Inverted asterism

[Asmus Freytag]

On 3/30/2023 9:54 AM, David Starner via Unicode wrote:
> There doesn't seem to be an inverted asterism in Unicode. Is there a
> good reason there's not?
> https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Monthly_scrap_book,_for_February.pdf/24
> shows the example I have at hand, from an 1832 English-language
> periodical from Scotland.
>
The primary reason would seem to be that no successful proposal has been 
submitted.

A successful proposal would establish that this cannot be rendered with 
a simple text sequence and also that this usage isn't a one-off.

As rendered on my browser, the transcription shows a text sequence, but 
with the defect of being composed using a five-pointed asterisk in the 
lower position. (I don't see any use of CSS).

I note that the original lacks overlap which makes it impossible to be 
certain whether the typesetter used a single slug or three.

In making an encoding decision, several determinations would have to be 
made.

(1) does the attested usage rise to the level where encoding is 
warranted (or is this limited to a single document or otherwise not 
worth preserving in plain text)?

(2) does the example represent a single glyph or a sequence?

(3) if a sequence, is every element encoded?

(4) if a single glyph, is it sufficient if it can be represented using 
some rich text? (italics, rotation, etc).

We don't really have an algorithm yet for deriving these determinations 
unambiguously from the input data; it would be best if we had a proposal 
on record so we can have a disposition on record. Whether positive or 
negative, that would help settle future requests.

At this point, there's a question whether the proposal should request a 
lower, six-pointed asterisk or a the inverted asterism, and whether it 
is possible to adduce enough data to help in making that decision.

What we need for cases like this would be a place for proposals that are 
in a public "pending" state, so that people other than the proposer can 
adduce additional evidence over time without the need to immediately 
come down one way or the other.

A./

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