Subject: [precis] Protocol Action: 'Preparation, Enforcement, and Comparison of Internationalized Strings Representing Nicknames' to Proposed Standard (draft-ietf-precis-nickname-19.txt)

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2015 07:27:52 -0700

The IESG has approved the following document:
- 'Preparation, Enforcement, and Comparison of Internationalized Strings
   Representing Nicknames'
  (draft-ietf-precis-nickname-19.txt) as Proposed Standard

This document is the product of the Preparation and Comparison of
Internationalized Strings Working Group.

The IESG contact persons are Ben Campbell, Barry Leiba and Alissa Cooper.

A URL of this Internet Draft is:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-precis-nickname/

Technical Summary

This document describes methods for handling internationalized
nicknames (or petnames).  Such uses are common in XMPP Multi-User Chat
(MUC), Message Session Relay Protocol (MSRP), and Centralized
Conferencing (XCON), but can also be encountered in other contexts,
such as contact lists, device names, and bookmarks.  This document
provides rules for preparing strings that represent an
internationalized nickname, as well as for comparing two
internationalized nicknames.  Also provided is guidance for using these
rules in application protocols.

Review and Consensus

This document received review both from participants active in the
PRECIS Working Group as well as individuals from the XMPP and SIP
communities.  The consensus of the PRECIS Working Group is to publish
this document.

A major topic of discussion in the Working Group was in regard to
"confusables", characters that often visually appear very similar to
(if not indistinguishable from) other characters.  While there was
desire to further combat confusables (e.g., rules and/or guidelines on
incorporating a "confusables" table), ultimately the consensus of the
Working Group was to warn implementers of their existence, use NFKC
normalization to mitigate a large degree of confusables, and note there
might be more rules or guidelines implementers and deployers could
follow (UTS39).

Personnel

Matthew Miller is the document shepherd, and Barry Leiba is the
responsible AD.