Re: [apps-discuss] WGLC for draft-ietf-appsawg-mime-default-charset

[Carsten Bormann <[e-mail]>]

* Technical summary

This is the right thing to do, and should have been done right after the end of the UTF wars.

* Editorial issues

The document appears to spell out a SHOULD for "text/html" and "text/xml".
Does it change the meaning of text/html and text/xml?
Reading more closely, this apparently isn't meant, but there is a potential misunderstanding.

More generally:
When looking at a random media type three years from now, how do I find out whether this sentence does apply:
   It does not change the
   defaults for any currently registered media type.

Even more generally: 
Who is affected by (needs to read) this specification?
Who are the targets of the SHOULDs and MUSTs?
How do I find out whether an implementation complies?  interoperates?

And meta^3:
What is the IETF name for specifications that are exclusively intended to remind us not to make a certain class of mistake again when generating future specifications?  Which specification wins when such a meta-specification is neglected in a specific specification?

Grüße, Carsten