Re: [Rfced-future] WGLC Review of the draft

[Eliot Lear <[e-mail]>]

Hi Peter & EKR

On 04.01.22 22:33, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
> On 1/4/22 2:18 PM, Eric Rescorla wrote:
>> Well, it's not an *additional* bullet but rather a replacement 
>> bullet, I think.
>
> That sounds right.

Yes, that's right.  I stand corrected.

>
>> I think this also still leaves the question of whether it's exhaustive.
Indeed.
>
> IIRC, in our original discussion this was intended to be exhaustive. 
> Personally (no editor hat on) I've only ever been ~90% comfortable 
> with that, but I can certainly live with it.
>
I don't think we intended it to be exhaustive, but I will admit that I 
didn't get a strong sense one way or another from the group.  So let's 
discuss.

Allow me to attempt to frame this a bit with two questions:

  * When can the RSAB trigger a broader community review?
  * What is the harm and redress if the RSAB triggers an "inappropriate"
    broader review?

Imagine a proposal to change the archival format (for whatever reason– 
let's assume there's some good reason to do so).  This would NOT offend 
the principles in Section 7, but might be viewed as a sufficiently large 
change that perhaps a broader review would be considered appropriate.  I 
could envision two scenarios:

 1. The RSWG *asks* the RSAB and the RSCE for help with a broader
    review.  One could envision such a situation where the RSWG
    participants believe they are either at their limits or beyond their
    expertise and really want to hear from others. This is not
    controversial, and I would imagine it would just happen without much
    if any change to the existing text.
 2. The RSAB thinks the proposal is at or beyond the limits of the RSWG
    participants or that the proposal might be harmful to the long term
    health of the series or have impact that they do not yet see (say
    with accessibility), and wants that broader review, without a
    request from the RSWG.

I think it's the 2nd scenario we need to discuss, and you might want to 
delve into it a bit.

And let's turn this around: what bad things happen if the RSAB triggers 
a broader review for something that is trivial?  Perhaps the answer is 
“not much”.  What would be the redress?  I see two answers to that:

  * Appeal on process failure.
  * Complaint to the streams and NOMCOM (probably the IAB, as a
    practical matter) of unwise/inappropriate use of authority.

I mention this because this group can afford to allow for some judgment 
on the part of the RSAB if we are comfortable with the risks of 
inappropriate use of the authority and the redress. Otherwise, we should 
be more restrictive.

Comments?

Eliot