[rfc-i] My comments on http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-kowack-rfc-editor-model-v2-00.txt

[Andrew Sullivan]

On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 02:21:34PM +0800, Dave CROCKER wrote:
> the requested scope.  He gets essentially no commentary on the substance 
> of what he has written except about its deficiencies in form or style.

Gee, Dave, it seems to me that a message that says, "All of this stuff
should be taken out; here's a whole bunch of stuff that isn't includes
but that should be included; and we need to make a stark choice
between two options, so please lay that out," is in fact a message
about _content_, not form or style.  I've seen more than one of those.
If you have problems with what Leslie said, fine, but I don't think
it's cricket to make insinuations about everyone who's asking
questions.

> Collaborative review provides feedback on substance as well as form.  It 
> places the critic on the record for what their own preferences are, and 
> possibly even why, and better still if they explain why the current 
> recommendations are not acceptable.

As I already said, I can't _tell_ whether the recommendations are
acceptable, because the premises that would actually allow me to
understand their reasoning -- the experiences of the TRSE -- are not
outlined (or anyway, not in a way that I managed to discern).

> Instead the dominant feedback Glenn has gotten is that folks won't 
> provide substantive feedback because he didn't show his work or he used 

My issue was not "didn't show his work".  I can't tell whether Glenn's
is a reasonable recommendation.  There's a reason the first round of
the RSE hiring failed, and I think it's that the job is not a
reasonable one.  The job as now proposed might be a reasonable one,
but it might well be solving the wrong problem.  We would be able to
tell if we had the evidence that said, "I experienced _x_ and
therefore I recommend _y_."  We might even be able to draw some
conclusions if we had the evidence that said, "In the course of a
year, I didn't have time to examine foo, so consistent with some other
principles I recommend bar."  Asking for that is not being some picky
process maven.  It's asking for reasons why one course of action won't
land us right back where we were.

A

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