Re: registries and designated experts

[Dave Crocker <[e-mail]>]

On 6/12/2012 7:19 AM, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
> it's not the role of the designated expert to
> act as a gatekeeper with respect to the technical merits of the
> technologies that trigger registration requests. It might be good to
> have a wider discussion about the purpose of registries and the role of
> designated experts, but IMHO it's not correct to conclude that a
> technology is acceptable just because the designated expert didn't
> object to the registrations related to that technology.


It's almost inevitable that many designated experts will, in fact, act 
as gatekeepers.  For example the distinction between "won't do damage" 
vs. "looks like excellent engineering" is more subtle in practice than 
one might think.  Especially absent very precise specification of review 
criteria and absent actual training of the reviewers.

While, yes, protocol specs that define the registry and review of its 
entries are supposed to provide the necessary details that do the 
distinction, I believe such texts do not get deep review for 
interpretive robustness.  That is, I doubt they are bullet-proofed 
against the vagaries of differerent readers who might be doing the 
reviews or writing text for them.

d/
-- 
  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  bbiw.net