Talk:Private Use Areas

Discussion from a Redirects for Discussion entry
From WP:RfD:


 *  &rarr; Apple typography -- Redirect is useless and misleading. Only people on Macintosh computers can correctly see the title in the first place, and only people on Macs who know a fairly obscure key combination can type it.  The title is Unicode character "U+F8FF", which is in the Unicode private use area, so the appearance of the title depends entirely on what font you're using: most Mac users will see an "apple" symbol, while on my home computer, I see it as a "Euro" symbol with an extra bar.  Other people have reported seeing such things as a "no such character" box, a question mark, Klingon letters, and even the font maker's copyright statement! --Carnildo 20:24, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep. Is there a problem here? I don't understand what Carnildo's concerns are. Redirects are never seen unless: 1. They are linked to in an article, or 2. they are typed into the search box. Since the character cannot be properly seen by inferior computer systems, then we simply won't allow it to be directly linked to in articles, but there is a very good chance that Mac users would enter this character into the search box. I myself once did a search for &amp;#x2318; (&), the Mac command key symbol, in an effort to learn more about it. Redirects are harmless, and these sorts of redirects are especially harmless. No one but Mac users would ever encounter them, and then only when searching for them with the search feature. (And forgive me, but there is something about this listing that I feel smacks of typical Mac-bashing). Func( t, c ) 03:18, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Or 3. if Google makes it the title of the article in its search results. It's happened more than once with redirects. --Carnildo 06:27, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment: I'm not sure why, but I'm seeing Apple symbol on my Windows 98-based computer. What you see should be largely depends upon which fonts you have installed. Firefox says that it's using Arial for the Unicode and User-defined fonts, which I've fairly recently updated to the fully Unicode-version of Arial, so that's probably where the character is from on my computer. Blank Verse   &empty;  14:26, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
 * delete. If this character is in the Unicode private use area, then it has different meanings on different systems, none of which is "correct." So, this redirect would be nonsensical. BTW, characterizing other computers as "inferior" sure does seem hypocritical when you criticize the nomination of smacking of "typical Mac-bashing". Brighterorange 22:10, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
 * What is it supposed to look like? I see a little box. Am I right? Do I win the prize? NatusRoma 04:39, July 30, 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, if you had followed the redirect, you would have known... &mdash; David Remahl 00:55, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete'. Cute idea (I am a Mac user), but nevertheless unusable. Unicode private area. Anythng can go there. &asymp; jossi &asymp; 04:17, July 31, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. If another widespread use of this private use codepoint is discovered, we can make it into a disambig page. This is probably one of the most used private use unicode characters. A redirect is harmless. &mdash; David Remahl 00:55, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep: Perhaps this should redirect to the Unicode Private Use Area? ~ Dread Lord C y b e r S k u l l ✎☠ 03:54, 2005 August 5 (UTC)
 * Keep. As we can see, this character already caused a lot of discussion on its own. --Abdull 21:22, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Characters
Since all instances of this character in the document appear for me (on a Mac) as the Apple logo, it makes sense to me to have rasterized images of each version of the character. Since the character can represent a corporate logo, this raises the question of if a representation of the corresponding Unicode character constitutes fair use. --IntrigueBlue 09:25, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm seeing the same thing... How would you go about doing this? Paul C/T+ 02:04, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Based on further research, it would appear that the Apple logo was originally included in fonts as a copyright method, because people would not be able to redistribute the font since it contains a trademarked logo. By extension I would assume including depiction of the logo here would not constitute fair use, which kinda throws a spanner in the works. As for the other symbols mentioned, since I can't see them I can't make pictures of them either. Could somebody who can see them do this, and add the pic to the article? --IntrigueBlue 05:14, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm in Windows XP presently and just see ?, in linux I see €. Thryduulf 09:58, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I see little hollow boxes for everything except Wingdings and Webdings, where I see glyphs different from those described... AnonMoos 23:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * For me everything is displaying as the insignia of the Klingon Empire. --PiMaster3 talk 21:49, 2 December 2006 (UTC)


