Thanks Bill for your intervention.
Let us look at things from a different angle. How many of us add “http://” or “https://” to the beginning of URLs we type in address bars? Even more, how many of us have seen URLs displayed in public areas and on billboards with “http://” or “https://”. It is just the domain name part that we see. Some web browsers (such as Mozilla Firefox) do not display the “http://” or “https://” part (at least the version I am using). As for “Do you think people would recognize " <https://menog.anything> https://menog.anything"; or " <https://مثال.اختبار> https://مثال.اختبار"; for that matter?”, I think it is a matter of time before people realize what these are, and what value does a good domain name have. Look at .com as a good example, it was delegated in 1987, but did not gain interest until the turn of the millennium (the .com boom) when many realized that a good domain name is a digital asset online, and this helped develop an aftermarket where a USD 10 domain name is sold for thousands or even millions of dollars (sex.com was sold for 14 million USD). IMHO, we have not reached the “.com boom” and “ccTLD boom” yet in the Middle East. As for the second part of your email “I may be revealing deep ignorance here, but has anyone considered an Arabic transliteration of "http" and "https" for use with Arabic IDNs, or gone down the path of getting browser writers to support it?”, do not worry, nobody knows everything about everything, so I am fine with whatever questions you or others toss J. While there is an international community for such technical initiatives (lead by the IETF), nothing concrete has been developed. I like the Chinese model in such instances where they take the lead and develop whatever they need to develop, and deploy it within their borders. We all know that China is talking about their very own Internet, and one main reason for such discussions is that the global Internet technical community have not combined efforts to resolve many pending issues. Now the big question is, is internationalizing “http://” and “https://” thee issue, or are there other more important issues to handle. I can say that for the Arabic script community (Arabic script covers languages such as Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Jawi, and others), the issue of variants is the most pressing issue; i.e. characters that either look alike but have different Unicode code points. For example, if I have an Arabic language domain name, I currently can only use an Arabic keyboard to enter some of the characters. If I use a different keyboard (such as Farsi or urdun), some characters in those languages have different code points, thus not resolving to the intended web content. Personally, resolving variants is more important than “http://” or “https://”. I hope I have addressed your concerns. Fahd -----Original Message----- From: Bill Woodcock [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, October 28, 2013 3:05 AM To: Fahd Batayneh Cc: Ahmed Abu-Abed; menog@menog. net Subject: Re: [menog] New Arabic TLD and idea's popularity On Oct 27, 2013, at 2:23 PM, Fahd Batayneh < <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]> wrote: > There have been discussions within New gTLD applicants on whether to > encourage New gTLD registrants (once these new gTLDs are delegated and are > generally available) to advertise their online presence using “www” in front > of the URL or not; i.e. <http://www.menog.anything> www.menog.anything vs. > menog.anything. For those who might not know, the inventor of the term “www” > in front of URLs has admitted that such an addition was a mistake in the > first place. Yet, after thorough discussions, those involved have concluded > that in order for people to understand whatmenog.anything is, it is best that > “www” is added in front of the URL for advertising purposes. I believe this > to be the case for IDNs we well; i.e. some just don’t understand > whatمثال.اختبار is. Fahd: Interesting thoughts, I hadn't even considered the matter before. Do you think people would recognize " <https://menog.anything> https://menog.anything"; or " <https://مثال.اختبار> https://مثال.اختبار"; for that matter? I may be revealing deep ignorance here, but has anyone considered an Arabic transliteration of "http" and "https" for use with Arabic IDNs, or gone down the path of getting browser writers to support it? -Bill
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