Re: registries and designated experts

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

--On Tuesday, June 12, 2012 19:13 +0100 Brian E Carpenter
<[e-mail]> wrote:

>> The above is at odds with standardization.  The last reason
>> does not apply for Expert review.
> 
> I don't understand that statement. RFC 5226 says, in Section 2
> about "Why Management of a Namespace May Be Necessary":
> 
> "  A third, and perhaps most important, consideration concerns
> potential    impact on the interoperability of unreviewed
> extensions."
> 
> One of the specific considerations for designated experts in
> section 3.3 is
> 
> "      - the extension would cause problems with existing
> deployed         systems."
> 
> It seems clear that interoperability is a primary concern for
> any expert review.

Brian, Subramanian,

I've with Barry on this.  The details of the expectations of an
expert reviewer, including the thresholds for approval, should
be specified in whatever document sets up the particular
registry.  One size does not fit all; "Expert Review" is a
designation of a mechanism and not a set of criteria.

We should, IMO, do two things in this area:

(1) When a document specifies "Expert Review" for a registry, it
should be required to spell out the criteria the Expert is
supposed to use, at least to the degree that isn't obvious.  If
it doesn't, that should be grounds for "DISCUSS until fixed".

(2) If it turns out that an Expert for a particular registry is
not behaving as people expect, part of the process for getting
that fixed (or even complaining about it), should be to see if
the registry-creating documents are clear about procedures and
criteria.  If they are not, an effort to update those criteria
would be a useful way to discuss the issues and not the
individual expert.   Of course, Experts who knowingly violate
clear criteria should be summarily fired -- but I think we can
trust that to the IESG and note that it has almost never been
necessary.

     john