Appeal to ISO 639 RA in support of Elfdalian

[Michael Everson]

On 19 Apr 2016, at 05:31, Peter Constable <petercon at microsoft.com> wrote:

Peter,

>> ... that process has been initiated.   ... but that depends on speedy action by the 639 RA. ... added to ISO 639 within the next three months (by 2016-05-31), to avoid this situation.
> 
> I strongly dislike the tone here, which is that of giving an ultimatum. More generally, the tone overall is patronizing --- almost Trumpian.

Leave the ad-hominem attacks on your Reviewer aside, please. That was uncalled for. 

My understanding is that the RA have made a bad decision, that there is a lot of interest in Elfdalian amongst its speakers (Mats has provided me with a long document of Elfdalian resources), that the applicant is quite reasonably dismayed by the RA’s weak response to the Elfdalian application, and that the applicant INTENDS to apply for a non-ISO-639 subtag if the RA does not respond appropriately. I don’t want that to happen, but as he says, it’s 1.5 years since he requested a tag for Elfdalian. 

> The 639-3 RA is by far the most important partner relationship for ietf-languages, and you should seek to build a stronger relationship with more dialog rather than giving ultimata or suggesting that they don't understand their job nearly as well as you do.

They have failed rather badly here, which is why we are making an appeal. We could choose not to do that. We could just add our own tag and create discontinuity. Our important partners aren’t giving us much choice. They need to know that that is a problem. 

Michael Everson