Re: [idn] URL encoding in html page

[John C Klensin <klensin@jck.com>]

--On Tuesday, 02 April, 2002 16:12 -0800 Dave Crocker
<dhc@dcrocker.net> wrote:

>...
>>   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.
>...

Again, I was commenting exclusively on the tactic of trying to
cut off discussion by making over-broad assertions about what
the IETF does or does not permit groups to do, what charters
prohibit, etc.   I mentioned the keyword BOF because there
seemed to be to be a pattern and it illustrated the pattern.

> 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.

Assuming you have seen my other note by now, it should be clear
that I agree with you on the substance.  But the formal
determination of relevance is a WG Chair or AD problem.  You and
I can give them advice (unsolicited or solicited), advise or
plead with the WG participants (as I have tried to do in that
other note), but our telling people what they can't do on the
basis of over-narrow reading of the charter or limits on IETF
scope seems inappropriate.

>>  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.

Absolutely.  See comments above about the role of Chairs and ADs
versus roles of participants.  And your notes weren't saying
"this is rehashing old issues, please stop it".  The one that I
cited said, more or less, "this is a UI issue and we don't
discuss UI issues".

>> 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.

If a WG is converging smoothly, I agree.   And I would argue
that rehashing old issues is inappropriate two months into a
working group and certainly no more appropriate two years in.
On the other hand, if there were the slightly shred of really
new and significant information that might impact the content or
evaluation of appropriateness of an evolving standards-track
effort, I'd contend that introducing it would be reasonable at
any time.    And, no, I haven't seen any discussion or arguments
I would have interpreted as either new or significant
information (much less both) since before the WG Last Call
concluded.

> 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.

I don't believe there is any.  You don't believe there is any.
James has pointed out (yet again) that (my words, not his) the
ratio of loud assertions to actual alternative proposals that
are posted as I-Ds and that contain enough technical specifics
to be considered  remains infinite. Absent such proposals, those
assertions are just noise, and I believe the noise ought to
stop, and have said so.

But, in my opinion, your assertions about topics that can be
discussed or not discussed on the basis of charters and real or
imagined IETF procedures just distract from the point that we
have been through these arguments many times before, that no
significant new information is being placed into discussion, and
that there are no meaningful proposals on the table.

     john