Re: [I18nrp] Draft minutes

["Pete Resnick" <[e-mail]>]

Hearing no comments (other than to put in a legend with the names of the 
speakers), I will post this to the proceedings site.

pr

On 2 Aug 2018, at 11:37, Pete Resnick wrote:

> Please review:
>
> Internationalization Review Procedures (i18nrp) BoF
> IETF 102 Montreal
>
> Chairs: Pete Resnick and Peter Saint-Andre
> Minute Taker: Matt Miller
> Jabber Scribe: Ted Hardie
>
> COORDINATES
>
> * Date: 2018-07-16
> * Time: 14:30-15:30 EDT
> * Room: Saint-Paul / Sainte-Catherine
> * Mail: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/i18nrp
> * Chat: xmpp:[e-mail]?join
> * Audio: http://ietf102streaming.dnsalias.net/ietf/ietf1026.m3u
> * Video: http://www.meetecho.com/ietf102/i18nrp/
> * Minutes: http://etherpad.tools.ietf.org/p/notes-ietf-102-i18nrp
> * Slides/Materials: 
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/102/session/i18nrp
>
> AGENDA
>
> 1. Administrivia (NOTE WELL, minute taker, Jabber scribe, blue sheets, 
> agenda bash) (2m)
>
> 2. Goals and non-goals for the BoF (5m)
>
> 3. Current review procedures (5m)
>    - Chair presentation
>    - Discussion
>
> 4. Problems with current review procedures (10m)
>    - Chair presentation
>    - Discussion
>
> 5. Non-mutually-exclusive proposals
>    - Internationalization directorate (20m)
>      - Strawman proposal (chairs)
>      - Discussion
>    - Internationalization considerations RFC (15m)
>      - Strawman proposal (chairs)
>      - Discussion
>
> 6. Next steps and action items (5m)
>
> MINUTES
>
> After administrivia, chairs presented on current review procedures and 
> problems with current procedures (see 
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/102/materials/slides-102-i18nrp-internationalization-review-procedures-chair-slides).
>
> Discussion:
>
> Other problems not in the chair slides (slide 10)?
>
> * the few people who review things get overloaded (JK)
> * lack of consistency about what the issues are and what to do about 
> them (JL)
> * we have individuals with knowledge, but they're not organized as a 
> functioning team so efforts are ad-hoc (PR)
>
> Chairs then laid out the two strawman proposals:
>
> I18N DIRECTORATE
>
> Discussion:
>
> It was heard that "triaging is relatively easy", but is that 
> documented somewhere? (DY)
>
> -  Today depends on an oral tradition (not sustainable) (PSA)
> -  Triaging is also largely "I know it when I see it." (PR)
> -  It may not be possible to document the triaging strategy? (AS)
> -  Identifying potential for problems is relatively easy, but 
> addressing issues is much harder. (JK)
> -  Often the experts actually do the work on the document; finding 
> additional reviewers is hard. (JK)
>
> There have been attempts in the past, why would this succeed where 
> others have failed? (BL)
>
> -  Note that IAB internationalization program was not to review IETF 
> documents. Had other purposes. IAB work thinks in terms of liaison 
> relationships and external bodies, but IETF work may not have to 
> consider other bodies. (TH)
> -  W3C faces similar challenges (i18n-wg there too small a group with 
> too much to do).  W3C has worked on tooling to identify and track when 
> i18n review is necessary. (WS)
> -  IETF groups are not often aware that a document needs i18n review. 
> (BL)
> -  W3C has a paid staff member who focuses on i18n, including review, 
> and has added sponsorship of i18n review and awareness. (WS)
> -  This time might succeed because of a growing awareness with a 
> change in approach with a "design team". (PSA)
> -  PRECIS was intended to be tools to help address i18n issues; this 
> effort is to educate and instruct on identifying i18n issues. (PR)
> -  The IETF tooling available now is better than in the past. (PR)
>
> This is proposed to be an ART area directorate; ART ADs would be 
> responsible for its management. (AC)
>
> - Need to make sure that all of the structures are set up. (AC)
>
> How would this directorate gain and maintain diversity (most of the 
> audience in the room is European or North American)? (YY)
>
> - We think the 80/20 rule applies to this directorate, where most 
> issues "anyone" could handle it. (PR)
>
> Other comments:
>
> -  Consider the "part-time participant" for this directorate. (CN)
