Why not add another 26 A-Z characters, call them "regional supplementary symbols", and let carriers decide what to encode and how to encode what they want with sequences <RIS> <RSS>* <RIS> to their hearts' content?
Leo On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 10:04 AM, Ken Whistler <kenwhist...@att.net> wrote: > > On 7/2/2015 2:01 AM, Philippe Verdy wrote: > > > The frozen status of Antarctica ... > > > ... will be addressed separately by global warming. But be that as it may... > > > In really there's still no standard way to encode flags unambiguously and in > a stable way. We'd like to have FOTW (Flags of the World) contributors to > propose their own scheme. But it will not be compatible with the current RIS > solution or the proposed extension. If ever such standard emerges, it will > require encoding a new set of characters. > > > The UTC is neither responsible for nor interested in a "standard way > to encode flags unambiguously". I suspect one of the reasons this > discussion is tending to derail into political topics and too much detail > about particular flags and their stability and the stability of geopolitical > entities they represent and yadda yadda, is that people seem ineluctably > drawn to the misapprehension that this is all about standard encoding > of flags. > > It is not. > > Rather, it is about a standard way to represent recognizable and > interchangeable > emoji (colorful little pictographs) of flags, using defined sequences of > Unicode characters. > > The existing mechanism using regional indicator symbol (RIS) pairs was > originally aimed at solving the following problems: > > 1. Enabling the reliable interchange of the legacy 10 flag emoji from > Japanese > carrier sets. > > 2. Enabling the completion of the encoding of emoji to cover the rest > of the Japanese carrier sets without all progress dragging to a > complete halt as national bodies in SC2 would argue interminably over > a "standard way to encode flags unambiguously" in an ISO standard. > > 3. Dealing with the inevitable hue and cry: "China and Japan and the US got > their flag! > Why can't I get my country's flag??!" > > And it appears that the RIS mechanism succeeded spectacularly well in > addressing all of those design goals. > > In the middle of last year, for example, there was a major media and > internet campaign to "encode the flag of India". Well, the RIS mechanism > handled the real issue there just fine -- when the new phones started > coming out with support for display and interchange of emoji for flags > using the RIS sequences, there was the emoji for the flag of India for > everybody to use. Problem solved. > > And the problem which was solved was not the determination that > the <1F1EE, 1F1F3> RIS sequence "IN" meant precisely the current > national flag of India, the saffron, white and green tricolor with the > Ashoka Chakra, and *not* any other flag of India (the flag of the > Indian army, the flag of the Mughal Empire, the flag of British > India, etc.). The RIS sequence "IN" was just mapped to the colorful > little emoji glyph for the Indian flag that everybody wanted to interchange. > > The Unicode Standard is not a vexillology standard -- nor will it ever be. > It is a standard for the encoding and interchange of characters. > > The *character* problem we are faced with here is that people want > to use and interchange colorful little emoji pictographs of various > flags in text streams. The RIS mechanism addresses a significant > part of that problem, but is not extensible to cover the full scope of the > demand. > > And what is the scope of the additional demand? > > 1. The first part can be summed up as: the flag of Scotland problem. > > In other words, there are a number of high visibility, high demand, > widely recognized regional flags that would be interchanged as just > more emoji pictographs, if a mechanism for that were available. > > People who want to use an emoji for the flag of Scotland just as > easily as someone can use an emoji for the flag of Great Britain > are not going to accept an argument that says, "Well, we can't do > that on your phones because there is no 3166-1 country code registered, so > we can't map a Scotland flag emoji glyph to a RIS pair." > > Hence the PRI #299 proposal: for an extension mechanism that would > address the flag of Scotland problem in a generic and reasonably > stable way. > > 2. The second part can be summed up as: the rainbow flag problem. > > In other words, there are a number of high visibility, high demand, > widely recognized non-governmental flags that would be interchanged > as just more emoji pictographs, if a mechanism for that were available. > > From the public's point of view, this is another no brainer: if the > flag of Japan and the flag of Scotland, why not the rainbow flag??! > They aren't interested in the limitations of the underlying representation > mechanisms, nor should they be, IMO. > > The problem the UTC faces here is that there are a number of > reasonable and popular candidates, which the rainbow flag amply > exemplifies, for more colorful little emoji pictographs for flags that > people would like to interchange -- but there is no obvious and > extensible way to do so reliably in terms of sequences of Unicode > characters in a plain text stream. The PRI #299 proposal does not > extend into this realm, for many of the reasons pointed > out by Doug Ewell. > > There are a number of potential approaches to address the rainbow > flag problem. For example: > > a. use private-use characters > b. pursue one-by-one encoding of each newly desired flag pictograph as a > symbol > c. extend the unicode_region_subtag and unicode_subdivision_subtag > scheme in CLDR to add some new subtag addressing a separate, > non-geopolitical hierarchy > d. create a separate extension using TAG characters but with a > syntax not dependent on CLDR subtag definitions > e. create a registry of flag entities suitable for representation as > emoji, together with a "c" or "d" style syntax > f. something else? > g. do nothing (and perhaps hope that stickers will solve the problem) > > If we are to make any progress here in addressing the actual scope > of "the rainbow flag problem", I suggest we focus on the details and > pros and cons of suggestions like those of a through g above, rather than > pursuing more discussion recapitulating the history of the borders of Tibet > -- > which truly are out of scope here. > > --Ken > >