Re: [idn] The Business Card problem (was: Re: An experiment withUTF-8 domain names)

["Brian W. Spolarich" <briansp@walid.com>]

  [thanks for thinking to change the subject]

On Sat, 6 Jan 2001, John C Klensin wrote:

  [ much Good Stuff snipped ]

| Sorry Brian, I don't believe "a little education, update the software,
| and move on" is going to do it.

  You've of course uncovered the hidden assumption in my thinking, which
is that the recipient of the business card can operate in the language(s)
displayed on the card.

  This is, as you point out, a people problem, and not a software one.  
Its also not clear if this problem is really ours to solve, or is
solveable by us.  My working problem definition for IDN is to enable
rational support (and deployment of support) for UCS in the DNS.  While
usability, particularly in the context of a diverse and global audience,
has to be carefully considered, I don't think we need to address the whole
range of communication problems imposed by an increasingly globalized and
interconnected world.

  I recall when I visited Hong Kong last year my Japanese and Chinese
colleagues at UUNET gave me business cards with English on one side,
Japanese or Chinese on the other.  This seemed like a reasonable
compromise.  Its likely that this is the only version that they had
available, but I could imagine a very careful global enterprise having
multiple sets of cards printed with the 'flip side' language being Arabic,
English, Russian, etc. depending on who the recipient was.  

  As an aside, two-sided business cards are kind of annoying.  How often
do you write notes on the back of someone's card?

  The point here I think is that, when two parties are going to
communicate, it is incumbent upon them to negotiate a common language or
communications protocol.  If they cannot, then communication will be
extremely difficult.  This is true whether we're talking about domain
names/URLs on business cards, or more prosaic things like addresses,
telephone numbers, etc.

  Being the enterprising creatures we are, I can see any number of
solutions to this kind of problem.  So-called 'smart paper' will be
available economically within a few years.  The static business card may
be replaced with a 'smart' version that has multiple translations the user
can switch between (or even a wireless network connection).  Simpler
solutions could be extensions of the practice the VIDN draft author
identifies, such as having an alternative form of a domain name available
in transliterated Latin characters. 

  This begs the question of whether the Latin alphabet is the appropriate
'interchange' alphabet (and all of the cultural hegemony issues, and much
history).  Over a billion Chinese speakers would probably disagree.  But
again, is this our problem to solve?

  -bws