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You are misunderstanding the reasoning behind symbol inclusion in Unicode. It’s not about “what could be handy” but about what is needed to cover character enc

You are misunderstanding the reasoning behind symbol inclusion in Unicode. It’s not about “what could be handy” but about what is needed to cover character encoding already in broad usage. Japan was early adopter of cellphone internet. One way to save data usage was to compose graphics as characters in a proprietary encoding (specific to the carrier!) Basically, in order to move Japanese handsets of custom encodings and onto Unicode compatible systems, Unicode needs to be able to display not just all the Japanese characters but also the weird graphics that carriers decided to come up with in order to decorate their online services. This is also why there is so much Japanese food characters.

lxgr 6y ago
> what is needed to cover character encoding already in broad usage. That isn't true anymore though, is it? At least Emoji seem like a case where inclusion precedes use and noth the other way around.
- lifthrasiir 6y ago
  Emoji is the sole exception to this rule and then you still need to convince the committee that separate WiFi, CPU or RAM emojis are needed to communicate the intent (say, for example, given there are other computer-related emojis). In fact I do think you can, given they were probably never suggested before [1] except for "wireless" which status is "Prioritization Pending". [1] https://unicode.org/emoji/emoji-requests.html https://unicode.org/emoji/emoji-requests.html
  - PurpleFoxy 6y ago
    Emoji are for communicating to other people. I can’t imagine why you would ever send someone a message with a ram stick in it. OP sounds like they want the icon for a task bar. In that case they can simply import any SVG they want.
    - lifthrasiir 6y ago
      Yeah the OP's arguments wouldn't work: the typical answer would be "use PUA and a custom font" as Powerline symbols do (incidentally, they have been proposed to Unicode [1]). But as a general emoji CPU and RAM can be actually substantially different from any other existing emoji, which is the main concern of the Unicode emoji process. [1] https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2019/19068r-powerline-syms.pdf https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2019/19068r-powerline-syms.pdf
    - lxgr 6y ago
      > I can’t imagine why you would ever send someone a message with a ram stick in it. Would you consider this to be a very different thing from, say, a MiniDisc? Yet there is an Emoji for that. Obviously we cannot include every picture possible in Unicode, but there certainly seems to be demand for a lot of them. Besides really enjoying their use in texting, I've also come across a lot of professional uses as well. Yes, this means that the Unicode Consortium probably has needed to adapt their original mission a bit, but I don't see the harm in that.
      - reaperducer 6y ago
        Would you consider this to be a very different thing from, say, a MiniDisc? Yet there is an Emoji for that. MiniDisc makes sense for two reasons. First, because it's a legacy inclusion. Second, because absolutely, you might use it in a text message. "Don't forget to bring over your bitchin collection of [MiniDisc] on Thursday!"
        cryptonector 6y ago
        "Don't forget to pair your device with the classroom [bluetooth] attendance meter and to join the school [WiFi] to access school resources"
    - reaperducer 6y ago
      Emoji are for communicating to other people This is an important point that most technical people miss. They want to turn Unicode into a cross-platform FontAwesome. That's not what it's for. There are a lot of specific-use symbols in Unicode (chess pieces, for example), but those are legacy inclusions because many of those symbols were included in computers before the internet.
- wodenokoto 6y ago
  Yeah, I’m willing to concede that there are multiple reasons to include things in Unicode and some things are included for utility rather than because it exist. Things like half stars was added by petition similar to TFA, so my post should have been more nuanced. The point is that the reason why there is a seemingly useless emoji and not the [insert character you really want] is usually because one is preexisting and the other isn’t.
- numpad0 6y ago
  Emoji existed since late 90s[1], just it was completely domestic to Japanese carrier intranets and gatekeeped hard that there aren't a lot of records remaining in the public Internet. Japanese feature phone market was weaponizing lack of emoji support in modern smartphones to chase them out, but iPhone happened anyway and Apple started incorporating their own fragmenting SoftBank-iPhone-specific implementation into iOS so Google pushed it all to Unicode to fix them all up. They wanted to capture user emails into Gmail, and all emojis sent from featurephones being replaced with = by gateways was problematic. 1: https://blog.emojipedia.org/apples-emoji-evolution-1997-2018/ https://blog.emojipedia.org/apples-emoji-evolution-1997-2018...
  - coldtea 6y ago
    >Emoji existed since late 90s[1], just it was completely domestic to Japanese carrier intranets and gatekeeped hard that there aren't a lot of records remaining in the public Internet. Emoji yes, the new emoji we get in annual Unicode updates, not...
- derefr 6y ago
