I find this kind of attempted censorship of technical discussion highly distasteful, especially when conducted in such a disrespectful (!) ad hominem manner.
Softer words haven't worked. Dean keeps coming back and reopening the issue on the public forum, and it is a non-starter, and it needs to be quashed. I have the dubious honour of being the one to actually *say* that the emperor has no clothes. But I am by no means the only one who is vastly annoyed at Dean and his tactics in this matter.
Michael, it is quite clear that the "decision" to use the static model, which you claim has been made finally (although as I understand it the UTC has yet to come to a conclusion on the issue),
You are mistaken.
does not have the full backing and confidence of the experts on cuneiform script (I am not one; nor, I think, are you).
You are mistaken. All of the experts, and the major players in the UTC and WG2, who have dealt with this issue have explained to Dean in no uncertain terms that what he is trying to do is unworkable, undesirable, will result in Cuneiform failing to be encoded in Unicode 5.0. This discussion has mostly been on the Cuneiform list (where it belongs) but Dean keeps coming over here and trying to drum up support for his ill-conceived and ever-mutating idea.
I do not read any language written in Cuneiform. I am, however, well able to evaluate principles for its encoding. That is one of my functions.
The implication is clearly that the whole issue needs to be referred back to these experts for further consideration.
No, the implication is that there is one person there who will not listen.
It will simply not work to impose on them a solution which is unacceptable to a good number of them.
What them?
If there are good technical arguments against what Dean is proposing (and I agree with you at least that following the Mongolian model does not look promising - the distinction Dean makes in his last paragraph between graphical difference and semantic difference shows that the same model does not fit), then those arguments should be made in a proper technical discussion.
They have been. Decisions to go with a static model (analogous to CJK and Canadian Syllabics for instance) were made in 2001 and have been reaffirmed since then, including at UTCs and two meetings in Baltimore which I attended.
So please take this issue back to the drawing board
Absolutely not.
and discuss it again on the proper list
It has been.
in a proper respectful manner on both sides.
Even the Buddha taught that anger can be useful, as a tool to get through to someone who thinks nothing is wrong. Well, Dean's harping on this issue is wrong, and is irritating lots of people. A lot. And this needs to be shut down.
Michael, I think you are probably right on the technical issue. But you need to persuade Dean of that by proper argument and not impose your solution on him against his will.
No, I don't. We have all tried to do so (Rick, Ken, I, Karljürgen, and others, in copious detail) and he is escalating rather than listening. That is a waste of time, when the architectural decisions for encoding Cuneiform *have* been made.
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Michael Everson * * Everson Typography * * http://www.evertype.com
