Emoji (was: Re: Unicode block for programming related symbols and codepoints?)

Shervin Afshar shervinafshar at gmail.com
Mon Feb 9 15:12:52 CST 2015


>
> I said there was no longer a requirement *that the items appear first in
> an industry character set extension*, right?
>

The issue is with your very rigid interpretation of the criteria for
encoding new symbols. Is "appearing in an industry character set extension"
an official phrasing that you keep referring to?

In what character encoding standard, or extension, does ROBOT FACE
> appear? "Gmail has it" is not a character encoding standard. Neither is
> "People want to see it."
>

Robot Face is available on Gmail (GChat), Facebook, and Twitch among others
(calculating the size of user community is left as an assignment for the
reader). That's enough usage for consideration by the UTC even if the
symbol is not present in a character encoding standard. Also, since Unicode
is an industry standard maintained by industry members (among others), then
if there is enough request to these corporations from communities of users,
then there might be some reason for considering those symbols. I think
that's the case for the newer symbols.


> "Most popularly requested," as a criterion for adding a character, is
> absolutely new to Unicode. Earlier I wrote privately to a Unicode
> officer about whether PERSON TAKING SELFIE and GIRL TWERKING and PERSON
> DUMPING ICE BUCKET OVER HEAD would be ephemeral enough, and got no
> reply. (What, you've forgotten the ice-bucket craze already? That's
> exactly why "most popular at the moment" wasn't supposed to be a
> criterion.)


IMO, Unicode officers seems to have low patience for such sentiments. You
might want to reconsider your tone. There is a time and place for sarcasm.


↪ Shervin

On Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 12:16 PM, Doug Ewell <doug at ewellic.org> wrote:

> Shervin Afshar <shervinafshar at gmail dot com> wrote:
>
> >> There is no longer any requirement that the robot faces and
> >> burritos appear first in any sort of industry character set
> >> extension, with which Unicode is then obliged to maintain
> >> compatibility.
> >
> > Only if you don't consider existing usage and popular requests as
> > requirement and precedence; for example Gmail had Robot Face for a
> > long time.
>
> I said there was no longer a requirement *that the items appear first in
> an industry character set extension*, right?
>
> In what character encoding standard, or extension, does ROBOT FACE
> appear? "Gmail has it" is not a character encoding standard. Neither is
> "People want to see it."
>
> "Most popularly requested," as a criterion for adding a character, is
> absolutely new to Unicode. Earlier I wrote privately to a Unicode
> officer about whether PERSON TAKING SELFIE and GIRL TWERKING and PERSON
> DUMPING ICE BUCKET OVER HEAD would be ephemeral enough, and got no
> reply. (What, you've forgotten the ice-bucket craze already? That's
> exactly why "most popular at the moment" wasn't supposed to be a
> criterion.)
>
> --
> Doug Ewell | Thornton, CO, USA | http://ewellic.org
>
>
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