  The process for inclusion of most modern emoji is the exception, not the rule. That exceptional process isn’t one you can get in on as an individual, either. It goes like this: 1. Some large-userbase OS+messaging services provider, like Apple or Microsoft, sends a “proposal” for some new codepoints to the Unicode Consortium. The explicit message is “do you think these are worth standardizing?” But the implicit message is more unilateral: “we’re giving you advance notice, that we’re planning on including this emoji in our fonts + supporting it in our messengers, whether you like it or not, and whether it’s inter-compatible with anyone else’s systems or not. If you don’t standardize it, we’ll encode it using the Private-Use Area.” 2. Given the Unicode Consortium’s goal of never having proprietary text bits flying around the Internet — and given these big service providers’ histories of running messaging services (e.g. MSN Messenger) that did use proprietary encodings for emoji, resulting in some lasting problems with digital archaeology — the Unicode Consortium feel pressured by this “proposal” to standardize the proposed emoji codepoints, whether they really think they’re “worth” being standardized or not. 3. The Consortium also then feel pressured to get a new standard revision out quickly, to get ahead of the planned usage by these service-providers (because that usage would have to be encoded somehow, and if they don’t give the service-provider a codepoint to use by the time they ship their new font version that includes the relevant emoji, they’ll just have to make up their own.) In most cases, the Unicode Consortium is reactive to existing usage, allowing them to judge whether there is real existing adoption of a symbol; but here, they have to be proactive, pushing out a standard that includes a codepoint before knowing whether anyone will use it. As a result, you’ll see these large dumps of new emoji where Apple/Microsoft/Google/etc. just decided autocratically that the world needed some more emoji, and Unicode begrudgingly followed along. It’s like what happened when Unicode first absorbed the emoji codepoints of Japanese feature-phones; but happening just-in-time, one at a time. (If those Japanese feature-phone manufacturers kept introducing new emoji, they’d have had to absorb those just-in-time too.) There’s a separate, much more sensible and deliberate process the Unicode Consortium goes through you’re a regular-sized actor who’s not attempting to strong-arm them, where you do tend to have to prove existing use in either analogue documents, or as part of some proprietary digital text format.
  - lifthrasiir 6y ago
    You have summarized the problem of the Unicode emoji process so well, but I want to say that it is not the one-directional pressure. Vendors do not want to implement too many new emojis, so the number of new emojis per year is essentially limited (50--100 [1]). Vendors also do not want that other vendors don't implement their new emojis, so they do cooperate with other vendors and obey the rules set by the Consortium (e.g. no trademarks). It's not comparable to individuals, but it is not exactly possible for vendors to put any emoji to the standard as well. [1] https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2017/17206-emoji-and-vendors.pdf https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2017/17206-emoji-and-vendors.pdf
otras 6y ago
> It’s not about “what could be handy” but about what is needed to cover character encoding already in broad usage. I’m pretty unfamiliar with Unicode, and this is interesting to read about. What’s your take on something like Linear A being included? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_A_(Unicode_block) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_A_(Unicode_block)
- wodenokoto 6y ago
  I believe unicodes mission is to include all characters expressable in all writing systems “in the real world”, and being a replacement for major text encoding is seen as part of accomplishing that mission.
- cryptonector 6y ago
  Having obsolete scripts have codepoint assignments means that scholars can use Unicode for interchange. I think that's a win.
tyingq 6y ago
It's hard for me to take this terribly seriously given poop emoji, phallic hieroglyphics, etc.
- wl 6y ago
  > phallic hieroglyphics The alternative is to just not have Egyptian hieroglyphs in Unicode. The phallus is a frequently used symbol in Middle Egyptian. Then again, what's there is half-assed. There are no joining characters, so nothing displays right. And while you'll probably have the characters you need most of the time if you're dealing with Old Egyptian or Late Egyptian texts, Serapis help you if you're working with Ptolemaic-period texts. At least the situation is better than with cuneiform, where Unicode alone can't represent a text because the characters drastically vary over time and you need to make sure you're using the right font.
  - cryptonector 6y ago
    Scholars need codepoint assignments for obsolete scripts though.
    - wl 6y ago
      I agree. The fact, however, is that Unicode is not sufficient for scholars who use Egyptian hieroglyphs or cuneiform. For the former, most people seem to use JSesh. For the latter, line drawings + transliterations.
- sedatk 6y ago
  I wonder if academical papers of today won't be taken seriously in the future because some of the symbols we use will have turned into a cultural faux pas? I hope not.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
coldtea 6y ago
>It’s not about “what could be handy” but about what is needed to cover character encoding already in broad usage. That ship has sailed years ago with new annual emoji additions... And even if that was the case, "what could be handy" would still be a good thing for the Unicode standard bearers to also have in mind...

