Arabic Layout Task Force
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Mission

This task force will document requirements for the layout and presentation of text in languages that use the Arabic script when they are used by Web standards and technologies, such as HTML, CSS, Mobile Web, Digital Publications, and Unicode.

The task force will report the results of its activities back to the Internationalization Core Working Group, as well as to other relevant groups and to the W3C membership and community at large.

Many of the topics addressed are listed in Improving text layout and typography on the Web and in eBooks.

How to Join

We welcome participation requests from people who are interested in contributing to the work of the Task Force. There are two ways to get involved:

1. Task force members are expert contributors who participate actively in producing the work of the group, regularly contributing text and advice to create the outputs, and participating in meetings. For more information about becoming a task force member contact Richard Ishida.
2. It is also possible to follow and contribute to discussions without the commitment required in being an expert contributor. Simply subscribe to the (publicly archived) public-i18n-arabic mailing list (archive).

Organisation of the task force

The Arabic Layout Task Force is part of W3C Internationalization Activity and the W3C Internationalization Interest Group.

The co-chairs of the task force are Shervin Afshar (Netflix) and Behnam Esdfahbod (Facebook). The chair of the Interest Group is Martin Dürst.

Electronic communication

Most of the technical discussion will take place in the github issues list. If you want to raise an issue with the documents, this is the place to raise it.

Given the large number of languages served by the Arabic script, the task force does its work in English.

The task force reaches out to the wider international community with discussions and announcements in English on the following list:

• [email protected] (archive)

That list will also be used for gathering and replying to feedback on the documents produced. Other lists can be made available as needed.

There is also a public-alreq-admin mailing list for internal and administrative use by the TF participants, for example for announcing teleconference agendas, new participants, preparing for publication, etc. or for discussing other non-technical, practical arrangements related to the group. Only participants in the task force are subscribed to that list.

The group will use this page and the Internationalization Activity home page to disseminate public information about its activities.

Meetings

The task force aims to hold teleconference or face-to-face meetings at least once a month, with additional language-specific meetings as needed to enable discussion and review status of the work.

Meeting agenda are published before each teleconference or face-to-face meeting on the public-alreq-admin mailing list. They also include information about how to connect to IRC, which is used during meetings to record minutes and also to share URIs, examples, and so forth. We also use it outside of meetings for quick contacts.

Minutes and summaries of all teleconferences and face-to-face meetings can be found in the public-i18n-arabic mail archive.

Internationalization Activity

The main page for access to the i18n Activity of the W3C is http://www.w3.org/International/. This is where we post news, and links to the various types of information available on the site. You may want to check out the quick links on the right and the "Get help!" by task index.

For information about layout and typographic requirements work for other scripts, see the page Layout & typography.