Hoi, The BBC article I referred to explained the benefits; the usability is much improved. It is nasty to have to switch to another keyboard whenever a URL is to be typed. When you consider that half the world population does not use the Latin script for their language, the benefit should be obvious. The expense consists of one domain per script.. So let us be generous and have 20 scripts to support, it means that we need active domains only for those domains that we have an active project in. While this is a recurring cost, it is not a significant one and, it is one that improves our usability demonstrably.
Currently it is possible to have the domain partly in other scripts. The benefits are debatable because you still need to end these with the .net .org .com whatever suffix in the Latin script. With the new script support, the full URL can be fully in Unicode supported scripts. Thanks, GerardM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8333209.stm
2009/10/31 Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com
I see. So you'd like to see double the number of site registrations; in this case adding 维基百科.o?r?g? to zh.wikipedia.org
That strikes me as a significant expense for uncertain result; but it would make a good strategy proposal -- especially if you can find users from ar, zh, ru, and indic-language communities to weigh in on how often they visit non-latin-script url's today. [presumably someone who really prefers using non-latin scripts would be visiting sites today whose full url, other than the TLD code, was in a non-latin script.]
SJ
On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 2:27 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.comwrote:
Hoi, In your question the key thing to appreciate is that it is the .org part that does not need to be in the Latin script any more. What I propose is that we support the whole "wikipedia.org" part and "wiktionary.org" part once in each script.
What the word is for Wikipedia is not my call. This is either obvious or
a
choice is to be made. We will gain a lot in usability when our whole experience can be wholly in the one script that is most comfortable to
the
user. It is relevant to note that the language codes we use in front of " wikipedia.org" need to be transcribed. Thanks, GerardM
2009/10/31 Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com
Gerard,
I don't think we currently register wikipedia.cn or 维基百科.cn http://xn--3js032e7ich4g.cn http://xn--3js032e7ich4g.cn <
http:// %e7%bb%b4%e5%9f%ba%e7%99%be%e7%a7%91.org/or 维基百科.org http://xn--3js032e7ich4g.org http://xn--3js032e7ich4g.org
<http://
%e7%bb%b4%e5%9f%ba%e7%99%be%e7%a7%91.org/>. When the new ICANN policies are in place, as I understand it, there will be four new domains possible: wikipedia.c?n?, wikipedia.o?r?g?, 维基百科.c?n?http://%e7%bb%b4%e5%9f%ba%e7%99%be%e7%a7%91.org/and 维基百科.o?r?g? http://%e7%bb%b4%e5%9f%ba%e7%99%be%e7%a7%91.org/...
which
of
these are you suggesting using?
SJ
On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 7:49 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.comwrote:
Hoi, According to an article on the BBC website, it is now possible to
have
a
URL that is completely in the script used for a language. This means that
a
Russian URL would be completely in the Cyrillic script and it would
not
need to end with .org.
I would like the Wikimedia Foundation to get the necessary domains to support the scripts that we have language versions in. The BBC
article
explains that people do find the need to move from one script to the
other
as problematic and cumbersome. Obviously, we can have the necessary
mapping
from our current Latin based URLs to the ones in other scripts. This
will
be an important feature because we want people to easily move between
our
projects. Thanks, GerardM
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