Subject: [Ltru] Re: "Placeholder" dates in draft Registry

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2007 18:26:22 -0800

Gerard Meijssen <gerardm at wiktionaryz dot org> wrote:

> There is some sense to using only the standard Latin characters 
> standard numbers. It means very much that you do restrict yourself on 
> how you describe languages. In the ISO-639-3 there are words for 
> languages with characters that are outside of this. A good example is 
> ||Gana. This is the official label. There are alternate names, G||ana, 
> G||ana-Khwe, Gxana, Gxanna, Dxana, Kanakhoe. Some of these would serve 
> well where the current placeholder for the name is awful. The "pipe" 
> character kills the potential for many automated functions. It is not 
> even the character that does indicate the click sound. IMHO it is a 
> bad choice for what is essentially a list of codes and labels that 
> indicates languages.

Look again.  There are no vertical bars anywhere in the ISO 639-3 data. 
The description associated with code element "gnk" is "//Gana", with two 
forward slashes.  Other plain-ASCII characters used for click languages 
include ! and =.  The draft for RFC 4645bis uses the ISO 639-3 names.

--
Doug Ewell  *  Fullerton, California, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages

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---

From: "Gerard Meijssen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 08:29:40 +0100

Hoi,
I did look again and
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=gnk gives you a ||Gana
not //Gana. Given that Ethnologue IS the registrar for ISO-639-3, it is
reasonable to expect that their information is authoritative.
Thanks,
    Gerard

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2007 23:46:26 -0800

Gerard Meijssen <gerard dot meijssen at gmail dot com> wrote:

> I did look again and 
> http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=gnk gives you a 
> ||Gana not //Gana. Given that Ethnologue IS the registrar for 
> ISO-639-3, it is reasonable to expect that their information is 
> authoritative.

The authoritative ISO 639-3 data is at http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/. 
The Registration Authority for ISO 639-3 is SIL International (not 
"Ethnologue," which is the name of a reference work published by SIL). 
The two projects do not always agree 100% on names.

---

From: "Gerard Meijssen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 08:58:32 +0100

Hoi,
When you want to have people adopt Standards, it is essential that there is
no discrepancy between these two bodies of work. It is a marketing disaster
for the Standard when you have to use a rationalisation like "Ethnologue is
not the standard, the standard is http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/ here".

It is a well known fact that the ISO-639-3 is based on Ethnologue and that
SIL is the registrar. It is reasonable to expect that these is a good
relation between the two. Using the "|" is not the character that should be
used in the first place.

Thanks,
    Gerard

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 00:10:59 -0800

GerardM wrote:

> When you want to have people adopt Standards, it is essential that 
> there is no discrepancy between these two bodies of work. It is a 
> marketing disaster for the Standard when you have to use a 
> rationalisation like "Ethnologue is not the standard, the standard is 
> http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/ here".

Ethnologue is not the standard.  In preparing RFC 4645bis to use subtags 
based on ISO 639-3 code elements, I am planning to use the official ISO 
639-3 data, not the data that was used as initial input to ISO 639-3.

Talk to Peter about marketing ISO 639-3.  I'm concerned with getting the 
data into the Registry properly.

> It is a well known fact that the ISO-639-3 is based on Ethnologue and 
> that SIL is the registrar. It is reasonable to expect that these is a 
> good relation between the two. Using the "|" is not the character that 
> should be used in the first place.

Why do you suppose the vertical bars were changed to forward slashes? 
Possibly to avoid the problem with vertical bars that you complained 
about in the first place?

---

From: "Gerard Meijssen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 09:36:51 +0100

Hoi,
When each and every one of us do not take the marketing of this work
serious, the standard will not be taken more serious than it is. With only
15% of the content of the Internet tagged at all and most of that tagged
incorrectly we are not doing a good job. By looking at these numbers I can
not come to a different conclusion.

When you say that you are busy getting the data in the registry properly,
you in effect assume that the registry will reflect the standard. The
expectation raised is as reliable as mine that Ethnologue and ISO-639-3 are
in sync. I do appreciate and expect that you will do a good job.

