Re: [Ltru] Fwd: draft-davis-t-langtag-ext

["Debbie Garside" <[e-mail]>]

I will say just say a couple of things on this and then will let it go.  I really am not about attacking either Unicode or CLDR as I believe I am still a member (and have been since they last printed a hard copy - whenever that was).

I believe that CLDR has lost experts due to a data dump from Google that overwrote their work.  I had a face to face conversation with a colleague involved whilst in Korea three weeks ago.

Saying that all the core people are still there after 20 years does not address the issue of paying for votes - they may have been paying for 20 years.  In any case, I believe CLDR was created some 7 years ago (or maybe 8).

One could ask, how many people are on the proposed CLDR committee and, of these, how many are not attached to paying organisations?

Best wishes

Debbie

-----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Roozbeh Pournader
Sent: 07 July 2011 22:58
To: Debbie Garside
Cc: 'Mark Davis ☕'; 'Mykyta Yevstifeyev'; 'Pete Resnick'; 'LTRU Working Group'; 'CLDR list'
Subject: RE: [Ltru] Fwd: draft-davis-t-langtag-ext

On Thu, 2011-07-07 at 22:13 +0100, Debbie Garside wrote:

> I have heard from a colleague who has been instrumental in adding 100
> locales to CLDR that many volunteers are disillusioned and have
> stopped contributing.

That's not because of committee voting. Maintaining and updating the
data in CLDR locales uses a vetting procedure vastly different from the
CLDR commitee itself. And I have seen the feedback from experts with
limited voting right incorporated not only in CLDR data, but also in
updates to the CLDR data vetting process. From what I've seen, most
volunteer experts objections has been about not being able to keep up
with the pace of data that comes from some full members. So, it's mostly
been volunteer contributors (myself included) trying to slow down the
process, instead of voting members. So contrary to what you think, it's
the organizational and data support from the voting members that makes
sure the process is fast enough. Not only it doesn't put development
back for years, it's usually volunteer contributors who want the process
slowed down so they can catch up.

Again, all of that is about "locale data", which is really very large
amount of data. I don't think we can use that experience to see how the
"t" extension will be maintained. A better comparison is how the Unicode
Consortium and the CLDR committee has been maintaining the
already-registered "u" extension. Do you know anybody who has had a
problem with that?

> I would hate for IETF to find that they agree to "outsource" this work
> and then find that their volunteer experts disappear.

Well, Unicode has been here for more than two decades, and I have yet to
see expertise disappear from it. Not only that, but also almost all the
core people are still contributing.

Roozbeh