Re: [Idna-update] [I18nrp] FWD: Re: [I18n-discuss] draft-faltstrom-unicode11, i18n "directorate", and related issues

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

--On Tuesday, December 4, 2018 19:30 -0800 S Moonesamy
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> Hi John,
> At 01:56 PM 04-12-2018, John C Klensin wrote:
>> As the last part of the note below will make obvious (I was
>> planning on noting it to this list separately) I decided to
>> summarize what I believe the discussion was about to the
>> IDNA-update, EAI, PRECIS, and IAB i18n-discuss lists to lower
>> the odds that someone who should be participating in the
>> discussion is accidentally left out of the loop.
> 
> The proposal sounds like a cross between a working group and a
> directorate.

To a considerable extent, it is a cross between a working group,
a directorate, and a review team.   See my recent long note.

>  I gather that directorate is not an exact fit if
> it operates as a review team.  

But this is where we go into either a rathole or a procedural
swamp that wastes time and frustrates some of the relevant
experts into deciding to spend their time in other ways.
Certainly, if they wanted to, the ART ADs could propose setting
up three (in the extreme case) separate groups, a directorate to
advise them on i18n strategy, a review team to evaluate both
in-area and out-of-area (but primarily out-of-area) documents
with i18n topics or impacts, and a WG to generate new i18n work
and process documents.  They could then consider the fairly
small number of experts available (both by knowledge and ability
and willingness to commit) to populate such groups and do i18n
work and respond by (at least mostly) appointing the same people
to the first two groups and encourage them to join/participate
in the third.   If only because of a shortage of volunteers,
they might even appoint the same chairs/coordinators for all
three.  Then they could figure out a way to make it clear which
hat people were wearing when they said something and be prepared
for complaints (or even appeals) when it wasn't sufficiently
clear.

Seems to me like a huge opportunity to waste time, spend energy
on procedures that would be better spent on substantive work,
and drive experts away from participation and the IETF and that
it would have absolutely no advantages other than impressive
ritual correctness.   YMMD.

> A directorate review cannot block a draft.

Of course not.  Nor can a review team review or, by itself, a WG
decision to not proceed with a draft.   An AD could take input
from any of them and use it to block a draft or could proceed
anyway (in the WG case by changing WG leadership, spinning up a
separate WG, or handle the draft as an individual submission).
Do you see enough difference there to justify quibbling over
what this is called or creating new and elaborate procedures?  I
don't but, again, YMMD.

>  As Ted pointed out, it would be up to the Area
> Director to take the decision on whether to "block" a draft.

Exactly.   And that decision would be subject to pushback from
other ADs in the Area, the full IESG, and to potential appeals.
We have lots of protection against abuse against unreasonable
blocking behavior... by anyone or any group.

    john