The presumtion here is that USEFOR has gone astray because our charter was
too broad. I think that argument, while true on paper, does not hold up to
closer scrutiny.
For approximately the last 2-3 years, we have been operating under a
substantially reduced scope. In the first few years of the WG, virtually
everything was fair game, and it was plain nuts. We literally talked
ourselves in circles four and five times over the course of 3 years. At
that time a major factor was indeed that our charter was too broad.
But we haven't been working under that broad goal for 2-3 years now. For
the last 2+ years, all we have been doing is going over the current draft,
chopping out things that we can't get consensus on, and revising things we
can get consensus on. We've made real progress, just not progress that is
popular with some.
The real problems with the group have nothing to do with the charter or with
the draft, and proposing a new charter and a new draft will do little to
help, IMHO, at least not one that includes such narrow preconceptions such
as the requirement of 7-bit encoding. The real problem is simple burnout
and loss of mandate.
Six years ago we all thought Usenet would die unless we did something
quickly to bring it up to modern standards. I think now most of us realize
that Usenet is dying almost entirely because of its innate nature, not of
any feature or improvement now on the table. The web offers much more
control, flexibility, and interactivity, one which Usenet by it's nature
can't. Usenet is great, but it's not a blog and it shouldn't try to be.
(Aren't mailing lists dying at a rate at least as high as Usenet, too?)
I also think your Milestones are almost an order of magnitude too
aggressive. I've never heard of any group spitting out a finished draft in
a month, especially not one as complex and subjective as that for Usenet.
Having said that, however, I believe I have said before that once we pound
out this current draft, we need to seriously sit back and decide where to go
next (i.e. recharter).
--Dave