so long as end-user
> demand is not seen as a *necessary* component in advancing IDNs, they
> will remain a non-priority to developers and an avoidable risk to would-be
> IDN registrants.
>
> (Aside: I truly find it amazing that this argument even needs to be made
> within the community tasked with advancing end-user interests within ICANN.)
>
> Making end users aware of the option to use non-ASCII characters for these
> is, to my mind, an entirely separate discussion.
>
>
> If so, that "separate discussion" is the only one worth having within *ICANN
> At-Large*. Other constituencies (civil society, governments, the
> technical community, etc) all have their own places to define and assert
> their own needs.
>
>
> Both whether it is a worthwhile effort and how to go about it if so.  It
> is also something that would really need to be deferred until something
> like Universal Acceptance is available on at least the most widespread
> browsers and email systems.
>
>
> Chicken and egg.
> If end-users don't care about IDNs, browsers and apps won't support them.
> If browsers and apps don't support IDNs, end-users won't care about them.
>
> BTW, the objective is not for browsers to implement "UA".
> Support for IDNs is the solution being pitched, UA is just the name of the
> marketing campaign.
>
>
>   Pitching to end users, when the software they use does not yet support
> IDNs, would be counterproductive.
>
>
> And THAT is why, 20 years from now, ICANN will still be wondering why IDNs
> never caught on.
>
> - Evan
>
>
>
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>
>
> --
> Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhDhttp://www.gih.com/ocl.html
>
>

-- 
Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada
@evanleibovitch / @el56
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