The Atom Bidi Attribute specification [1] updates RFC 4287 by adding a new 'dir' attribute to the set of atomCommonAttributes. The purpose is to provide a means of defining the base directionality of direction-neutral characters in Language-Sensitive text. The rationale is that direction-guessing schemes based on language and character properties, while definitely useful and correct a lot of the time, are inherently limited and flawed. We need a way of explicitly specifying the directionality.
Prior to moving this forward with the IESG, however, I wanted to issue an informal last call here on the list to solicit feedback. Note: Apache Abdera currently implements support for this attribute in an optional and experimental extension module. - James [1] http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-snell-atompub-bidi-02.txt
