Re: [idn] my humble opinion

[John C Klensin <klensin@jck.com>]

--On Thursday, 22 March, 2001 10:34 -0800 Thaweesak Taekratok
<taekratt@gorgai.com> wrote:

>... 
> What are we trying to accomplish with this Internationalized
> Domain Name?  From what I understand with my limited
> knowledge, you are trying to associate local characters or
> names with IP Address, so local people can access any website
> via those local names.  Correct me, if I am wrong?  Would this
> be sufficient as well?  A remote bookmark.  About 50% of web
> users access websites via bookmarking, 20% is a first time
>...

Hi.  Others have explained why remote bookmarks are not
sufficient, how they don't support non-web protocols well, and
how they don't address issues of transcription from other media.
They also raise the issue that, if I know a site [only] by one
particular name (because of the bookmark name I use),  but I
want to tell you about it, we may just not be able to
communicate, since I won't know the site's real name (URL) and
you won't be able to access my bookmark file.

That said, it is probably worth noting that, as I understood it
at least, the original conception for the web was that people
would almost never need to look at URLs.  Communities might
reasonably share, and pass each  other references to, not
bookmarks but annotated web pages with references to relevant
sites.  And the theory was that this would happen sufficiently
to keep the pressures off URLs.  A reasonable and interesting
idea, actually, although, for many reasons, it has never really
happened.

    john