 * What OS/browser are you using? Could you upload a high-resolution rasterized/SVG version of the insignia? I've been trying to find a browser that displays that way. — INTRIGUE B LUE (talk|contribs) 22:06, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm using Firefox 2.0 on Windows XP. The only font that I think might be causing this would be code2000. --PiMaster3 talk 01:47, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'll check that out next time I boot to Windows. — INTRIGUE B LUE (talk|contribs) 02:36, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm seeing it the way IntrigueBlue described it, as all apple logo's. something should be done, but i don't know how. Jordan042 21:31, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User%3APsantora 2607:DA80:3:995:C908:70E7:AF64:524A (talk) 07:59, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Uploads for different fonts
Currently, all I see on this page is this glyph: Apple over and over again. It would be great if someone could upload the other glyphs in a similar format and insert them into the article so that others can see the correct image. I'll add the Apple logo where appropriate. Paul C/T+ 21:55, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * See the discussion above your post. What it boils down to is that the Apple logo was added as a form of copy protection, and the image you linked is listed under fair use. Use in this article would appear not to fall under blanket fair use. — INTRIGUE B LUE (talk|contribs) 01:24, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. Still, it would be nice if the other glyphs could be imaged and added to the article..Paul C/T+ 09:35, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I find it useless having the same symbol apear exactly the same again & again Tuck99 08:27, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, this article should basically be deleted if it doesn't make sense depending on what computer one is on. Clearly, the windows logo is not an Apple symbol.72.78.57.6 22:47, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * It's a trademark. You can't extend copyright with a trademark. Fair use still applies. The trademark issue is separate. Pictures of trademarked items are also fine, the key question being if the use of the trademarked image could cause market confusion. That is, could an image of the Apple logo on Wikipedia cause some fool to believe that Wikipedia is an Apple product? Since the law is not based on the theoretical maximum fool, the answer is no. Usage here is fine, no problem. Replacing the Wikipedia puzzle-globe logo with an Apple logo would of course be another matter entirely. 24.110.145.106 (talk) 06:21, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Wingdings and Webdings
Wingdings and Webdings are symbol fonts that are not mapped to Unicode system, so there is nothing at the codepoint. You can check it out with BabelMap for example. --Octra Bond (talk) 10:00, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was no consensus. --BDD (talk) 20:36, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Private Use Areas → Private Use Area – Into singular per WP:TITLE. The subject is not intrinsically plural, it's just that there are more. See also WP:PLURAL. --Relisted. Xoloz (talk) 01:14, 14 March 2014 (UTC) DePiep (talk) 07:51, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Borderline oppose. This is really a gray area IMO: it's open to interpretation if they are "intrinsically plural" when we have a finite and small number of them defined (there might be more in the future, but it's a) in domain of crystal balling, b) there shall still be a finite and small number). I'd say that WP:PLURAL kind of covers it under the Similarly, one is much more likely to mention the Bernoulli numbers or Arabic numerals than a particular Bernoulli number or Arabic numeral rationale. Without a clearcut reason, it's probably best left alone. I suspect that's the reason why nobody commented so far. No such user (talk) 15:08, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
 * It's more simple. Three PUA's is a list of PUA's, not a system of PUAs. -DePiep (talk) 16:46, 18 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose. "Private Use Area" in the singular is used to refer to the BMP PUA - the term was coined prior to the creation of the supplementary planes - and it contrasts with the "Private Use Planes". The term "Private Use Areas", in the plural, is the exclusive term that refers to all three, collectively. Also, in answer to NSU, there in fact will not be any more private use areas in the future, as per Unicode stability policy. In other words, moving this page would be factually incorrect. VanIsaacWScont 15:47, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
 * No. PUA also refers to another PUA, not just the one BMP block. Simply, there are three blocks Private Use Areas (they are a Private Use Area, by definition), one of them is actually named 'Private Use Area'. Unicode Chapter 16.5 Three distinct blocks of private-use characters are provided in the Unicode Standard: the primary Private Use Area (PUA) in the BMP and two supplementary Private Use Areas in the supplemental planes. The language and the definition does not force us to use plural as a concept. The three are not a system of PUAs, they are just a list. None of the exceptions mentioned in WP:PLURAL apply. Note that this is a policy, not opinion. -DePiep (talk) 09:35, 18 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment. To be clear, the sources definene and use the singular 'Private Use Area'. I claim that WP:TITLE policy be applied, especially WP:SINGULAR. Deviance needed from that guideline requires a proof beyond mere doubt. -DePiep (talk) 07:05, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 23 March 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: NO CONSENSUS. Hadal (talk) 06:09, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Private Use Areas → Private Use Area – Singular is OK. Plural is not based in WP:TITLE. DePiep (talk) 00:24, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Support, there is no clear indication of use in search on Unicode ("Private Use Area" OR "Private Use Areas"). WP:SINGULAR applies. GregKaye 08:12, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose like the previous time. Nothing has changed in the meantime, has it? To wit, the article starts with In Unicode, the Private Use Areas (PUA) are three ranges of code points [...] (bolding mine). Thus, we're talking about a concept which is intrinsically plural, just like Arabic numbers. No such user (talk) 10:22, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Support per WP:SINGULAR. It is easy enough to reword the lede to reflect a singular title: "In Unicode, a Private Use Area (PUA) is a range of code points that, by definition, will not be assigned characters by the Unicode Consortium.  Three private use areas are defined, one in the BMP (U+E000–U+F8FF), and one each in planes 15 and 16." BabelStone (talk) 12:10, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Support per BabelStone. Have article at singular and rewrite lede to reflect the exist multiple. —Ruud 13:37, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The article is not about Private Use Areas in general (i.e. about any one of the three and potential future ones), it is about the three together, as a plural entity, similar to Arabic numerals. Incidentally there is a parallel article at Private Use Area (Unicode block), which I think is probably on the same topic and should be merged in. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 18:13, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose. As someone who knows WP:PLURAL extremely well, I'm pretty confident that a set of three distinct areas fits the Arabic numerals exception to our general rule for singular titles. Red Slash 22:28, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Support, singular is preferred unless the official title is in the plural. J I P  &#124; Talk 07:54, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
 * No. WP:PLURAL outlines the cases when we use plural titles, and it has nothing to do with officialdom. We have a disagreement here whether WP:PLURAL applies, specifically the "articles on groups or classes of specific things" clause (I don't see why not), but your interpretation is just wrong. No such user (talk) 08:06, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The Unicode Glossary published by the Unicode Consortium is pertinent on this point: "Private Use Area (PUA). Any one of the three blocks of private-use code points in the Unicode Standard." The Wikipedia title should follow the usage of the Unicode Consortium and use a singular title covering all three PUA blocks. BabelStone (talk) 08:16, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with BabelStone that we should follow the Unicode Consortium's use of this term. I've rarely, if ever, seen this term used in plural anywhere, one usually refers to this as "a Private Use Area" (contrast this with the Arabic numerals example given above, where one refers to the whole system as often, if not more often, than as to its individual members, here an exception to using the singular form makes sense; this is not the case for the private use areas, one is generally speaking about a specific member). As Private Use Area is a proper noun, the comparison with Arabic numerals doesn't work on multiple accounts. None of the exceptions listed in WP:PLURAL seems to apply, but this seems irrelevant as we don't even want to make an exception here. —Ruud 12:03, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Proper noun is a touchy designation, best avoided for the purpose of title discussions. A more precise statement is that PUA is an industry term. No such user (talk) 18:20, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I think the historical context should also be taken into account here. Before the addition of the two supplemental Private Use Planes to Unicode 2.0 there was only one PUA. Nowadays, I don't think it would be strange to refer to all three ranges taken together as "the PUA".
 * Either way, Wikipedia generally prefers singular titles, PUA is mostly referred to in singular: it just seems strange to me to argue this should be kept as a plural, whether you look at it formalistically or in context.
 * The article was renamed from "Private Use (Unicode)" to "Private Use Areas" in November 2013 without discussion. Although I think this was at least an improvement, had it been renamed to "Private Use Area" instead, no one would be arguing to move it to "Private Use Areas" now. (The history of this article is weird, though: it was originally about U+F8FF.) —Ruud 14:43, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Private use Areas are three distinguishable code point areas which are covered as such. Therefore Mbcap (talk) 17:45, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Neutral - Why am I bothering to write in on it then? Just to say that it really isn't a big deal either way to me, someone who uses the term(s) all the time professionally. If I was searching for the term I'd probably search on the singular. Thomas Phinney (talk) 17:01, 30 March 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Other uses in text parsing algorithms
See this discussion: when parsing text (eg. XML) is interesting to reduce complexity replacing tokens or tags by 1-character token, so, generates a simple text with usual characters and non-ambiguous tokens-as-characters. This simple string can be parser by usual regular-expressions instead complex parser.

