Re: [secdir] SECDIR review of draft-leiba-cotton-iana-5226bis-08

[Barry Leiba <[e-mail]>]

> I'm OK with an unspecified strictness order. But I think "Expert
> review with significant, stable public documentation." is highly
> misleading. In the absence of express additional criterion,
> Specification Required constrains the expert to only judging whether
> or not the documentation is sufficient. It should say "Significant
> stable public documentation sufficient for interoperability." or
> something like that.

I can live with that.  Shall I make the changes, with that modification?

>      Have you ever been in the position of seeking a code point
> assignment when you believed the relevant expert was both
> unconstrained by any specific guidelines and actively hostile to your
> effort? I have and I can tell you I would have loved for the criterion
> to be a simple Specification Required. So this may color my thinking.

And that's why this version of BCP 26 is much stronger than the RFC
5226 version with respect to guidance for the designated expert.  And
I know that several of us on the IESG now are pushing that, strongly
asking for DE guidance (often to the puzzlement of the document
authors, who aren't sure what we're looking for).  I think the reason
guidance is often lacking is exactly because it's obvious to the
people writing the document what the DE should be considering, and the
problems happen much later.

All that said, the current IESG is not the future IESG, and there may
come a time when we again have an IESG that doesn't push on this point
at all.  Which is why it's good to have the strong push for DE
guidance baked into BCP 26.

Barry