Moved: -> @[email protected]
just wanna re-iterate that if any people of color have requests for things the dev team can address to make Mastodon better for people of color then you always have an open eat with me and I will do my best to make it happen, so long as it is feasible within the OStatus protocol.
Apr 6, 2017 at 11:28pmWeb
Show threadmalokiApr 6, 2017
@shel <3 😍
Show threadSaqer أوسكار الملسونApr 7, 2017

@shel Yes, can we set up usernames using Unicode non-Roman characters?

That is: would صقرم@mastodon dot such and such be possible? How would that work with IDNs too.

Has anyone tested that out?

Show threadMoved: -> @[email protected]Apr 7, 2017
@mastodon @saqeram I'm bringing this to Eugen's attention. poor RTL support has been an issue in general.
Show threadMoved: -> @[email protected]Apr 7, 2017
@mastodon @saqeram okay so besides making a GitHub issue I've brought this up in discord, made a pitch, and linked to your post. implementing this is outside my technical expertise but I'm gonna push for it getting onto the task queue
Show threadSaqer أوسكار الملسونApr 7, 2017
@shel @mastodon many thanks
Show threadMoved: -> @[email protected]Apr 7, 2017
@mastodon @saqeram np
Show threadMoved: -> @[email protected]Apr 7, 2017
@saqeram @mastodon Hi! So! Update. It looks like the OSTatus Spec only supports ASCII in usernames, so unfortunately unicode usernames doesn't seem feasible. That said we could definitely improve RTL support to help with unicode display names in languages like arabic and hebrew. So "Improve RTL support" is now on the queue. Sorry I couldn't get unicode usernames.
Show threadkoApr 7, 2017
@shel @saqeram
Maybe using Punycode? صقرم would become "xn--wgbh3bn" when registering and it would be converted back when displayed. And if not using Punycode, there has to be a way, one was found for DNS names and emails so no reason not to find one for Mastodon :-)
Show threadMoved: -> @[email protected]Apr 7, 2017
@saqeram @ko hmmmm. I will look into it. In that sense the username is still ASCII but there's just something that looks at it and renders it on the screen as Unicode right? that's sort of what happens with the emoji short codes...
Show threadkoApr 7, 2017
@shel @saqeram Yes, Punycode is what is used for (sub-)domain names with non-ASCII characters. For instance, the TLD .تونس
is converted to ".xn--pgbs0dh" when sending the request to a server (DNS, web, etc.)
My personal page is both available at kevin.beaubestre.fr and kévin.beaubestre.fr but in my server configuration, I had to write the later as "xn--kvin-bpa.beaubestre.fr", it's the web browser that handles the conversion.
Show threadSaqer أوسكار الملسونApr 7, 2017
@shel @ko Punycode is a workaround but it seems like a workaround for the ASCII legacy (1963), and it's 2017 so we should find a way that doesn't depend on ASCII workarounds. I may be misunderstanding the entire premise of Punycode but I remember being disappointed by all the xn-- and percent-encoding.
Show threadkoApr 7, 2017
@saqeram @shel I agree that we should not have to work around ASCII but:
1/ we still want to follow OStatus specs so until we can have them updated, it's better than not having any non-ASCII char in username
2/ which encoding to use? A Unicode one, sure but there are UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32 and others...
Show threadMoved: -> @[email protected]Apr 7, 2017
@saqeram unfortunately we would break compatibility if we used Unicode usernames. It's gotta be ASCII but I'm seeing if I can get some of the new volunteers to work on punycode.