Usenet 1994 October/usenetsourcesnewsgroupsinfomagicoctober1994disk2.iso/std_unix/archive/text0007.txt

Text File | 1994-03-07 | 1.9 KB | 43 lines

Submitted-by: [e-mail] (Michael I Bushnell)

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jason Zions) writes:

>Be prepared for a response along the lines of "reduces the
>concensus of the ballot group"; try to campaign ahead of time to get fellow
>balloters to support this particular objection of yours by reference. That
>is, post to this mailing list the exact objection and ask people to include
>in their ballots an objection that reads "I support objection so-and-so from
>Jason Behm at IBM regarding such-and-such."

I've gotten this response before, and it seems to me that the
reviewers (or whoever it is that reads objections and makes pithy
dismissals like "reduces the consensus") are acting prematurely here.

If I propose a new objection, then it is not known whether it will
reduce consensus or not.  To presume that all the other balloters
would disagree with an objection because they don't happen to quote it
is wrong.

Behind this seems to be reasoning that getting the standard finished
is more important than having the Best Possible Standard.  While it
might be impossible to get the Best, it is always worth another round
of balloting to substantive objections if there are no *technical*
reasons for rejecting them.

So, my plea to such reviewers is that before you conclude "would
reduce consensus", please try and think of *technical* reasons for the
rejection, and, when you fail to find any, then don't pretend you know
whether it would reduce consensus or not--becuase you almost certainly
can have no clue, particularly in the early stages of ballotting.


--
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Volume-Number: Volume 34, Number 8