Re: Character set registration

> I agree. On the other hand, there is a registration procedure defined > in that draft which does involve community review.
True, but the community review is intended primarily as a check for accuracy and completeness.
> > A character set should therefore be registered ONLY if it adds > > significant functionality that is valuable to a large > > community, OR if it documents existing practice in a large > > community. Note that character sets registered for the second > > reason should be explicitly marked as being of limited or > > specialized use.
> This sounds to me very much like a requirement for "appropriateness" in > some sense of the word. So, if we as a community determine that a > particular character set is not valuable to a large community and there > is not a widespread use of the character set in e-mail, objections to > that character set may lodged during the review period. My take then > from section 5.2.2 is that the character set reviewer may reject the > registration due to "significant objections raised on the list or > objections raised externally."
You aren't paying enough attention to wording here. Note the use of the word "should" rather than "must". As long as the person registering can come up with a valid reason for an exception to be made an objector won't have a leg to stand on here. Note also the explicit provision for marking something as being of limited use. This is an "out" that basically allows for the registration of practically anything.
About the only hard-and-fast rules here are that the character set must be completely described and it has to really be something we can all agree is actually a character set. The only intent here is to try and limit how much garbage gets registered. But that's as far as we can, or should, go. It's a very delicate balance.
> Is this not the intended use of the review process?
Not really. The intended use of the review process is to get accurate registrations in terms of content, labelling, and sometimes intent. This has been a real problem for us in the past, and in my opinion it has actually been a much more serious problem than the purely political issues we've spent so much time on that have led us to any sort of useful outcome. Perhaps by divorcing this process from the political side as much as possible we'll improve in other areas. I certainly hope so.
Ned