On Mon, Jul 6, 2015 at 2:31 PM, Doug Ewell <[email protected]> wrote: > I wrote: > >> I hear Asmus's concern about using WAVING WHITE FLAG as the base >> character for emoji flags which might not be depicted as waving. > > I suppose there's no particular reason why U+2690 can't be the base > character instead.
I suspect it's because WAVING WHITE FLAG is defined as having an emoji representation and WHITE FLAG isn't. > But then Garth Wallace <gwalla at gmail dot com> wrote: > >> I'm concerned that the proposed base is a white flag, which usually >> means "surrender". It seems like there's some potential for >> miscommunication there. > > If the intrinsic meaning of the base character in isolation is a problem > -- people using flag-tag-unaware systems will see a white flag and > assume it means "surrender" -- then there aren't any existing encoded > flag characters that are any better. > > Black flags have historically had a wide variety of meanings as well -- > mourning, anarchy, Italian fascism, race car driver disqualified, etc. > So substituting U+1F3F4 or U+2691 won't help. All of the other existing > flag symbol characters have even more specific meanings, usually > annotated in TUS. That's true, none of the existing flag characters are neutral. > Folks who consider this a problem are probably intrigued by item 2 under > "Discussion" in the background document: encode an all-new base > character. This would delay the rollout of the mechanism, and if the new > character has a glyph that looks at all like a flag, it will likely face > the same criticism (e.g. "looks too much like the Portuguese flag"). I think crosshatching would be neutral. I'm not aware of any flags with a field of diagonal stripes; they usually only have one. Although I suppose heraldry enthusiasts might interpret them as tinctures.
