From: Erkki I. Kolehmainen (eik@iki.fi)
Date: Sat May 09 2009 - 06:51:03 CDT
Michael,
As you are well aware, I (we) have wittnessed both expertise and lack of it
in both the WG2 meetings and at the UTC (although I've never attended any
UTC meeting). I did not intend to imply that expertise would be concentrated
in the UTC as opposed to WG2.
However, since WG2 solely decides what will go out to the National Bodies
for ballot, it is often beneficial for this decision if a proposal has been
scrutinized by the UTC eperts. At WG2 there is no automatic acceptance of
the UTC outcome - nor should there be.
Sincerely, Erkki
Erkki I. Kolehmainen
Tilkankatu 12 A 3, FI-00300 Helsinki, Finland
Puh. (09) 4368 2643, 0400 825 943; Tel. +358 9 4368 2643, +358 400 825 943
-----Alkuperäinen viesti-----
Lähettäjä: unicode-bounce@unicode.org [mailto:unicode-bounce@unicode.org]
Puolesta Michael Everson
Lähetetty: 9. toukokuuta 2009 10:27
Vastaanottaja: unicode Unicode Discussion
Aihe: Re: Submitting Proposals (was: Re: Proposal to include CE Mark)
On 9 May 2009, at 06:49, Erkki I. Kolehmainen wrote:
> However, since the UTC meetings precede the WG2 meetings, it would
> greatly ease and expedite the process in WG2 if the proposals,
> especially the more complex ones, would already have been
> scrutinized by the UTC experts.
No, they do not. Our calendar is cyclical, so something is always
preceding something else.
> The required expertise may not be readily available in the WG2
> meeting.
I really object to this.
Many, many times we have seen a proposal appear to the UTC which has
not been properly read or understood by any or many or most of the
people at a given meaning. This is one of the frustrating things about
working with the UTC: it has often been the case that someone glancing
through a proposal for the first time comes up with a fairly daft
question which scuppers any progress for at least a cycle.
We did a run-around like this when we proposed to use a Cyrillic
combining character to be used with Latin letter i for the
Egyptological yod. Oh no, I was told, you can't use that. No
information was forthcoming on what I *should* use. So I flew to
Vienna (at my own expense) to a meeting of computational Egyptologists
and we went over all the options. They chose to prefer a unitary, non-
decomposing characters. Oh no, I was told, we don't like that. I had
to yell at them to get them to understand that we had jumped through
their hoops and that "oh no" was no solution, and that whether they
liked our recommendation or not, we were doing our best to find a
solution within the arbitrary parameters they were setting for us.
The solution they relented to: To use the Cyrillic combining character
with the Latin vowel.
Please, Erkki, do not make it look as though the UTC has expertise and
that WG2 does not.
Both committees have experts committed to understanding and approving
new characters and scripts, even obscure ones. And both committees
have other experts who have very different concerns, and who take
little interest in proposals for new additions.
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
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