Nicely put, Asmus!
Mark <https://google.com/+MarkDavis> *— Il meglio è l’inimico del bene —* On Mon, Dec 29, 2014 at 8:46 PM, Asmus Freytag <[email protected]> wrote: > On 12/29/2014 10:32 AM, Doug Ewell wrote: > >> Asmus Freytag wrote: >> >> The "critical mass" of support is now assumed for currency symbols, >>> some special symbols like emoji, and should be granted to additional >>> types of symbols, punctuations and letters, whenever there is an >>> "authority" that controls normative orthography or notation. >>> >>> Whether this is for an orthography reform in some country or addition >>> to the standard math symbols supported by AMS journals, such external >>> adoption can signify immediate "critical need" and "critical mass of >>> option" for the relevant characters. >>> >> >> To me, it is remarkable that the "critical mass of support" argument that >> is applied, entirely appropriately, to new currency symbols (however >> misguided the motives for such might be) and math symbols and characters >> for people's names, is now also applied to BURRITO and UNICORN FACE. >> >> Does it - in principle - matter what a symbol is used for? If millions > of happy users choose to communicate by peppering their messages with > BURRITO and UNICORN FACE is that any less worthy of standardization than if > thousands (or hundreds) of linguists use some arcane letterform to mark > pronunciation differences between neighboring dialects on the Scandinavian > peninsula? > > The "critical mass" argument does not (and should not) make value > judgements, but instead focus on whether the infrastructure exists to make > a character code widely available pretty much directly after publication, > and whether there is implicit or explicit demand that would guarantee that > such code is actually widely used the minute it comes available. > > For currency symbols, or for a new letter form demanded by a new or > revised, but standard, orthography, the demand is created by some > "authority" creating a requirement for conforming users. Because of that, > the evaluation of the "critical mass" requirement is straightforward. > > Emoji lack an "authority", but they do not lack demand. For better or for > worse, they have grabbed significant mind share; the number of news > reports, blogs, social media posts, shared videos and what not that were > devoted to Emoji simply dwarfs anything reported on currency symbols in a > comparative time frame. With tracking applications devoted to them, anyone > can convince themselves, in real time, that the entire repertoire is being > used, even, as appropriate for such a collection, with a clear > differentiation by frequency. > > Nevertheless, the indication is clear that any emoji that will be added by > the relevant vendors is going to be used as soon as it comes available. > Further, as no vendor has a closed ecosystem, to be usable requires > agreement on how they are coded. > > The critical question, and I fully understand that this gives you pause, > is one of selection. There are hundreds, if not thousands of potential > additions to the emoji collection, some fear the set is, in principle, > endless. Lacking an "authority" how does one come to a principled agreement > on encoding any emoji now, rather than later. > > One would run an experiment, which is to say, create an alternate > environment where users can use non-standard emoji and then the > Uni-scientists in white lab coats could count the frequency of usage and > promote the cream off the top to standardized codes. > > Or one could run an experiment where one defines a small number of slots, > say 40, and opens them up for public discussion, and proceeds on that > basis. Yes, that would turn the UTC into the "authority". > > My personal take is that the former approach is inappropriate for > something that is in high demand and actively supported; the latter I can > accept, provisionally, as an experiment to try to deal with an evolving > system. Because of the ability to track, in real time, the use or non-use > of any of the new additions it would be a true experiment, the outcome of > which can be accurately measured. If it should lead to the standardization > of few dozen symbols that prove not as popular as predicted, then we would > conclude a failure of the experiment, and retire this process. Otherwise, > I'd have no problem cautiously continuing with it. > > But then, I remember when folks used to cite the WG2 "Principles and >> Procedures" document for examples of what was and was not a good candidate >> for encoding. That seems so long ago now. >> > > The P&P, like most by-laws and constitutions, are living documents. In > this case, they try to capture best practice, without taking from the UTC > (or WG2) the ability to deal with new or changed situations. > > The degree to which emoji have captured the popular imagination is > unprecedented. It means the game has changed. Let's give the UTC the space > to work out appropriate coping mechanisms. > > A./ > > PS: this does not mean that, for all other types of code points, the > existing wording on the P&P can simply be disregarded. In fact, the end > result will be to see them updated with additional criteria explicitly > geared towards the kind of high-profile use case we are discussing here. > > _______________________________________________ > Unicode mailing list > [email protected] > http://unicode.org/mailman/listinfo/unicode >
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