Salaam Mostafa and Ehsan,

My responses and comments are in-line below:

No, I disagree.

This was a bug yesterday. And because dir=auto has
been added to HTML, does not result in it being
not a bug currently.

I see that you are both using gmail.com -- a mostly web
based mail user agent.

Let me show you the bug. Here it is:

یک دو سه four five six هفت هشت نه ten eleven.

Now, if you see that in natural count and natural
mixed direction as a RTL paragraph; then this can't be considered a
bug currently.

If you see it all messed up in order and as a LTR
paragraph then there is a bug.

Note that as a result, email communication has
been impacted and note that I am not even sending
this with any use of HTML at all.

This entire email is generated in plain text,
using emacs's Gnus through gmane (not
googlegroups) and currently from Tehran -- fully
conforming to internet email specifications.

I had sent two previous emails to the group about
Persian use of Emacs and Gnus with the following
subject lines:

   PersoArabic With Emacs -- نگارش به فارسی با ایمکس
   Persian Input Methods -- شیوه‌هایِ درج به فارسی

Both of these seem to have been suppressed
(censored) by the list administrator.

   Note to List Admins: If that is the case, at a
   minimum you should say that you suppressed it and
   explain why.

I chose to bring up this bug, because it impacts
Persian interoperability.

Emacs is properly conforming to auto paragraph detection as
specified in Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm
http://unicode.org/reports/tr9/ (UAX #9).

And the browser based webmails (gmail.com ...) are non-conformant.

Below is my suggestion for a proper fix.

  Mostafa> On Tuesday, October 16, 2012 4:19:53 PM UTC+3:30, Ehsan Akhgari wrote:

  Ehsan> Browsers resolve the base directionality of text based on the value of the
  Ehsan> dir HTML element.  The new dir=auto HTML attribute which is implemented in
  Ehsan> WebKit and soon to be implemented in Firefox will enable the example you
  Ehsan> quote in the link below to be rendered properly.

Ehsan, just that can't be the fix.

Here is the right way of doing it -- which is what
has been done in emacs.

You look at the character set of what is to be
rendered, if it includes an RTL language then you
assume auto direction detection unless it is
otherwise specified.

This should be a browser behaviors even outside of
HTML considerations. For example visiting a plain text bidi
file render should come out correct when you do
something like

      file://tmp/example.bidi

It is only such a fix, that really is a fix --
just adding dir=auto to HTML and just implementing
that won't cut it.

Best,

...Mohsen

[ No more in-line comments below. ]

  Mostafa>     On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 8:39 AM, Mostafa Hajizadeh <most...@gmail.com>
  Mostafa>     wrote:

  Mostafa>         Hi Mohsen,

  Mostafa>         Thanks for explanation on this bug. Is this for paragraphs or inline
  Mostafa>         texts? This seems to be about elements that don’t have an explicit
  Mostafa>         direction. Does anybody know what W3C says about this? Should browsers
  Mostafa>         detect paragraph direction based on UAX #9 when it’s not given
  Mostafa>         explicitly? Also, a sample page would help in understanding this bug
  Mostafa>         clearly.

  Mostafa>         And a general update: I updated the board: moved a few cards to
  Mostafa>         resolved, added new ones which need more information, and reported
  Mostafa>         others to developers. Take a look at the board to see the current
  Mostafa>         state.

  Mostafa>         Mostafa

  Mostafa>         On Friday, October 12, 2012 6:10:38 AM UTC+3:30, Mohsen BANAN wrote:

  Mohsen> For that bug list, the following is a bug that
  Mohsen> affects more than Persian typography on the
  Mohsen> web. It affects communication.

  Mohsen> Mozilla/Firefox and Chrome (as of late 2012) do
  Mohsen> not conform to auto paragraph detection as
  Mohsen> specified in Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm
  Mohsen> http://unicode.org/reports/tr9/ (UAX #9).

  Mohsen> This is an egregious Mozilla/Firefox and Chrome
  Mohsen> bug, because it materially impacts human
  Mohsen> communication.

  Mohsen> I have expanded on this with an example in:

  Mohsen> http://www.persoarabic.org/answers#bidiBrowserProblems

  Mohsen> Was that already included in the list?

  Mohsen> Best,