Tag characters

[Doug Ewell]

William_J_G Overington <wjgo underscore 10009 at btinternet dot com>
wrote:

> Hopefully the people in charge of the codes to be used for the flags
> will agree never to reuse a code.

Normally I would completely agree about the need for archival stability.

In this case, however, we are talking about flags used primarily as
emoji, like the one in my signature block. People will pop these flags
into their text messages alongside "party" or "celebration" icons. I'm
not sure the requirement for stability is quite as critical as it might
be.

However...

> Whether they do or not, would it be good to add an option into the tag
> coding of the flags whereby at the end one may optionally add TAG
> COLON then at least four TAG DIGIT characters, those TAG DIGIT
> characters representing the year?

It's remarkable how similar this suggestion is to a discussion between
Philippe and me two years ago. There is currently no well-known coding
system for flags -- the owner of the "Flags of the World" site doesn't
know of one -- and there should be. (The term "flag code" already has
two meanings that are very different from this, which makes it hard to
find information.)

Getting UTC to accept the extended syntax of a standard like this would,
of course, require that the standard gain reasonable acceptance and
popularity beforehand. Requiring it to become an ISO standard might not
be unreasonable.

If you want to discuss this specific idea further, please write to me
privately and *not to the list*.

--
Doug Ewell | http://ewellic.org | Thornton, CO ����