Re: Encoding italic (was: A last missing link)

On 1/19/19 1:19 PM, wjgo_10009_at_btinternet.com via Unicode wrote:
>
> Well, a variation sequence character is being used for requesting
> emoji display (is that a control code?), so it seems there is no lack
> of precedent to use one for italics. It seems that someone only has to
> say 'out of scope' and then that is the veto for any consideration of
> a new idea for ISO/IEC 10646 or The Unicode Standard. There seems to
> be no way for a request to the committee to consider a widening of the
> scope to even be put before the committee if such a request is from
> someone outside the inner circle.

You make it sound like there's been invented some magical incantation
that *anyone* can use to quash all discussion on a particular (your)
topic.  It doesn't just take someone saying "out of scope."  It also has
to *be* out of scope!  If someone chants the incantation, but I can
persuasively argue that no, it IS in scope, then the spell fails. 
Requesting the scope of Unicode be widened is not like other discussions
being had here, so it makes sense that it should be treated differently,
if treated at all. There were discussions and agreements made as to the
scope of Unicode, long ago.  And just like you can't petition to change
a character name, no matter how wrong it is, asking the Unicode
consortium to redefine itself on your say-so is not going to be taken
seriously either.  Out of scope means just that: it isn't something
we're discussing.  Discussing how to change the scope so that
whatever-it-is IS in scope is a very large undertaking, and would need a
tremendous groundswell of support from all the major stakeholders in
Unicode, so you should probably start there.  Get Microsoft and Google
and various national bodies on your side, not just to say "um, ok,
maybe," but to actively argue with you that the scope needs to be
changed.  Or that there needs to be, as Asmus says, another,
supplemental standard.  Raise popular support, write petitions, get
signatures, all that fun stuff. "But so many of the people I would want
to talk to about this are right here on this list!" you say?  Be that as
it may, it doesn't mean the list has to grant you a platform.  Change
the world on your own dime.

>
> It seems to me that it would be useful to have some codes that ....

See, once you start a proposal like that, you're already looking down
the wrong end of the Unicode scope.  This is exactly what Asmus (I
think) said in a quote I can't seem to find, repeating it for the n+1st
time: Unicode isn't here to encode cool new ideas that would be cool and
new.  It's here for writing what people already do.  You want a standard
that does something else?  That's another thing.  It's as appropriate to
demand that Unicode support these things as it would be to go to OSHA or
the Bureau of Weights and Measures or the Académie Française and tell
them you want some new letters...

~mark
Received on Wed Jan 23 2019 - 20:08:24 CST