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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/14/2021 9:11 PM, James Kass via
Unicode wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:207a0a26-126d-4cbe-9668-006b7ca1640d@code2001.com">
<br>
On 2021-10-13 11:37 AM, William_J_G Overington via Unicode
responded:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Nobody should ever cite it as precedent,
so of course everybody will. Sigh.
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
No, it is a precedent. The rules were changed for emoji. So on a
sauce for pasta is sauce for rice basis, as the Unicode
Technical Committee has changed the rules for one set of
particular circumstances, it can change them again for other
particular circumstances. </blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Except for certain stability policy, the Unicode Standard
reserves a necessary flexibility to avoid being locked out of
responding to some pressing future need not fully anticipated in
advance.</p>
<p>That necessary flexibility is rather different from 'anything
goes' (or even "anything is possible"). <br>
</p>
<p>This is the same as saying it may not be possible or advisable to
set things up so that there's a rigid transition between in-scope
and out of scope. As you get to the edge of the scope, the case
for any incremental addition may not be black and white, but
become a deeper shade of gray. Perhaps imperceptibly so, at first,
but if you step far enough out of bounds, the case for adding
something should appear less and less bright.<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:207a0a26-126d-4cbe-9668-006b7ca1640d@code2001.com">
<br>
Certain principles were violated when emoji penetrated Unicode
plain-text. In order to accommodate emoji, a special class was
established along with a different set of encoding principles
covering that new class.
<br>
<br>
A crucial difference exists between most everything William has
ever proposed and initial emoji encoding. Pre-existing
"characters" were already being interchanged by users and were
very, very popular. Conflicting character sets existed which
impacted cross-platform interchange. Decisions were made to move
forward in spite of vehement opposition. (There was also an
adamant group of emoji supporters, of course.)
<br>
</blockquote>
<p>Unicode was based on certain principles. Especially in the early
years, there were many statements of these, and it was fun to note
that the lists were never fully identical. However, they all hat
this in common: all the principles were in some tension with each
other. Not every character or feature of Unicode ever satisfied
all of them with equal ease.</p>
<p>One of the overriding principles of Unicode is universality,
sometimes also expressed as the compatibility principle: if
something is a well-established character in another character
encoding, it is paramount that data in that encoding be
transcodable into Unicode. That principle required the encoding of
emoji - after they had been encoded in Shift-JIS extensions and
lots of data created with them.</p>
<p>That they may be in tension with other principles enumerated for
the Standard is something that was anticipated as a possibility
right from the start. There was never a requirement that all
encoded characters satisfy all existing principles equally.<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:207a0a26-126d-4cbe-9668-006b7ca1640d@code2001.com">
<br>
For additions to the emoji set, the special emoji principles admit
speculative characters based on certain special criteria and
hurdles. So it would be tempting to anyone inventing novel glyphs
to try to get those inventions into Unicode as "emoji", because
there is no other path. But the emoji principles reject "abstract
emoji" from consideration for a pictographic character set. </blockquote>
<p>Thank you, James, for pointing out explicitly that attempt to do
an end-run around the encoding processes.</p>
<p>Emoji are that rare bird, a text based interchange method that on
the one hand still evolving, but on the other hand is extremely
widely used, and for which other entities and implementers had
de-facto settled the issue of whether the elements are
"characters".<br>
<br>
Thus, for the first time, Unicode has to deal with a writing
system that is changing in real time (and not just with an
isolated character like a currency symbol or Japanese Era name).</p>
<p>The Compatibility principle applies only to existing sets; it
does not cover inventions that are not yet characters, or that are
not yet adopted. And, as you note, not everything that claims to
be an extension of that set, qualifies.<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:207a0a26-126d-4cbe-9668-006b7ca1640d@code2001.com"><br>
Over the years, many of us have tried to provide helpful, honest
suggestions and pointers while remaining tolerably polite. <br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<p>And I don't think this discussion will necessarily achieve a
break-through. But it's nevertheless a good exercise to state why
some apples aren't oranges, or why using the same sauce on pasta
and rice, despite things like rice noodles, might nevertheless not
be tasty at all, in the end, and therefore best not recommended.</p>
<p>A./<br>
</p>
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