Re: A last missing link for interoperable representation

[Asmus Freytag via Unicode]

On 1/14/2019 2:08 PM, Tex via Unicode wrote: Asmus,   I agree 100%. Asking where is the harm was an actual question intended to surface problems. It wasn’t rhetoric for saying there is no harm. The harm comes when this is imported into rich text environments (like this e-mail inbox). Here, the math abuse and the styled text run may look the same, but I cannot search for things based on what I see. I see an English or French word, type it in the search box and it won't be found. I call that 'stealth' text. The answer is not necessarily in folding the two, because one of the reasons for having math alphabetics is so you can search for a variable "a" of  certain kind without getting hits on every "a" in the text. Destroying that functionality in an attempt to "solve" the problems created by the alternate facsimile of styled text is also "harm" in some way.   Also, it may not be obvious to social media, messaging platforms, that there is a possibility of a solution. Often when a problem exists for a long time, it fades into unconsciousness. The pain is accepted as that is the way it is and has to be. A push for (more) universal support of lowest common denominator "markdown" would go a long way to support such features in environments where SMGL style markup is infeasible and out-of-band communication not possible. It becomes part of the culture. Asking if there is a pain and whether a solution would be welcomed is consciousness raising.   I agree about leading standardization. I thought some legitimate needs were raised. The questions were designed to quantify the use case as well as the potential damage. Also, treating everything as a character encoding problem is so broken.   I didn’t think anyone was recommending more math abuse. I thought it was raised as an example of people resorting to them as a solution for a need. Of course they are also an example of playful experimentation.   Separately, Regarding messaging platforms, although twitter is one example in the social media space, today there are many business, commercial, and other applications that embed messaging capabilities for their communities and for servicing customers. I wouldn’t dismiss the need just based on twitter’s assessment or on the idea that social media is just for casual or “fun” use. Clarity of communications can be significant for many organizations. Having the proposed capabilities in plain text rather than requiring all of the overhead of a more rich text solution could be a big win for these apps. I see the math abuse as something that is being done as an exercise of playfulness. There are other uses of characters based on what they look like, rather than what they mean (or are intended for) and much applies to those cases as well. However, that's independent from making a value judgement on social media as such just because some people use the features more creatively. That's a judgement that I have neither made nor would I be comfortable with it. A./   tex     From: Unicode [mailto:unicode-boun...@unicode.org] On Behalf Of Asmus Freytag via Unicode Sent: Monday, January 14, 2019 1:21 PM To: unicode@unicode.org Subject: Re: A last missing link for interoperable representation   On 1/14/2019 2:08 AM, Tex via Unicode wrote: Perhaps the question should be put to twitter, messaging apps, text-to-voice vendors, and others whether it will be useful or not. If the discussion continues I would like to see more of a cost/benefit analysis. Where is the harm? What will the benefit to user communities be? The "it does no harm" is never an argument "for" making a change. It's something of a necessary, but not a sufficient condition, in other words. More to the point, if there were platforms (like social media) that felt an urgent need to support styling without a markup language, and could articulate that need in terms of a proposal, then we would have something to discuss. (We might engage them in a discussion of the advisability of supporting "markdown", for example). Short of that, I'm extremely leery of "leading" standardization; that is, encoding things that "might" be used. As for the abuse of math alphabetics. That's happening whether we like it or not, but at this point represents playful experimentation by the exuberant fringe of Unicode users and certainly doesn't need any additional extensions.