Re: Pictographic zodiacal symbols

Somewhere we dropped the list. Adding back on.

A "user-defined variation selector" makes no sense. Because Unicode will 
not reserve code points with predefined Default_Ignorable property for 
such a purpose. We've just had this discussion again and there's pretty 
strong consensus on that point.

Now, if you were to use a PUA character and treat is like a variation 
selector, that's up to you (and people who subscribe to your PUA 
assignments) but it doesn't behave like a regular VS, which is ignorable 
if you don't / can't process it.

Might as well use regular PUA characters.

Which gets you back to the question whether these are/should be 
considered substitutable and/or whether there is significance in the 
choice, and if so, what it would be.  There's one other question that is 
typically ask, and that is whether there's a need for contrasting usage. 
The latter seems absent in this case.

We've learned a painful lesson that identifying symbols (even borderline 
pictorial ones) with emoji was a very, very, very bad idea and even 
adding variation selectors did not fix that very, very, very bad idea. 
But we're stuck with it and the TCs vow to never, ever, ever, repeat 
this mistake.

The question then is whether the distinction between a symbolic 
(schematic) representation and a full pictorial one is similar, and what 
the relation of the latter would / should be to emoji.

Those questions don't have obvious answers, which means, there's a 
benefit of raising them in a well-reasoned proposal (but one that should 
carefully address the issues I've laid out here). This would give the 
TCs and WGs a chance to try to finetune the encoding principles in that 
area, as well as rule on the specific case.

A./

On 8/12/2024 7:40 AM, Leo Broukhis wrote:
> Then it looks like a perfect case for a (user-defined?) variation 
> selector.
>
> Leo
>
> On Sun, Aug 11, 2024 at 5:59 PM Asmus Freytag via Unicode 
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>     There's arguably a distinction between symbols and pictographs,
>     even if both signify the same concept.
>
>     This is different from the case two different sets of pictographs
>     or two different sets of symbolic notation.
>
>     Although, even in those cases it is useful to consider the
>     question: can one of them be substituted for the other with the
>     reader experiencing the choice as stylistic?
>
>     A./
>
>     On 8/10/2024 3:48 PM, Leo Broukhis via Unicode wrote:
>>     What's the semantic difference between the two sets? Without it,
>>     it's just different fonts.
>>
>>     Leo
>>
>>     On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 2:00 AM A. Stötzner via Unicode
>>     <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>         Besides the simple typographic set of 12 zodiac characters
>>         there is a tradition of another set, consisting of
>>         pictographic symbols of the 12 zodiac signs, which also play
>>         a role in typography (~ 16th c. onwards)
>>         Has this set been proposed for encoding at any time in the past?
>>         greetings,
>>         Andreas Stötzner
>>         __________________________________________________________________
>>
>>         *Andreas Stötzner*
>>         Gestaltung · Archivpflege · Fontentwicklung
>>         Klauflügelweg 21 · 88400 Biberach a.d. Riß
>>         0176-86823396 · [email protected]
>>         [email protected] · Andronfonts.com <https://andronfonts.com/>
>>
>