[somewhat off topic] straw poll

[Marcel Schneider]

On 10 Sep 2015 at 20:30, Asmus Freytag (t)  wrote:


> On 9/10/2015 11:04 AM, Peter Constable wrote:
>> I was having an offline discussion with someone regarding certain topics that may show up on this list on occasion, and the question came up of what evidence we might have of sentiment on the list. So, I thought I’d conduct a simple straw poll — respond if you feel inclined.


> This whole exercise strikes me as off topic.  :)
> 
> A./
>


>> The questions are framed around this hypothetical scenario: Suppose I were to post a message to the list describing some experiment I did, creating a Web page containing (say) some Latin characters — not obscure, just-added-in-Unicode-8 characters, but ones that have been in the standard for some time; that my process for creating the file was to use (say) Notepad and entering HTML numeric character references; and that my findings were that it worked.
>> Q1: Would you find that to be an interesting post that adds makes your participation in the list more useful, or would you find it a noisy distraction that reduces the value you get from participating in the list?
>> Q2: If I were to send messages along that line on a regular basis, would that add value to your participation in the list, or reduce it?
>> Q3: If 50 people (still a small portion of the list membership) were to send messages along that line on a regular basis, would that add value to your participation in the list, or reduce it?


Iʼm not about to fill up the frightening number of metadiscussions that arouse since Iʼve been mailing to the List, but after having posted all my main concerns and thanked for the answers, I see myself faced with the need for some kind of debrief, since an influential subscriber started using the strawmen technique to gather testimonies against another subscriber. I canʼt find another explanation for puffing up the issue by asking for statements about *fifty* persons sharing basic experiences on Unicode use, while AFAIK there have never been more than two, William Overington and myself, of whose *only one* is left. Talking about a multitude of people is a totally unrealistic scenario, Richard Wordingham outlined, because the stuff then inevitably runs out very soon:


http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2015-m09/0079.html


Making any decisions based upon opinions gathered by this technique, results in using an unfair methodology.

Iʼve been stating that only *one* person is left, and Iʼm happy to add my response, which doesnʼt fit any of the three artificially built-up questions, but well the one that is tacitly underlying to each one of them:

Iʼve been glad to learn how William Overington is using HTML character hex codes. IIRW, itʼs even in the wake that Iʼve added the &#x sequence in Shift on Numpad 0 when KanaLock is on, and the semicolon on + (while hex digits, and U+ and 0x, are on my numpad since a longer time). Thatʼs what Iʼll use when creating my next web page, as professionals are said to use text editors to achieve this (and I already did for charupdate.info; except that now itʼll be Notepad++ instead of Notepad that Peter Constable cites again).

To conclude, I wonder how Microsoft—which should ship a whole bunch of ultimately completed Unicode keyboard layouts with Windows since Unicode is thriving—I wonder how Microsoft justify their cynism about seeing people discovering each one for himself what MSFT should have hurried to serve on a tray to all users, provided that Windows is the productivity worktool it claims to be.

Well, basically this List is not the right spot to place that criticism. 

This is why Iʼve to thank William and Peter for having brought up the occasion, each one in his way. 

I confess that I prefer Williamʼs. 

By far.

Best wishes,

Marcel
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