RE: Emphasis mark skipping (i18n-action#49 csswg-drafts#839)

Sorry. I quoted the wrong action item number. Changing the subject line so our tracker slots emails correctly.

 

From: Addison Phillips <addisoni18n@gmail.com> 
Sent: Thursday, October 5, 2023 12:32 PM
To: unicoRe@unicode.org; 'Mark Davis Ⓤ' <mark@unicode.org>
Cc: public-i18n-core@w3.org
Subject: Emphasis mark skipping (i18n-action#49 csswg-drafts#839)

 

Hello unicoRe (and Mark as liaison),

 

The W3C I18N WG has tasked me with contacting Unicode about the problem of emphasis marks in e.g. CJK. The CSS working group, along with colleagues in various layout task forces, believe that emphasis marks (such as wakiten in Japanese) should skip punctuation except for a specific list of characters. The suggestion has been made that the need to make an allow-list/block-list of characters is because Unicode has potentially miscategorized a number of characters.

 

The full discussion is here: https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/839

 

CSS’s list of characters is in this pull request here: https://github.com/fergald/csswg-drafts/commit/791964ceae64b3a640932a1ea013cd8c5c349cfe

 

It is unclear if Unicode can make changes or if the UTC wants to do anything with this information. Please let me know if you want to discuss. The I18N and CSS working groups have regular sync-up call, the next of which is on 24 October at 10 PM Pacific (2200), in case you want to have someone turn up to discuss, or we can arrange to call into another meeting, such as UTC.

 

The relevant part of the discussion I’ll quote below my .sig

 

Best regards (for I18N+CSS),

 

Addison

 

 

Addison Phillips

Chair (W3C Internationalization WG)

 

Internationalization is not a feature.

It is an architecture.

 

 

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<dael> fantasai: We discussed and resolved to skip punct for em marks because that's default expected. There was discussion with i18n. I checked in edits to impl that decision
<dael> fantasai: We skip characters in punct from unicode with a handful of exceptions
<dael> fantasai: I asked florian to talk to typographers in Japanese community. florian recommended adding another character.
<fantasai> https://drafts.csswg.org/css-text-decor-3/#text-emphasis-style-property
<dael> fantasai: Definition is straight forward. There's symbols in unicode punct so we're effectively re-categorizing. Things like @ aren't really punct
<dael> fantasai: Definition at end of ^
<dael> fantasai: That's where we're at
<tantek> q+
<florian> q+
<dael> tantek: If we're going to diverge from unicode can we at least file a bug against unicode to say we think you made a mistake and we're patching it in CSS. to give them strong feedback. Elsewise seems bad to diverge
<dael> chris: Agree
<liam> +1
<dael> tantek: I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying push to disagreement upstream.
<dael> fantasai: Happy to explain, but because I think unicode general category is required to be stable I don't think unicode will be able to fix.
<dael> tantek: Let's not assume failure. Let's try.
<dael> Rossen: Okay. It's a valid point. Let's give them the feedback. Thanks tantek
<dbaron> Unicode has split categories in the past
<liam> [the feedback may help Unicode in future too]
<Rossen> ack tantek
<Rossen> ack florian
<dael> florian: I'm in favor of this. As fantasai mentioned I reviewed. I reviewed and discussed details with Japanese people and according to them it's very subjective. The conclusions fantasai came to are in line witht he rational they gave.
<dael> Rossen: Great. Any other opinions?
<dael> Rossen: Objections to accepting?
<dael> RESOLVED: Accept the proposed changes and follow up with unicode

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