Re: [I18nrp] Additional input needed for i18nRP BOF

[Peter Saint-Andre <[e-mail]>]

On 6/6/18 9:44 PM, Nico Williams wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 06, 2018 at 10:29:26PM -0500, Adam Roach wrote:
>>> Regardless of what the answer to that is, it might be possible to start
>>> small and scale up.  Starting small means triaging more demurely.  At
>>> any rate, starting small is probably the only realistic way to get
>>> started.  But there's no point starting small if we can't scale up, so
>>> we do need to have some idea of how big to scale, and how.
>>
>> This sounds reasonable, and is pretty much what I had in mind when I said
>> "volunteers who are willing and able to educate themselves into being
>> experts". I say this while agreeing with John about the complexities and
>> subtleties of this topic.
> 
> That's fair.  Directorate members' I18N expertise might vary, with some
> better able to review email- or DNS-related I-Ds, and others better able
> to review filesystem- or web-related I-Ds.  I18N is a fairly big topic,
> and I wouldn't expect every directorate member's expertise to be
> sufficient to review every comer.
> 
> Also, John notes that reasonable people can and do disagree regarding
> various I18N issues, so we can probably expect some of that from the
> directorate.  I hope directorate members can recognize and acknowledge
> which aspects are more objective and which more subjective.  Still, I
> believe a lot of I18N issues are basic and can be dealt with objectively
> at this point, so a directorate should be helpful.

In RFC 8141, we provided the following guidelines to designated experts
and registrants of URN namespace identifiers; something along these
lines might be appropriate in this context, too:

###

   Experience to date with URN namespace registration requests has shown
   that registrants sometimes do not initially understand some of the
   subtleties of URN namespaces and that defining the URN namespace in
   the form of a specification enables the registrants to clearly
   formulate their "contract" with the intended user community.
   Therefore, although the registration policy for formal URN namespaces
   is Expert Review and a specification (as distinct from the
   registration template) is not strictly required, registrants SHOULD
   provide a stable specification documenting the URN namespace
   definition and expanding upon the issues described herein.

   Because naming can be difficult and contentious, URN namespace
   registrants and the Designated Experts are strongly encouraged to
   work together in a spirit of good faith and mutual understanding to
   achieve rough consensus (see [RFC7282]) on handling registration
   requests.  They are also encouraged to bring additional expertise
   into the discussion if that would be helpful in providing perspective
   or otherwise resolving issues.

###