Re: [text] [review] Text formal review result

From: Tom Honermann (tom_at_[hidden])
Date: 2020-06-27 20:48:39

> On Jun 27, 2020, at 10:57 AM, Phil Endecott via Boost <boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> 
> Zach Laine wrote:
>> The status quo is that it's simply so much easier to submit straight to LEWG that only a crazy person would do otherwise [i.e. to Boost]
> 
> I'm surprised by the suggestion that it's easier to work with
> the standards committees than with Boost. For a start, literally
> anyone can subscribe to this list and engage with discussions
> free of charge. According to isocpp.org/std/meetings-and-participation,
> the policy for access to the WG21 email lists is they are open to:
> 
> * Any member of a national body that participates in WG21,
> including any employee of a company that is already a member of
> a national body. [Cost: $1,950 per year in the US.]
> 
> * Any person who has already attended a face-to-face meeting in
> the past. This requirement helps preserve the signal-to-noise
> ratio by limiting access to people who have demonstrated they're
> serious about participating. ["Serious about participating", or
> "rich and like intercontinental travel and don't believe in
> climate change"?]
> 
> * (new) For a Study Group email list, the SG chair may also at
> their own discretion add any new expert who wants to participate.
> In particular, SGs are especially designed to be open and
> inclusive to experts in their field. [So if I were an "expert"
> in Unicode - which I'm not! - I could ask the Unicode SG chair
> to add me, which they may or may not do at their discretion.]
> 

I chair the WG21 SG16 Unicode and text study group.

SG16 is open to any collaborators. No demonstration of expertise is required. In fact, we need non-expert participation to ensure that what we design will be usable and adopted; otherwise we risk creating expert-only features.

The SG16 mailing list, Slack channel, telecon information, meeting summaries, and proposal status details are all publicly available at https://github.com/sg16-unicode/sg16. We are very welcoming!   

Within the ISO, the term “expert” has connotations that probably differ from what you would colloquially consider an expert; it often simply refers to the representative of some organization. That person may or may not be an expert in any particular topic. 

Tom.