Changing DISALLOWED (was Re: Reserved general punctuation)

[Paul Hoffman]

Excerpted:
At 7:17 PM -0700 4/30/08, Mark Davis wrote:
>1. We say that once DISALLOWED, always DISALLOWED.
>
>2. We say that characters can only be removed from DISALLOWED by an 
>obsoleting RFC.
>
>3. We say that characters can only be removed from DISALLOWED by the 
>committee/mechanism that controls CONTEXT/exceptions, and only in 
>extremis.
>
>4. We say that characters can only be removed from DISALLOWED by the 
>committee/mechanism that controls CONTEXT/exceptions, and but that 
>committee is not designed to be conservative.
>
>I think #3 would be the best, and #2 acceptable, while #1 and #4 are 
>extremes that could cause problems.

I respectfully disagree that #3 would be best because the IETF has 
had numerous problems with "committe/mechanism" setups, particularly 
ones that shut down for a few years and then need to be restarted. I 
do not think that a committee for IDNs would be any better suited to 
this than other committees in the past. It's a problem with the IETF, 
but it is one we should be honest about.

My preference would be #1/#2, which really are the same. It should be 
made clear that they are talking about a standards-track RFC, which 
means that it needs to be approved by the IESG, but that has a higher 
chance of predicable results and opportunities for community input 
that #3.