lxgr 6y ago

> what is needed to cover character encoding already in broad usage. That isn't true anymore though, is it? At least Emoji seem like a case where inclusion precedes use and noth the other way around.

lifthrasiir 6y ago
Emoji is the sole exception to this rule and then you still need to convince the committee that separate WiFi, CPU or RAM emojis are needed to communicate the intent (say, for example, given there are other computer-related emojis). In fact I do think you can, given they were probably never suggested before [1] except for "wireless" which status is "Prioritization Pending". [1] https://unicode.org/emoji/emoji-requests.html https://unicode.org/emoji/emoji-requests.html
- PurpleFoxy 6y ago
  Emoji are for communicating to other people. I can’t imagine why you would ever send someone a message with a ram stick in it. OP sounds like they want the icon for a task bar. In that case they can simply import any SVG they want.
  - lifthrasiir 6y ago
    Yeah the OP's arguments wouldn't work: the typical answer would be "use PUA and a custom font" as Powerline symbols do (incidentally, they have been proposed to Unicode [1]). But as a general emoji CPU and RAM can be actually substantially different from any other existing emoji, which is the main concern of the Unicode emoji process. [1] https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2019/19068r-powerline-syms.pdf https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2019/19068r-powerline-syms.pdf
  - lxgr 6y ago
    > I can’t imagine why you would ever send someone a message with a ram stick in it. Would you consider this to be a very different thing from, say, a MiniDisc? Yet there is an Emoji for that. Obviously we cannot include every picture possible in Unicode, but there certainly seems to be demand for a lot of them. Besides really enjoying their use in texting, I've also come across a lot of professional uses as well. Yes, this means that the Unicode Consortium probably has needed to adapt their original mission a bit, but I don't see the harm in that.
    - reaperducer 6y ago
      Would you consider this to be a very different thing from, say, a MiniDisc? Yet there is an Emoji for that. MiniDisc makes sense for two reasons. First, because it's a legacy inclusion. Second, because absolutely, you might use it in a text message. "Don't forget to bring over your bitchin collection of [MiniDisc] on Thursday!"
      - cryptonector 6y ago
        "Don't forget to pair your device with the classroom [bluetooth] attendance meter and to join the school [WiFi] to access school resources"
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    Emoji are for communicating to other people This is an important point that most technical people miss. They want to turn Unicode into a cross-platform FontAwesome. That's not what it's for. There are a lot of specific-use symbols in Unicode (chess pieces, for example), but those are legacy inclusions because many of those symbols were included in computers before the internet.
wodenokoto 6y ago
Yeah, I’m willing to concede that there are multiple reasons to include things in Unicode and some things are included for utility rather than because it exist. Things like half stars was added by petition similar to TFA, so my post should have been more nuanced. The point is that the reason why there is a seemingly useless emoji and not the [insert character you really want] is usually because one is preexisting and the other isn’t.
numpad0 6y ago
Emoji existed since late 90s[1], just it was completely domestic to Japanese carrier intranets and gatekeeped hard that there aren't a lot of records remaining in the public Internet. Japanese feature phone market was weaponizing lack of emoji support in modern smartphones to chase them out, but iPhone happened anyway and Apple started incorporating their own fragmenting SoftBank-iPhone-specific implementation into iOS so Google pushed it all to Unicode to fix them all up. They wanted to capture user emails into Gmail, and all emojis sent from featurephones being replaced with = by gateways was problematic. 1: https://blog.emojipedia.org/apples-emoji-evolution-1997-2018/ https://blog.emojipedia.org/apples-emoji-evolution-1997-2018...
- coldtea 6y ago
  >Emoji existed since late 90s[1], just it was completely domestic to Japanese carrier intranets and gatekeeped hard that there aren't a lot of records remaining in the public Internet. Emoji yes, the new emoji we get in annual Unicode updates, not...
derefr 6y ago
The process for inclusion of most modern emoji is the exception, not the rule. That exceptional process isn’t one you can get in on as an individual, either. It goes like this: 1. Some large-userbase OS+messaging services provider, like Apple or Microsoft, sends a “proposal” for some new codepoints to the Unicode Consortium. The explicit message is “do you think these are worth standardizing?” But the implicit message is more unilateral: “we’re giving you advance notice, that we’re planning on including this emoji in our fonts + supporting it in our messengers, whether you like it or not, and whether it’s inter-compatible with anyone else’s systems or not. If you don’t standardize it, we’ll encode it using the Private-Use Area.” 2. Given the Unicode Consortium’s goal of never having proprietary text bits flying around the Internet — and given these big service providers’ histories of running messaging services (e.g. MSN Messenger) that did use proprietary encodings for emoji, resulting in some lasting problems with digital archaeology — the Unicode Consortium feel pressured by this “proposal” to standardize the proposed emoji codepoints, whether they really think they’re “worth” being standardized or not. 3. The Consortium also then feel pressured to get a new standard revision out quickly, to get ahead of the planned usage by these service-providers (because that usage would have to be encoded somehow, and if they don’t give the service-provider a codepoint to use by the time they ship their new font version that includes the relevant emoji, they’ll just have to make up their own.) In most cases, the Unicode Consortium is reactive to existing usage, allowing them to judge whether there is real existing adoption of a symbol; but here, they have to be proactive, pushing out a standard that includes a codepoint before knowing whether anyone will use it. As a result, you’ll see these large dumps of new emoji where Apple/Microsoft/Google/etc. just decided autocratically that the world needed some more emoji, and Unicode begrudgingly followed along. It’s like what happened when Unicode first absorbed the emoji codepoints of Japanese feature-phones; but happening just-in-time, one at a time. (If those Japanese feature-phone manufacturers kept introducing new emoji, they’d have had to absorb those just-in-time too.) There’s a separate, much more sensible and deliberate process the Unicode Consortium goes through you’re a regular-sized actor who’s not attempting to strong-arm them, where you do tend to have to prove existing use in either analogue documents, or as part of some proprietary digital text format.
- lifthrasiir 6y ago
  You have summarized the problem of the Unicode emoji process so well, but I want to say that it is not the one-directional pressure. Vendors do not want to implement too many new emojis, so the number of new emojis per year is essentially limited (50--100 [1]). Vendors also do not want that other vendors don't implement their new emojis, so they do cooperate with other vendors and obey the rules set by the Consortium (e.g. no trademarks). It's not comparable to individuals, but it is not exactly possible for vendors to put any emoji to the standard as well. [1] https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2017/17206-emoji-and-vendors.pdf https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2017/17206-emoji-and-vendors.pdf

