"Adult supervision"

[Keith Moore]

> >life is too short.  because generally, we're not talking about an
> >explanation, we're talking about an extended debate.
> >
> >now I'll grant that probably what should happen is that after about the 4th
> >time you find yourself explaining something you write up a web page (NOT an
> >RFC) and update it as necessary, and subsequently point people to that web
> >page.
> >
> That would be better than nothing.  However, I guess you mean that the 
> AD doesn't have time to make go through the process of making the
> explanation official.

the explanation doesn't have to be in an RFC to be official communication from
an AD.  an email is also official communication from an AD.  do you really
want to insist that every bit of AD direction be published as an RFC?

> Nevertheless, I suggest that the explanation SHOULD be available as an RFC.
> If it's important enough to kill working group efforts, and if 12 people 
> who care enough to find out all didn't understand, then the AD should just
> do it. 

usually this isn't something that would kill working group efforts,  it's 
something that the working group should be doing in order to fulfill 2026 
requirements for standards-track document quality, but refuses to do.

eventually the more important things probably should be written up as policy
and published as RFCs.  but again, this can take several years.

>  Otherwise, it gets to the point that undocumented criteria from
>  authoritarian  figures are more important than the efforts of dozens of
>  people who HAVE documented their efforts.

in my experience, very rarely do WGs document the reasoning behind their
design decisions.  so I don't know which dozens of people you're referring to.
part of the reason for this may be that WGs don't have to have consensus
on the justification for their technical decisions, they only need consensus
on the decisions.

Keith