> -  It may less than 80/20, and it might require much more external 
> expertise that could jeopardize this directorate. (JK)
> -  Note that other directorates (e.g., Gen-ART) has variable cadences, 
> and that might be an approach to incorporate. (AC/AR)
> -  There are two strategies that can be taken to recruit: (TH)
>   1. Recruit (outside) language experts to train others to identify 
> and triage i18n issues; or
>   2. Take people that are familiar with IETF tools and processes and 
> help them identify issues and how to find experts to reach out to.
> -  Triaging (identifying) is a function of this team/directorate, but 
> to also have a pool of experts to reach out to when something is 
> identified. (PSA)
> -  Note that “triaging” means assigning to one of three 
> categories: “Healthy enough”, “Needs treatment”, or “Will 
> die”. There should be both a mechanism to address the issues or a 
> way to "kill it off". (HA)
> -  This team needs some language-specific expertise and more broad 
> expertise to understand subtle problems with catastrophic consequences 
> in exotic languages and variants. (JK/BL)
>
> I18N “RFC” (or other documentation)
>
> Discussion:
>
> Is a goal to build future members of the directorate? (BL)
>
> -  That may be a goal, to capture the existing "oral tradition" for 
> future generations. (PSA)
> -  This might be useful and helpful. (BL)
>
> This document might need to include instructions to authors for what 
> to look for in their documents. (BL)
>
> Issues similar to HTTP, this effort might have an issue where the team 
> is overwhelmed; a BCP can help set expectations. (MN)
>
> -  The W3C has useful work here (e.g., "Character Model for the WWW"), 
> and documents for authors would be helpful. (PSA)
>
> Similar to RFC style guide and MIB doctor: Might start with a dynamic 
> document (e.g., Wiki), then perhaps some or all of it evolves into an 
> RFC once a stable set of material is identified. (DT)
>
> - The IESG has discussed "documents they'd like to be published", 
> having a team without published documents may be ideal as long as 
> there are measurable goals. (AM)
> - This is a suite of documents maintained by this team. (DY)
>
> Similar to those qualified to review HTTP work (a handful of 
> individuals), individuals qualified to review i18n issues independent 
> of language are even rarer. (JK)
>
> -  There is a distinction for the knowledge base necessary for IETF 
> documents versus W3C documents. (JK)
>
> There are a number of bodies that want to own i18n work. What will the 
> IETF do when someone comes in claiming expertise and 	says we should 
> abandon our efforts? (AS)
>
> -  This sounds like a liaison issue, but that punts to the IAB ("Hope 
> is not a plan"). (PSA/AS)
> -  If they come in asking us to stop trying to fix it, then make it 
> incumbent on them to then fix it. (AR)
> -  Getting this perfect is extraordinarily difficult, but getting it 
> better may not be.  This team would be better than what we have today, 
> and building up the documentation and external connections can take 
> place over time. (TH)
>
> Flag the notion of exclusivity on doing this work; help inspire 
> external participants to expand from their language space into our 
> networking space. (AC)
>
> The IETF has a large number of people with a deep understanding of 
> network architecture, but very small number of people with a deep 
> understanding of language issues. The issue isn't to make things 
> better, but when we have sufficient understanding to review documents. 
> (JK)
>
> ACTIONS SUMMARY BY CHAIRS
>
> - That steps should be taken to help document how to identify i18n 
> issues
> - Help find people to contribute expertise; reach out to ANWR and 
> other educational groups
> - ADs to confer about next steps, and continue discussion on 
> [e-mail]
>
> QUESTIONS TO THE ROOM BY CHAIRS
>
> - Who is willing to time/inclination to triage and review documents? 
> (~8)
> - Who is willing to time/inclination to dive deeper on solving hard 
> i18n problems, not just review? (~5, including other people)
> - About a dozen people interested to form such a group.
> - Suggestion to recruit students to this effort. (SC)
> - Discussion to continue on the list.
>
> MEETING ADJOURNED