From: Mark E. Shoulson (mark@kli.org)
Date: Tue Jan 10 2006 - 14:35:21 CST
Asmus Freytag wrote:
> the salient argument in favor of such symbols is not their uniforimity
> in appearance, but their
> semantics. Just because HTML easily accommodates inline graphics does
> not mean that
> new notational conventions must only be realized in that way.
I've been thinking about this more lately; if you look at the usage of
this symbol--and it's being used in more and more settings--it seems
really to be considered "plain text," for all that it's technically an
inline graphic. What's the environment in which it is appearing?
Article text, not otherwise heavily seasoned even with tame things like
superscripts and italics. It feels awfully plain-text in the way it's
used, though not the actual mechanics of course.
From another perspective--definitely *not* one that guides the Unicode
decision process--we can consider this prescriptively: wouldn't such a
symbol be a Good Thing to have as plain text, if we could decree a
standard convention? I know Unicode isn't in the business of creating
symbols but of recording them; I'm not trying to change that. Though
there does seem to be some sort of attempt by content-providers to
invent a symbol for "offsite link".
> This does not try to make a complete case, just to answer your specific
> objections.
No, it's not a complete case. My whole intent (so far) is just to raise
the notion and get people thinking about it.
~mark
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