On 12/08/19 7:18 PM, James E. Blair wrote:
As I understand it, the sequence of events that led us here was:
A) Doug (as interim unofficial election official) removed the name for unspecified reasons. [1]
B) I objected to the removal. This is in accordance with step 5 of the process:
Once the list is finalized and publicized, a one-week period shall elapse before the start of the election so that any names removed from consideration because they did not meet the Release Name Criteria may be discussed. Names erroneously removed may be re-added during this period, and the Technical Committee may vote to add exceptional names (which do not meet the standard criteria).
C) Rico (the election official at the time) agreed with my reasoning that it was erroneously removed and re-added the name. [2]
D) The list was re-issued and the name was once again missing. Four reasons were cited, three of which have no place being considered prior to voting, and the fourth is a claim that it does not meet the criteria.
I'd just like to point out that Rico was placed in a very difficult position here - after he generously volunteered to step up as the co-ordinator at a time when the deadline to begin the vote had already passed, doing so from a timezone where any discussion with you, the rest of the TC, or indeed most people in the community effectively had a 24 hour round trip time. So when you pointed out that Doug's reason for dropping it from the list was not in line with the guidelines, he agreed. It was only after that that I raised the issue of it not appearing to meet the criteria. There wasn't a loud chorus of TC members (or people in general) saying that it did, so he essentially agreed that it didn't and we treated it as a proposed exception. Perhaps I gave him bad advice, but he's entitled to take advice from anyone and it's easy to see why the opinions of his fellow TC members might be influential. I must confess that I neglected to re-read the portion of the guidelines that says that in the case of questionable proposals the co-ordinator should err on the side of inclusion. Perhaps if you had been alerted to the discussion in time to raise this point then the outcome might have been different. Nevertheless, given that each step in the consultation process consumed another 12 hours following a deadline that had already passed before the process began, I think Rico handled it as well as anyone could have. My understanding (which may be wrong because it all seems to have gone down within a day that I happened to be on vacation) of how we got into that state to begin with is that after Tony did a ton of work figuring out how to get a local name beginning with U, collected a bunch of names + feedback, and was basically ready to start the poll, the Foundation implied that they would veto all of the names on the grounds that their China expert didn't feel that using the GR transliteration would be appropriate because of reasons. Those reasons conflicted with the interpretation of the China expert that Tony consulted and with all available information published in English, and honestly I wish somebody had pushed back on them, but at a certain point there's probably nothing else you can do but expand the geographic region, delay the poll, and start again. Which the TC did. And of course this had the knock-on effect of requiring someone to decide whether certain incandescently-hot potato options should be omitted from the poll. They were of course, and I know you think that's the wrong call but I disagree. IIRC the current process was put in place after the Lemming debacle, on the principle that in future the community should be allowed to have our fun and vote for Lemming (or not), and if the Foundation marketing want to veto that after the fact then fine, but don't let them take away our fun before the fact. I agree with that so far as it goes. (Full disclosure: I would have voted for Lemming.) However, it's just not the case that having a culturally-insensitive choice win the poll, or just do well in the poll, or even appear in the poll, cannot damage the community so long as marketing later rejects it. Nor does a public airing of dirty laundry seem conducive to _reducing_ the problem. This seems to be an issue that was not contemplated when the process was set down. (As if to prove the point, this very thing happened the very first time that the new process was used!) And quite frankly, it's not the responsibility of random people on the internet (the poll is open to anyone) to research the cultural sensitivity of all of the options. This is exactly the kind of reason we have representative governance. I agree that it's a problem that the TC has a written policy of abdicating this responsibility, and we have (mercifully) not followed it. We should change the policy if we don't believe in it. You wrote elsewhere in this thread that all of the delays and handoffs were due to nobody caring. I think this is completely wrong. The delays were due to people caring *a lot* under difficult circumstances (beginning with the fact that the official transliteration of local place names does not contain any syllables starting with U). Taking the Summit to Shanghai is a massive exercise and a huge opportunity to listen to the developer community there and find ways to engage with them better in the future, and nobody wants to waste that opportunity by alienating people unnecessarily. cheers, Zane.