There are huge benefits possible when content is tagged correctly. At this
moment we do not reach the tipping point where this is true. There is this
open source project called Shtooka, they record pronunciations in the flacc
format; these sound files allow for the integration of the meta-data. What
would be easier than having it tagged with the correct codes based on the
language indicated by the speaker ... It was not even considered. We just do
not have the necessary traction. The standard just does not have enough
relevance. This is partly because "the marketing is for others to do" while
it will really work best if we all give it some priority and make it a part
of what we do.

Thanks,
    Gerard

---

From: Martin Duerst <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 18:44:45 +0900

Hello Gerard,

I agree that it would be great if Ethnologue and ISO-639-3 were
in perfect sync. And I hope both parties will work on this.

However, as the LTRU WG, we are a third party. Each of the
participants in the LTRU WG can tell the people responsible
for the Ethnologue and for ISO 639-3 to work better to be in
sync. And I'm sure they will listen, although it may take time.

If you want to propose that we take the data from Ethnologue
instead of ISO-639-3, you can do so, but I guess it may be
difficult to conivince the group, not the least because
the latter is mentioned in our charter, but the former isn't
(see http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html).
Anyway, once they are again in sync, it won't matter anymore :-).

Regards,    Martin.

At 17:36 07/02/27, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>Hoi,
>When each and every one of us do not take the marketing of this work serious, the standard will not be taken more serious than it is. With only 15% of the content of the Internet tagged at all and most of that tagged incorrectly we are not doing a good job. By looking at these numbers I can not come to a different conclusion. 
>
>When you say that you are busy getting the data in the registry properly, you in effect assume that the registry will reflect the standard. The expectation raised is as reliable as mine that Ethnologue and ISO-639-3 are in sync. I do appreciate and expect that you will do a good job. 
>
>There are huge benefits possible when content is tagged correctly. At this moment we do not reach the tipping point where this is true. There is this open source project called Shtooka, they record pronunciations in the flacc format; these sound files allow for the integration of the meta-data. What would be easier than having it tagged with the correct codes based on the language indicated by the speaker ... It was not even considered. We just do not have the necessary traction. The standard just does not have enough relevance. This is partly because "the marketing is for others to do" while it will really work best if we all give it some priority and make it a part of what we do. 
>
>Thanks,
>    Gerard
>
>On 2/27/07, Doug Ewell <<mailto:[email-masked]>[email-masked]> wrote:
>>GerardM wrote:
>>
>>> <http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/>http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/ here".
>>
>><http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/>http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
>><http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages>http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages
>

#-#-#  Martin J. Du"rst, Assoc. Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University
#-#-#  http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp       mailto:[email-masked]

---

From: "Gerard Meijssen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 11:28:45 +0100

Hoi,
You are perfectly right. From the outside, it however makes not much of a
difference. The perception is that Standards are a mess, they are secretive,
expensive, academic and hardly relevant. This is completely contrary to what
we want; in order for Standards to be relevant they have to be seen,
accepted and adopted as the Standard. To do this we have to make sure that
people know about all the Standards that are important to us. We have to
market these Standards.

Marketing is what is needed. In my opinion one of the best places to start
is to get software applications to adopt the Standards. This means content
creation programs, browsers, you name them. By having people select the
linguistic entity they use, you can have the content automatically tagged
with the corresponding label.

I do not propose to make Ethnologue leading. That would be silly. Given that
the LTRU follows the work done in the ISO-639-3, we cannot tell the people
behind it to do a better job. What they do is leading, consequently they do
the best job.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On 2/27/07, Martin Duerst <[email-masked]> wrote:
> >There are huge benefits possible when content is tagged correctly. At
> this moment we do not reach the tipping point where this is true. There is
> this open source project called Shtooka, they record pronunciations in the
> flacc format; these sound files allow for the integration of the meta-data.
> What would be easier than having it tagged with the correct codes based on
> the language indicated by the speaker ... It was not even considered. We
> just do not have the necessary traction. The standard just does not have
> enough relevance. This is partly because "the marketing is for others to do"
> while it will really work best if we all give it some priority and make it a
> part of what we do.
> >
> >Thanks,
> >    Gerard
> >
> >><http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages>

---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 11:46:23 +0100

On Tue, Feb 27, 2007 at 11:28:45AM +0100,
 Gerard Meijssen <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 173 lines which said:

> In my opinion one of the best places to start is to get software
> applications to adopt the Standards.

