3 ms·
> Unicode really should have had a similar “no original designs” rule. I think it does, doesn't it? Here is some info on unicode rules for new characters, alt
by jrochkind1 4y ago
> Unicode really should have had a similar “no original designs” rule.
I think it does, doesn't it?
Here is some info on unicode rules for new characters, although there doesn't seem to be a single succinct statement, and there are slightly different standards for different categories ("letters" vs symbols vs emojis). But I am pretty sure you can't just make up a character and succesfully submit it to unicode on the argument that it would be useful, this thing you just made up; it has to have already established use to get into unicode, generally.
http://www.unicode.org/pending/proposals.html http://www.unicode.org/pending/proposals.html
Which characters are you annoyed by specifically?
It's true there are separate rules for emoji's, which are... weird. I seem to recall unicode initially tried to resist emoji's at least to some extent, before just giving in.
But emoji's are actually pretty clear, to me, as a success of unicode. People want them, they have achieved pretty widespread use globally, and if that's going to be so, we benefit from them being encoded in a standard vendor-neutral way. We're far better off with emoji's in unicode than, say, every vendor using their own non-standard use of private codepoints. (Unless you argue that if they weren't in unicode they wouldn't have caught on; I am sympathetic to the argument that we'd better off without emoji's, but I'm pretty sure if they weren't in unicode we'd still have them, just non-standardly).
Here are some of the guidelines for which emoji's will be encoded in unicode:
https://unicode.org/emoji/proposals.html#selection_factors https://unicode.org/emoji/proposals.html#selection_factors
It's a bit fuzzy, but you generally can't simply get a new thing you just invented encoded in unicode on the argument that it's cool.
- xjay 4y agoThe private unicode range is often used for icons on many web sites, but downloadable fonts are considered optional on the web, so we're left with unintelligible hex codes instead, at which point we've regressed to a pre-accessibility era when images typically didn't come with alt text, but at least there was a fallback mechanism.