consensus on TATWEEL

Andrew Sullivan ajs at shinkuro.com
Mon Apr 13 18:19:47 CEST 2009


On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 05:39:28PM +0200, LB wrote:

> However, I do not think people outside the ASWIG who supported the decision
> TATWEEL; added to ASWIG which has not been unanimous that it requires; added
> to vibrant opposition four members of france @ large; form a consensus. 

It is possible that the term "rough consensus" is not clear for you.
The rule is not that there be proper consensus, but that the Chair
determines that there is substantial agreement among the participants
of the working group, even if there is strong (or violent) opposition
by some.  If I were translating using my now badly-rusted French, I would
not use a word like «unanimité», but something more like «on approche
l'accord».  Does that help clarify why (in my opinion, at least) the
Chair's ruling is entirely within the IETF rules?

> understand better the recent DoS FLOSS. Do we want a DoS against positions
> "consensus" of the WG as to its legitimacy and lack of support for the
> French spelling? 

Even though my French composition is no longer any good, I still find
it entirely surprising that the TATWEEL character is in any way
implicated in French orthography.  I'm pretty sure that in 10 years of
instruction in French, I never once encountered the TATWEEL.  Indeed,
until the topic came up in this working group, I was entirely unaware
of the existence of anything in the universe named TATWEEL.  So I
wonder how it is possible that the inclusion of the TATWEEL in the
exceptions table to make it DISALLOWED is in any way related to
supporting French spelling.

A


-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at shinkuro.com
Shinkuro, Inc.


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