Charsets and language

[Graham Klyne <GK@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This post derives from an offline discussion...

An intention to register a feature for "charset" capability/preference has
been suggested to me.  Looking at the negotiation framework for HTTP
(specifically, the "accept-charset" and "accept-language" headers) I am
wondering if it would make sense to also register a "language" preference
feature at the same time.

This in turn raises the idea that "charset" is a media feature, but
"language" is a user preference.  It is my understanding that constraining
the conneg work to "media features" was not intended to avoid
discussion/registration of user preferences;  rather, it was intended to
avoid us getting drawn into issues of transmission options.  Thus, it seems
to me that the focus of our effort has been "content features" as distinct
from, say, "transmission options".

The foregoing leads me to two questions:
(a) are registrations of features that relate to user preferences in scope
for our registration scheme?
(b) more specifically, is a registration of a feature for language
preference (in the same sense as that used for HTTP "accept-language")
appropriate?

#g

------------
Graham Klyne
(GK@xxxxxxx)