Submitting Successful Character and Script Proposals
Q: How do I write a successful proposal for some overlooked
characters or for an entire script?
A: Before investing time in writing a proposal, you should first verify
that the character or script is eligible and
hasn't already been proposed or rejected.
Q: How do I verify that a character or script is eligible
for encoding?
A: Often a proposed character can be expressed as a
sequence of one or more existing Unicode characters. Encoding the
proposed character would be a duplicate representation, and is thus not
suitable for encoding. (In any event, the proposed character would
disappear when normalized.) For example, a g-umlaut character is not
suitable for encoding, because it can already be expressed with the
sequence <g, combining diaeresis>. For further information on such
sequences see Where
is my Character and the FAQ page
Characters,
Combining Marks
question 12
and question
13.
Q: How do I know if a character has already been proposed
or rejected?
A: Before proceeding, determine that each proposed addition is
a character according to the definition given in the Unicode Standard
and that the proposed addition does not already exist in the Standard.
Consult the
Proposed New Characters (Pipeline Table) page and the links on the About the Pipeline
Table page to see if the character is already on
track to be encoded, is under investigation, or has been rejected.
Q: I've looked at those pages, but I can't tell whether my
character has been proposed. What do I do?
A: If the character or script is not listed, ask on the
Unicode
email list or send in a query to the Unicode Consortium using the
online contact form.
Q: After I verify that my character(s) or script is
eligible, what do I do next?
A: The process is similar for both characters and scripts.
You will need to write and submit a proposal for the
Unicode Technical
Committee (UTC) to review. If you have
never submitted a proposal before, you may use our
online contact form
to inquire, and we will send you instructions for submitting
your proposal via e-mail, or make arrangements to retrieve your document
on the web.
The page on
Submitting New
Characters or Scripts also has information about the formal process
that may be required later in the consideration of a proposal.
Q: That page on Submitting New Characters or Scripts
mentions a summary proposal form. What is that and do I need to fill it
out now?
Successful UTC proposals eventually need to be considered by the ISO character encoding committee, SC2/WG2, which requires a summary proposal form.
However, the form is not actually required by the UTC to start
considering a character encoding proposal, so you do not need to fill
out that form at this point.
Q: What happens once I submit my proposal to the UTC?
A: Your proposal will receive an initial review, and you may be asked to revise it.
Your proposal will be assigned a document
number, and scheduled for consideration at an upcoming UTC meeting.
These occur quarterly. A UTC member will contact you with feedback after
the discussion if you are not there in person.
Q: What format should I use for my document?
A: A UTC document requires a simple header that gives a
title, name of the submitter and the date in any style. Each page must
have a footer or header that includes some identifying mark (such as
author) and the page number.
Q: What do I need to include in my document?
A: A document requires supporting evidence, which is best
incorporated into the document rather than as links. For new characters, provide images clearly showing the characters in
use, with their glyph circled or clearly identified, along with a
caption that describes the character and the source of the image. Most
importantly your document needs to contain a clear proposal, with your
specific suggestions such as, add this character with this glyph, this name and these properties
to this block (you can leave code position open).
Q: Are there some examples of successful proposals I could
look at?
A: Yes, for a successful proposal to encode a complex script,
you might look at the
Balinese
script proposal. For an example of a proposal adding characters to
an existing script, see
Four Sindhi
characters for Devanagari. There's also a discussion paper and
related full proposal for Indic Number forms at
http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n3334.pdf
and http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n3312.pdf.
Other resources where you could find additional examples include
a range of proposals in the
WG2 documents
and a long list of good proposals on the
Evertype site.
Q: How should I organize the information in my proposal so that the
committee can evaluate it easily?
A: A format where the proposal comes first, and the
rationale second, works best. Character proposals should provide a brief
historical background on the character(s), a character code chart (if
there are many characters being proposed), a list of properties, and a
bibliography. If the proposal is requesting the addition of a number of
characters to an existing encoded script, it is helpful to provide a
proposed code chart showing both the existing characters and the
requested characters, so they can be seen and evaluated together in
context.
Q: Would a summary help my proposal?
A: Yes, a one-paragraph summary at the top can help the reader
understand what the whole document is about, and will help the committee
members (who are not familiar with all aspects of your issue) to put things into
context.
Q: What else is involved besides submitting my proposal?
A: You will need to be actively involved in following up
for your proposal to succeed. Ideally, this means that you need to be
available to attend the UTC meeting or meetings when your proposal is
discussed.
Q: What if I can't come to the meetings in person?
A: If it is not possible to attend in person, you can
generally arrange to schedule a phone conference for the relevant part
of the meeting. For complex or controversial proposals, it is extremely
helpful to find someone attending the UTC to champion your cause and
help explain and move it along. Some complex proposals can require many
meetings before they are accepted, and active involvement is required
for their success. Of course, straightforward proposals also benefit
from a champion in the UTC.
Q: What if I don't need a new character, but want to change
something else in the standard?
A: There are some limits on possible changes to the
standard, so make sure that you first read the
Unicode
Character Encoding Stability Policy. Assuming your requested change is not prohibited,
provide a document with a clear proposal and supporting evidence. It
should contain specific suggestions, such as change the value of this property for this character from X to Y
or change this text in the standard on a particular page or in a particular UAX to some other specified text.
Q: What if I don't have a solution to the problem?
A: If you have found a problem, but are not yet able to propose a
solution, you might find it helpful to first discuss the issue on the
Unicode mailing list to solicit ideas, so that your proposal can offer a
solution. Pointing out a range of possible solutions can sometimes be
very useful. It is best if these are presented as concrete alternatives,
each fully spelled out. Sometimes it is also appropriate to submit
commentary documents and problem statements.
Q&A contributed by
[JDA] &
[AF]
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