Non-ASC-II [was: Re: Firstmention.com; Texas Proverbs]

[Alice Faber]

Benjamin Barrett wrote:
> I wonder whether the time is now ripe to consider allowing non-ASC-II.
> I've sent posts in the past including Chinese and Japanese characters
> and only recently discovered they were baked (BAH keid) or garbled. This
> is very sad particularly when discussing word origins because knowing
> the character is critical to actually knowing what the origin is, and
> now those characters will not be easily recoverable. This is true not
> only with those languages, but Tsalagi, Arabic, Greek and IPA as well as
> Spanish as BP notes below.
>
> Allowing non-ASC-II will mean some people will miss out on the
> non-ASC-II characters, but since they get baked with the current
> situation anyway, doesn't it make sense to upgrade? Are there any
> downsides or logistical problems to doing so?
>

The problem is individual email software, not just what the list
tolerates. For instance, I see some posts with non-ASCII characters, but
not others. Depending on how the posts reach me, I might see a ?, a
square, or just *nothing*. The only thing the ADS-L can do, possibly, is
to transmit the characters and provide an indication of what character
set is being used.

--
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Alice Faber                                       faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                            tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
New Haven, CT 06511 USA                               fax (203) 865-8963

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