IETF policy on encodings and languages

On Sun, Dec 27, 2020 at 02:40:42PM -0500, John Cowan wrote:
> b) What language is used for those META parts, since the server does not
> know what languages are acceptable to the user?  TL;dr answer: start with
> English, add other languages as necessarily or useful.

The best-case scenario, of course, is that everybody sees the
human-readable META parts in their own language.  The issue with that is
either the client has to specify what language they expect it in, or the
server has to provide it in every language it supports.  Both are
obviously flawed.

One counterproposal to this best-case scenario is that the response body
being sent over (for successful requests) is also (probably) only in a
single language.  It would thus be natural to have the whole interface
in that same language.  If the server offers the same file / page in
different languages, they will have different URLs (most commonly
<lang>.example.com/... or example.com/<lang>/...).  In both of these
cases, the server can easily recognize from the URL what language is
expected and should provide an interface (including human-readable META
text) in that same language.  That would mean, for example, that the
entire ://fr.example.com site should use a French interface.  We
probably also want to disallow using example.com/...?lang=<lang> or
anything similar, even if it's just in the Best Practices document.

It's the server's responsibility, but also their prerogative, to provide
an interface in multiple languages.  If they don't, and if the users of
that server choose not to as well, then it is up to the client (and the
user controlling it) to translate stuff.  text/gemini's lang parameter
helps here.

I think that this proposal resolves the general interface language
issue.  Have I missed anything?

~aravk | ~nothien
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