No more RGI flag sequences

[Mark Davis ☕️]

Part of this whole story is simply history. The flags were encoded well
before we had developed the definition of RGI and of subdivision flags
(2017, https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr51/tr51-12.html).

On Sun, Feb 7, 2021 at 1:13 PM Harriet Riddle via Unicode <
unicode at unicode.org> wrote:

> Some rambling targeted at noöne in particular…
>
> What should be RGI for flags is a bit confusing, even when subregions are
> not considered.
>
> For instance, UM is a country code for the United States Minor Outlying
> Islands. This has no permanent population and, as such, no flag (official
> or not) besides that of the United States. Hence, the inclusion of it is a
> largely pointless duplicate encoding of the flag of the United States.
> However, it is widely supported across vendors.
>
> Meanwhile, the subregional code iqar corresponds to Erbil Governorate,
> Erbil being the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan Region. If a flag
> emoji encoding can show the flag of a larger region in absence of a more
> specific flag (like with the UM example), then I'd deduce that the
> subregional code iqar may be a perfectly reasonable encoding for the
> Kurdish flag.
>
> So does Unicode *really* exclude the Kurdish flag, as some who would kick
> up a stink might claim? There is no clean yes or no answer, much as there
> is no clean answer for Northern Ireland. The code is valid, but if it's not
> RGI, will any vendor try to support it… given that besides some legacy kept
> around by Samsung, what's RGI might tend to determine what new emoji
> "exist"?
>
> All of that being said, I doubt vendors would want to *remove* the flag of
> e.g. Scotland, though, since that would send a message in itself.
>
> — Har.
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Unicode <unicode-bounces at unicode.org> on behalf of Michael
> Everson via Unicode <unicode at unicode.org>
> *Sent:* Sunday, February 7, 2021 8:19:19 PM
> *To:* Unicode@ <unicode at unicode.org>
> *Subject:* Re: No more RGI flag sequences
>
> On 7 Feb 2021, at 19:33, Mark Davis ☕️ via Unicode <unicode at unicode.org>
> wrote:
> >
> > The main issue for making N. Ireland be RGI was the lack of an official
> flag. It is valid (🏴󠁧󠁢󠁮󠁩󠁲󠁿).
>
> This is the mistake that the Consortium made. There is a flag which is
> widely and publicly in use. What is “official” or “unofficial” about it is
> a decision taken without due consideration to the realities of the
> political settlement in Britain and Ireland.
>
> Who uses flags and why? Nationalists in the North may prefer to use the
> Irish tricolour 🇮🇪. Unionists may wish to use the Union flag 🇬🇧. Who
> cares? That’s for people who want to refer to a national flag. The fact of
> the matter is that the United Kingdom is composed of three countries and
> one province. And in reality, FOUR flags are used particularly in sport.
>
> "The Ulster Banner was carried by the Northern Ireland team in the
> Commonwealth Games. It is also regularly displayed by supporters of the
> Northern Ireland national football team and is displayed by FIFA as the
> flag of Northern Ireland.”
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Northern_Ireland
>
> The decision to refuse to include the Ulster Banner for Northern Ireland
> was a really dumb decision. No good was served by it. Instead of using
> common sense, “the lack of an official flag” was used as an excuse. It
> doesn’t make the Consortium look good.
>
> Michael Everson
>
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://corp.unicode.org/pipermail/unicode/attachments/20210207/27930a8b/attachment.htm>