On May 14, 2013, at 6:30 PM, Dave Crocker <dhc(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net> wrote:
And of course, that's still everyone's preference. But the reality is
that the imposition of the Discuss is an assertion that changes are
being required.
No, it absolutely is not. That may have been the theory when you were AD, but
I can tell you from personal experience dealing with DISCUSSes on drafts for
which I am the responsible AD that that is not the theory now.
For reference, that milder uses of Discuss, which is something akin to
"I'd like something clarified" does not require a Discuss. It requires
a query to the working group and some dialogue.
One of the DISCUSS criteria requires that you not keep heaping on DISCUSSes, so
it seems to me that escalating a No Objection to a DISCUSS would be worse, but
perhaps you disagree?
That makes no sense. The AD is the one choosing to block progress. It
will be the AD who decides to clear the discuss.
I don't agree with your characterization here, but certainly it's true that the
AD has to clear the DISCUSS.
How can it be reasonable for the AD to provide no basis for knowing what
it will take to get the AD to do this?
It's not. But that's not what Joe said. What Joe said was that the AD
should say _precisely_ what will clear the DISCUSS, and that is a very
difficult thing to do with incomplete information.
I suspect you are confusing 'what' with 'how'. The issue is not one of
imposing the details of the engineering or documentation changes that
are being demanded by the AD, but of the criteria that will be applied
in evaluated the adequacy of the changes. Othrwise, the authors have to
play a guessing game, trying to figure out what will please the AD well
enough to clear the Discuss.
If the authors think that the goal is to "please the AD," something's wrong.
This would suggest that they will just do what the AD says without debate,
which is exactly the wrong thing. The whole point of a DISCUSS is to have a
discussion. Frankly, it's pretty disrespectful both to the AD and to the
working group if the authors make changes to "please the AD."