Do not forget also the other Standards, often better known than RFC
4646. Many of them just reference "ISO 639" without any knowledge of
the complications involved.

PS: do not forget the http://ltru.generic-nic.net/ project. Tell me if
it is on the right track and if it should be promoted louder.

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 06:50:02 -0800

Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> serious, the standard will not be taken more serious than it is.

I am a technical professional and prefer to leave the important work of 
marketing to people who are professionals in that field.

> With only 15% of the content of the Internet tagged at all and most of 
> that tagged incorrectly we are not doing a good job. By looking at 
> these numbers I can not come to a different conclusion.

I really don't want to debate this premise that the success of our 
technical work is dependent on how well we market it to vendors, least 
of all on whether every last MySpace page is tagged correctly. 
Eighty-five percent of the Internet includes a lot of rubbish.  If the 
"serious" 15% is tagged properly, that will be a win.

> When you say that you are busy getting the data in the registry 
> properly, you in effect assume that the registry will reflect the 
> standard.

Of course.  The Registry is part of the standard by definition.

> The expectation raised is as reliable as mine that Ethnologue and 
> ISO-639-3 are in sync.

Not analogous.  ISO 639-3/RA does not claim that the ISO standard 
matches Ethnologue exactly, including non-normative language names. 
Indeed, Ethnologue is not the only source of data for ISO 639-3, there 
is a significant body of code elements for extinct, ancient, historic, 
and constructed languages that are taken from Linguist List.

> The perception is that Standards are a mess, they are secretive, 
> expensive, academic and hardly relevant. This is completely contrary 
> to what we want; in order for Standards to be relevant they have to be 
> seen, accepted and adopted as the Standard. To do this we have to make 
> sure that people know about all the Standards that are important to 
> us. We have to market these Standards.

If you would like to take on the job of evangelizing this standard 
(lowercase 's') to users and vendors, I support you fully.  You are 
probably better qualified for this job than I am.  Meanwhile I will work 
to make sure the work you are evangelizing is not garbage.  If the work 
is garbage, it really doesn't matter how good the marketing is.

> Marketing is what is needed. In my opinion one of the best places to 
> start is to get software applications to adopt the Standards. This 
> means content creation programs, browsers, you name them. By having 
> people select the linguistic entity they use, you can have the content 
> automatically tagged with the corresponding label.

I certainly agree that software that creates or requests content should 
support language tagging as defined by RFC 4646 and 4647, and eventually 
4646bis.

Please let us get back to the remaining open issues on our list.  It is 
now January 58 and if we don't pick up the pace we may miss the January 
deadlines in our charter.

---

From: Marion Gunn <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 15:33:28 +0000

On 27 Feb 2007, at 14:50, scríobh Doug Ewell:

> ... If the work is garbage, it really doesn't matter how good the  
> marketing is...

True, all things being equal (which I wish they were).

> Please let us get back to the remaining open issues on our list.   
> It is now January 58 and if we don't pick up the pace we may miss  
> the January deadlines in our charter.

Ref. "January 58" makes no sense at all. Is it a typo?
mg

- -
Marion Gunn * EGTeo (Estab.1991)
27 Páirc an Fhéithlinn, Baile an
Bhóthair, Co. Átha Cliath, Éire.
* [email-masked] * [email-masked] *

---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 16:36:56 +0100

On Tue, Feb 27, 2007 at 03:33:28PM +0000,
 Marion Gunn <[email-masked]> wrote 

> Ref. "January 58" makes no sense at all. Is it a typo?

No. A cute joke. January 58 == February 27 (58 - 31), aka today.

---

From: "Erkki I. Kolehmainen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 18:10:56 +0200

Marion,

it makes sense to me. February 27th is the 58th day since the beginning of
January, and since the deadline is the end of January, for us, January still
continues.

Erkki

Erkki I. Kolehmainen
Tilkankatu 12 A 3, FI-00300 Helsinki, Finland
Puh. (09) 4368 2643, 0400 825 943; Tel. +358 9 4368 2643, +358 400 825 943  

-----Alkuperäinen viesti-----
Lähettäjä: Marion Gunn [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Lähetetty: 27. helmikuuta 2007 17:33
Vastaanottaja: LTRU Working Group
Aihe: Re: [Ltru] Re: "Placeholder" dates in draft Registry

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