Summarizing: the "other use" is "as reliable Unicode 1-character-token in parsing context".

Example: XML representation of multilingual text as

Now, we can reduce tagged representation to "text and token" representation, remembering the sequence of tags (eg. in an array). Let's see replacing XML-tags by "_T1_", "_T2_", etc. tokens, the text will be  ... But to process the tokenized text by a regular expression the less complex is to reduce tokens to 1-character... To avoid conflict with "real text" exoctic characters (like "𩸽"), we adopt PUA as the best choice, that never conflics.

Supposing the adoption of PUA codes 61528 (decimal) and 61527, that are the UTF-8 characters "" and "". Now we can represent the XML text with the tokenized text and arrays (suppose JSON representation), and process its content by a simple regular expression.

Krauss (talk) 20:44, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

"U+f8ff" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect U+f8ff. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 13:40, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

"􍁷" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect 􍁷. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 16:29, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

"􏰉" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect 􏰉. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 16:29, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

"" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect . Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 07:25, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Former status of surrogate zone
As of Unicode 1.0.1, in the now-antiquated system of dividing the Basic Multilingual Plane into "zones", U+D800..U+DFFF were part of the O-zone, not the R-zone (which included the private use range U+E000..U+F8FF):. This was prior to U+D800..U+DFFF becoming the surrogate S-zone. So U+D800..U+DFFF seems to have been reserved space, not private use space. --HarJIT (talk) 19:51, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

I think I see where the confusion may have arisen, since the Unicode 1.0.0 PUA ended later, at U+FDFF (but also started later, at U+E800): --HarJIT (talk) 19:53, 11 October 2021 (UTC)