Registration request: "mis" comment clarifying meaning

[Addison Phillips]

Michael Everson wrote:

>> Frank is requesting the registration of a Comment field, which seems 
>> to be covered by discussion on this list previously.
> 
> My stars.
> 
> He's changed his comment request from "A collection of languages which 
> don't belong to any other collection" to "A collection of unrelated 
> languages which don't belong to any other ISO 639 collection"

It's his prerogative as an the requester. May I assume that you rejected 
the previous request?

> 
> And we have to spend another fortnight arguing about this?

There is no requirement that we argue. There is a requirement that you 
give the request two weeks:

--
    When the two-week period has passed, the Language Subtag Reviewer
    either forwards the record to be inserted or modified to
    iana at iana.org according to the procedure described in Section 3.3, or
    rejects the request because of significant objections raised on the
    list or due to problems with constraints in this document (which MUST
    be explicitly cited).
--

And also (note the use of the word "following" here):

--
    Updates or changes to existing records follow the same procedure as
    new registrations.  The Language Subtag Reviewer decides whether
    there is consensus to update the registration following the two-week
    review period; normally, objections by the original registrant will
    carry extra weight in forming such a consensus.
--

And also that Frank may modify his request if you reject an earlier request:

--
    The applicant is free to modify a rejected application with
    additional information and submit it again; this restarts the two-
    week comment period.
--

You have other (regular IETF) mechanisms at your disposal to prevent 
list spamming or abusive behavior. However, this request doesn't appear 
to rise to that level?

> 
> Is "mis" a subtag? Or is it a tag?

It is a subtag:

--
    Type:                                language
    Subtag:                              mis
--

> 
> Are we going to open up this registry to "comments" about all of the 639 
> code elements?

Again the RFC is clear on this. The registry is open to the 
*possibility* of registration of comments on *any* record. In Section 
3.6 (Possibilities for Registration), we find:

--
    o  The addition or maintenance of fields (generally of an
       informational nature) in Tag or Subtag records as described in
       Section 3.1 and subject to the stability provisions in
       Section 3.4.  This includes descriptions, comments, deprecation
       and preferred values for obsolete or withdrawn codes, or the
       addition of script or extlang information to primary language
       subtags.
--

And Section 3.5:

--
    This procedure MAY also be used to register or alter the information
    for the 'Description', 'Comments', 'Deprecated', or 'Prefix' fields
    in a subtag's record as described in Section 3.4.  Changes to all
    other fields in the IANA registry are NOT permitted.
--

And Section 3.4 says:

--
    6.   The field 'Comments' MAY be added, changed, modified, or removed
         via the registration process or any of the processes or
         considerations described in this section.
--

Of course, you can reject said requests. However, you must cite the 
reason on the list. And you have to put up with non-abusive attempts to 
address your objections by submitting a new request. Much of this is 
actually at your discretion.

Addison

-- 
Addison Phillips
Globalization Architect -- Yahoo! Inc.

Internationalization is an architecture.
It is not a feature.