Re: Guidelines for authors and reviewers

Comment inline, with most of the discussion elided.  I believe that one 
particular question gets to the heart of what is bothering me.

Ted Hardie wrote:
> At 4:08 PM -0700 5/30/08, Joel M. Halpern wrote:
...
>> On design decisions, there is an even more complex tradeoff.  I have
>> reviewed several documents which had questionable design decisions.  In
>> one review I recently wrote that I did not expect the following comment
>> to change the WG consensus, but that I considered the specific mechanism
>> used by the document a bad idea.  If I had not known that the particular
>> mechanism had been discussed, I might have put it more forcefully.
>> On the other hand, a while back I reviewed a document which had a
>> mechanism which, although the working group had indeed agreed on it,
>> fundamentally didn't work.  I don't care how much they agreed.  It
>> needed to be changed.  And they changed it.  (It was incumbent upon me
>> to provide a clear and coherent explanation of why it was broken.)
> 
> These both sound like excellent reviews:  you expressed your personal
> design preferences in the first instance but did not try to force it over
> the consensus of the working group, and pointed out a showstopper
> in the second. 
> 
> Now, show me in this draft how these two cases are distinguished,
> which is critical to getting a review done right? 

The problem I have is that I do not know how to write text in a draft 
that distinguishes those two.  The line between them is very tricky, and 
possibly subjective.
And part of the problem is to avoid turning it into a fight.  If all 
review comments get clear, reasonably timely responses, there is room 
for the discussion without acrimony.

Would it address your concern if the document said something like:
    "Reviewers should be sensitive to the difference between
    their personal opinions (and preferences) and issues
    which will affect the correct operation or interoperation
    of the documents under review"
?

I have no problem with pointing out that there are two different 
categories.  I have real problems with trying to define a hard line 
which distinguishes them.

Yours,
Joel

PS: While there are other differences in our views, they seem to be 
questions on which reasonable folk may differ and we can let the 
community sort out how to write the wording.
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