Re: [EAI] [IETF] Content Issues [

[[e-mail]]

> > Excuse  me, from point of view man with English as mother-language you are
> > right on 100% But  some other picture will be from man with, for example,
> > Swahili or Russian or Kyrgyz or Bulgarian ... - so much other mother-languages
> > are exist on Earth Maybe I mistake or I didn't correctly understood you

> People could already send content in non-English languages if they desired. 
> So the problem is "only" the address?

Someone can post in French or Spanish or even Myaamia or Mingo, but good luck
getting people to read it. Which means you can do it but it isn't supported in
any meaningful sense.

The impediments to actually supporting posting to an IETF list in languages
other than technical English are very real, but for the most part
non-technical.

The IETF could, if it so desired, adopt a multilingual approach similar to that
used in some other standards bodies, where a specific set of languages are
supported and translation is done on an as-needed basis.

Heck, the IETF could even go "full United Nations" and support a huge range
of languages - in theory at least.

The problem with all this is cost. Even when done really well - and doing this
stuff well is extraordinarily difficult - the burden on participants in terms
of translation delays, misunderstandings, and so on is very high. So much so
that the IETF as we know it would likely cease to exist.

And that's ignoring actual cost, which would be huge. And the money to pay for
it would have to come from somewhere. The way other organizations do it always
includes some element of "pay for play". And that, again, would change the
IETF into something unrecognizable.

The bottom line is right now the cost of participation in the IETF is being
able to read and write technical English to a reasonable degree plus access to
basic Internet email service. Replacing that one language with a list is almost
certainly going to add some kind of additional cost to the equation.

I don't think this is a good tradeoff.

Bringing this back to the original issue of being able to use an EAI address on
IETF lists, if you want that to work and not break our current model for
participation and accountability you're going to have to require that everyone
use an EAI-capable account and user agent. Even if you could get IETF
participants to do that - and I can assure you that pigs will fly first - 
think about the added cost of participation that brings.

I don't think this is a good tradeoff either.

				Ned