Re: About cultural/languages communities flags

2015-02-10 17:16 GMT+01:00 Doug Ewell <doug_at_ewellic.org>:

>
> In order to make a system like this work with an arbitrary number of
> symbols, a terminating symbol would have to be defined. Finding the
> longest match between a string of symbols and a TLD wouldn't work;
> someone might really want to encode "Brazil, United States, Sweden,
> Lesotho" consecutively, and would not want this converted to "Brussels."
>
> And as Ken pointed out, TLDs are TLDs; they are not a general-purpose
> geographic coding system. They don't include every sub-national region
> or separatist group, only the ones that Donuts and similar companies
> chose to register. There's no TLD for Abkhazia, for example, or for
> ISIS.
>
>
well, my propose for using GeoTLDs is an answer to the question "where do
you put the line?"

I agree a terminating symbol would help in expanding RIS system.

> IMHO keept tied to 2-alpha codes is a poor choice for users. May be
> > industry manufactures could find a better approach.
>
> Let's hope that industry manufacturers adhere to the standard instead of
> going off on their own. I thought that was the idea when all these
> cell-phone symbols were added to Unicode in the first place.
>
>
I really full agree. Manufacturers must follow standards. I support
standard, but IMHO RIS dessign is very strict.

Unicode doesn't define flags.
Unicode doesn't define country flags.
Unicode define a mechanism to define ISO country (and dependent
territories) flags

But manufacturers doesn't follow 100% ISO country codes, for instance,
dependent territories codes are usually mapped to country flag [1]. This is
a choice made by industry manufacturers, but, it's not in ISO.

Another choice made by industry is using a private code, like XK for
Kosovo, that's good!

The issue with Scotland, Walles, Catalonia and similar flags is a chicken
and egg situation. If a manufacturer wants to add such flags, standard
doesn't allow it!!! (PUA can be used, of course). And Unicode doesn't
expand RIS because manufacturers doesn't use these flags.

IMHO RIS mechanism should be expanded being more flexible, beyond 2 char
RIS. Unicode doesn't define flags, it defines a mechanism. Manufacturers
will choice supported flags, just like they are doing now!

So, the real question here is: Where do you put the line?

Currently it's put on ISO 3166-1 + some customizations made by industry,
but always it's tied to 2 char RIS. IMHO this is too poor for covering real
world use/request.

I suggested using currently ISO country codes + cultural/language TLDs.
Maybe there is a better approach

Best regards,
Joan Montané

[1] https://github.com/googlei18n/region-flags/blob/master/ALIASES

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Received on Tue Feb 10 2015 - 14:30:12 CST