One thing I notice about the charter is that
appeals to the steering committee, while appropriately
limited to exceptional circumstances, may only be
submitted by a working group member.
There is something analogous to such appeals in the
W3C process. There, appeals to a WG action go
to the W3C Director who submits them to two groups:
the Technical Architecture Group and the Advisory Board.
They, in turn, make recommendations back to the director
who then acts on the appeal (called an "objection" in
W3C-land).
There are two differences from Scheme.
First, the Scheme world lacks a Technical Architecture
Group and lacks an Advisory Board. Not much to do about
that, although in some sense - in the smaller Scheme
world - the Steering committee itself natively
embodies both of those roles.
Second, objections in W3C-land may come from *anyone*,
including those not recognized as a member of a working
group.
I think that the reason objections are permitted
from *anyone* is that in these matters, working group
membership and participation is limited politically,
by economic factors, and timing of awareness of
potential participants -- yet the value of a good objection
can be purely on the basis of its contents with no regard
to its origin.
I suggest, on the basis of the W3C example, that the
steering committee be willing to hear appeals from
*anyone*.
This suggestion is not meant to imply that the
steering committee should spend an unbounded amount
of time processing appeals. The bar on appeals should
be fairly high and that includes an expectation that
appeals - from any source - are well and concisely
presented.
The suggestion *is* meant to avoid a bug that seems to
come up in processes like these. The best intentioned
and even quite smart of groups (such as a working group)
easily becomes myopic to come externally lodged observation
or complaint. For any reason they can easily slip up and
fail to produce a WG sponsor to carry some proposed appeal
from an outsider to the steering committee.
Unless we would expect a *flood* of outsider appeals
I don't see how this change would add much burden to the
steering committee's work. I don't see any harm in
making this change to the charter. I do see *possible*
advantage to it for the goal of yielding higher quality
Scheme standards.
-t