Re: 001. Why Robert's won't work

[Terry Allen <tallen@sonic.net>]

Jon wrote [heavily excerpted]:

| However, I now consider this point to be moot.  I don't think we can
| use Robert's itself for the committee process.

And you'd made such a good argument for it!

| When I was in Japan last week, I spoke before two fairly influential
| groups interested in XML and told them that they should participate
| more actively in OASIS.  After both presentations I was told by highly
| respectable people that the language barrier was too high and that we
| should form an OASIS Japan.

I don't see that as a barrier to using Robert's ourselves, certainly
not for our interim process.

| I think it's unarguable that there is Something Going On with XML and
| natural languages.  I don't really feel up to defining this precisely
| just now, but I think most people here know what I mean.  I think that
| the connection between an XML namespace and natural languages is the

"XML namespace" denotes a syntactic device, not some collection of
names.  Have to say it.  People are starting to use the phrase as
though it meant what they think it ought to, but it doesn't, yet.

| main reason we went to so much trouble to accommodate Unicode in
| markup.  I now realize that we will have to deal with linguistic
| communities right up front in the process area as well.
| 
| When you boil it right down, I believe that OASIS is mainly going to
| be a brand name for a process -- the process that we're designing.
| For that process to have real existence for users of a linguistic
| group, it has to be available in their language.  So this means either
| 
| (a) That we arrange to have Robert's (all 706 pages) translated into,
|     say, twelve different languages, or

No.  There would be many more than 12 languages anyway.  Robert's,
if it is acceptable outside the Anglophone world anyway, is Robert's.
The Japanese, bless them, may translate it on their own dime if they
like.  Also the Chechens, the Pashtoons, the Maltese, the Romany,
the Inuit ... .

| (b) That we specify a simpler process description of our own
|     composition and have that translated into twelve different
|     languages.

We could certainly construct a nonnormative epitome for the use
of persons such as committee chairs.  (Unless we want to make 
competence in Robert's a requirement for chairmanship - perhaps
there's a competence test somewhere.)
 ...

| The fallback to Robert's was pleasing to me because of its detail and
| general availability.  But if we're really playing multilingual here,
| that won't work.

Agreed.

| I don't think that failing to provide a detailed process or allowing
| different processes within different linguistic communities are
| acceptable answers for an organization whose chief reason for being
| seems to me to be the provision and maintenance of uniform processes.
| 
| Consider a company in Hong Kong that does web design; it should be
| able to allocate a bilingual person on a half-time basis to
| participate in both the OASIS TC for the design of an XML data format
| for restaurants in Hong Kong, holding its discussions in Chinese and
| using Chinese for the specification and the tag and attribute names,

Here's the more important mulilingual question:  how do we deal with
proceedings and specs in languages most of the membership doesn't
understand?  How would the membership or the board evaluate such a
spec?

| and an international OASIS TC designing a common office document
| format and transacting its business in English, using English tag and
| attribute names.  Such a person should not have to learn two separate
| sets of committee procedures to participate in these two TCs if they
| are both OASIS TCs.

Right.  So the choice of committee procedure is irrelevant to this
HK company; it's its accessibility.  Throwing out Robert's to get
terser also tosses the authority we gain from using Robert's.

| If participating in OASIS work means anything, it means this, yes?  If
| I am wrong about this, I need to know.
| 
| To me (I told the groups I spoke to in Japan), OASIS means a stable
| and well-understood process meeting the following criteria:

These maybe should be called out in your vision document.

|    Careful, open, and fair

"open" to OASIS members only (this is actually something of an issue)

|    Low cost of entry

Must be willing to fly anywhere in the world four times a year?  Let's
do the work on the email lists, then.

|    Represents all the stakeholders in a user community

This is a chimera.  We have yet to represent all the stakeholders,
including the ultimate users - look at Docbook.  We do hear from
them eventually if we have standing committees, but we don't invite
the unwashed in at the outset.

|    Uses a democratic process
| 
|    Allows real differences to be resolved

But does not guarantee that they will be (I am thinking of the
bad odor of the IETF process among some in this discussion).

