Re: [idn] URL encoding in html page

[Dave Crocker <dhc@dcrocker.net>]

At 04:13 PM 4/2/2002 -0500, John C Klensin wrote:
>  -- this
>collection of cats seems determined to not be herded, and I
>doubt that either of us could do much better were we sitting in
>the Chair.

indeed.


>I wish, too, that the WG would simply omit something and go
>silent -- what is disturbing to me about this round of
>discussions is how much they are going over old ground,

yup.


>What I am objecting to is your tactics.  I don't think we make
>progress by making up rules and trying to enforce them, or by
>bending the rules to your (or even my) personal convenience.

I agree.  Therefore it is a good thing that that was not what I am trying 
to do.

And as responded earlier, this has nothing to do with my personal 
preference.  Personally I find discussions of usability issues quite 
delightful, since they permit me to indulge in my original formal training.

What is, instead, at issue is working group progress and 
productivity.  This is more mundane than making things personal, but it is 
also more relevant.


>   To
>take one of the clearer examples, I found the "user interface"
>discussion during the Minneapolis "keyword" BOF interesting and
>helpful,

1.  I suppose it is heartening to hear that someone found the Keyword BOF 
enlightening.  All I can do is applaud your skills at extracting benefit.

2.  Perhaps the Keyword BOF has some relevance to this DNS working group, 
but it escaped me in that BOF and it escapes me now.

3.  Even as an example, I do not know how an early-stage, unfocused 
discussion about keywords has any relevance to a late-stage DNS working 
group specification effort.


>(i) The charter doesn't say what you seem to think it does.  The
>wording "...specify the requirements for internationalized
>access to domain names and to specify a standards track protocol
>based on the requirements..."

The goal of requirements is frequently in a charter and is just dandy for 
early-stage working group effort.  To the extent that anyone feels that it 
is worth reviewing and writing formal IDN working group requirements, that 
might even be OK.  However the current thread has not been attempting that, 
nor is such a goal typical at such a late stage, usually because it is not 
very productive.

As to the protocol specification work, I will reiterate my request that you 
explain how any of this thread relates to it.  The request was intended to 
move from abstractions to specifics.  While such a move is anathema to many 
of the critics of this working group's efforts, it is nonetheless the usual 
way IETF working groups makes progress.


>  was very carefully chosen.  It
>does not say "produce a solution that gets Unicode names into
>the DNS".

John, presumably you offer a quoted phrase, like that, because it has some 
relevance to what I said.  That relevance escapes me, since I made no such 
statement.  Please feel free to clarify.


>  I think reasonable people can read what it does say as
>including discussions about what is actually required and where
>in the stack to do it

I'd find it interesting to see some explication of how this thread was 
doing more than rehashing old issues.

Rehashing old issues is a frequent basis for declaring a topic 
inappropriate for continuation in an IETF working group.


>Which, however wrongheaded or misguided some of us think the
>UTF-8 discussion to be, and however ill-advised a few of us
>think one or two of the clarifications in RFC 2181 are, makes
>that arguably in-charter too.

As long as we are beating dead horses, let me reiterate that things that 
are reasonable in the early stages of a working group are not reasonable in 
the late stages, especially when those stages are separated by years.

And I will repeat my query as to how this thread shows any actual or 
possible relevance to the protocol specification work of this group.  Not 
theoretical, John. Actual.

The criticisms in this working group have a massive tendency towards 
assertions of theoretical fact, often without theoretical or experimental 
basis.  They also have a massive tendency to avoid moving to the pragmatics 
of specifics.


>(ii) It is possible to argue that once a WG is chartered to
>produce a protocol, it must produce a result, and the IESG must
>accept that result because the WG put in a lot of work on it and
>reached some sort of consensus.

Again I find it impossible to guess how this line of comment is relevant 
here.  No one suggested anything about the IESG, such as it being a rubber 
stamp, nor any of the rest of the possibilities you cite.

Please clarify.

d/

----------
Dave Crocker <mailto:dave@tribalwise.com>
TribalWise, Inc. <http://www.tribalwise.com>
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