otras 6y ago

> It’s not about “what could be handy” but about what is needed to cover character encoding already in broad usage. I’m pretty unfamiliar with Unicode, and this is interesting to read about. What’s your take on something like Linear A being included? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_A_(Unicode_block) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_A_(Unicode_block)

wodenokoto 6y ago
I believe unicodes mission is to include all characters expressable in all writing systems “in the real world”, and being a replacement for major text encoding is seen as part of accomplishing that mission.
cryptonector 6y ago
Having obsolete scripts have codepoint assignments means that scholars can use Unicode for interchange. I think that's a win.

tyingq 6y ago

It's hard for me to take this terribly seriously given poop emoji, phallic hieroglyphics, etc.

wl 6y ago
> phallic hieroglyphics The alternative is to just not have Egyptian hieroglyphs in Unicode. The phallus is a frequently used symbol in Middle Egyptian. Then again, what's there is half-assed. There are no joining characters, so nothing displays right. And while you'll probably have the characters you need most of the time if you're dealing with Old Egyptian or Late Egyptian texts, Serapis help you if you're working with Ptolemaic-period texts. At least the situation is better than with cuneiform, where Unicode alone can't represent a text because the characters drastically vary over time and you need to make sure you're using the right font.
- cryptonector 6y ago
  Scholars need codepoint assignments for obsolete scripts though.
  - wl 6y ago
    I agree. The fact, however, is that Unicode is not sufficient for scholars who use Egyptian hieroglyphs or cuneiform. For the former, most people seem to use JSesh. For the latter, line drawings + transliterations.
sedatk 6y ago
I wonder if academical papers of today won't be taken seriously in the future because some of the symbols we use will have turned into a cultural faux pas? I hope not.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

coldtea 6y ago

>It’s not about “what could be handy” but about what is needed to cover character encoding already in broad usage. That ship has sailed years ago with new annual emoji additions... And even if that was the case, "what could be handy" would still be a good thing for the Unicode standard bearers to also have in mind...