|    Creates intellectual property that is owned by everyone in
|    the community
| 
|    Allows time to test implementations
| 
|    Provides a framework for distribution and acceptance

 ...

| Following is a description of the way it sorts out for me at this
| point.  Tell me what you think.
| 
| 1. We must provide rules for committees to ensure orderly
|    consideration and fair treatment of all interested parties.

who happen to be members.

|    This means [for example]:
| 
|    a. Allow all points of view to be heard, but also allow the
|       committee to limit its own debate and move on.

or allow the chair to do it.

|    b. Don't put a lot of wrenching decisions on the chair.
|       Provide ways to make the committee as a whole take
|       responsibility.

I want to avoid the wrenching as much as anyone, but committees
on their own don't get far.

|    c. [I don't have language for this but I'd sure like to see
|       the Quaker Poll instituted somehow.]

What's that?  I had a Quaker wedding but nobody voted (maybe they
should have).

|    d. [Insert here a list of other basic principles of
|       organization distilled from various works on committee
|       procedure]
| 
| 2. Since we're designing process from scratch, the committee
|    rules might as well be optimized for the construction of XML
|    language definitions and might as well deal with how business
|    is to be conducted by email.

Certainly the second, but I don't know about the first - unless
we require XML expertise and insist on use of the Maler & El Andaloussi
method.

| 3. However, the normal procedure should be based as closely as
|    possible upon accepted parliamentary models like Robert's.
| 
|    (I am seriously entertaining the idea of copying pieces
|    verbatim from the 1915 edition.  It's less than half the size
|    of the current edition and, being the last edition written by
|    Robert himself, it reads better.  See
| 
|       http://www.constitution.org/rror/rror--00.htm
| 
|    among versions available online.)

But is superseded by later eds.

|    There are not only good reasons to follow established practice
|    in this area; it is also the least painful way to allow people
|    who have gotten their idea of committee procedure from our TC
|    rules to function at the level of the OASIS membership, which
|    conducts its business in English according to Robert's.  The
|    goal should be that no one used to Robert's should be
|    surprised by the TC rules and vice versa.

Despite a good faith effort, you've argued yourself into using Robert's
after all.

| 4. A choice of major languages should be available to all
|    designers and users of an XML specification.  This means that
|    the process description must be small enough to translated
|    (presumably by translation committees formed for this
|    purpose).  We want small but detailed enough to keep people on
|    track.  Maybe OASIS can do for Robert's what XML did for 8879.

Urk.  The first sentence doesn't seem to entail what follows.  
Choice of languages for what purpose?  What's a major language?
If we contemplate HK restaurant menus as a domain, then we can
hardly limit the languages.  But the point here seems to be to
allow a choice of languages in the conduct of the TC.  This is
a really slippery idea.  For the HK restaurant menu it may seem
harmless, but I invite you to think of edge cases and then consider
that almost all cases will be edge cases.  

| 5. I suggest the term "language of reference" to designate any
|    of the set of languages recognized by OASIS for the creation
|    of OASIS technical specifications.  Since OASIS is a
|    Pennsylvania non-profit corporation that conducts its business
|    in English, the bootstrap language of reference is English.  A
|    recognized language of reference is simply one into which the
|    Rules of Order for OASIS Committees has been translated.  The
|    OASIS board (or maybe the whole membership) decides when a
|    language of reference has been established by a satisfactory
|    translation and determines that resources are available to
|    maintain a minimum level of support for the foreseeable
|    future.

Way over the edge and headed downhill fast.  How do we decide
about the quality of the translation?  

 ...

| 6. I see no immediately evident harm in continuing to allow
|    votes on approving OASIS standardization to be votes of the
|    whole membership for specifications written in even the most
|    obscure language of reference as long as (a) the membership
|    has approved the establishment of that language of reference
|    and (b) the rules are constructed in such a way as to allow a
|    relatively low number of votes for approval.  This last part
|    can be tricky, and I'm not quite sure how to proceed with it.

Don't.  Let's keep our specs in English and liase with orgs that
may be formed to deal with specs that can't be done in English
(and I don't think the HK restaurant menu qualifies).

regards, Terry