Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!convex!mozart!psmith From: psmith@mozart.uucp (Presley Smith) Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran Subject: Re: FIRST public review - response finally Message-ID: <3988@convex.UUCP> Date: 15 Dec 89 15:26:15 GMT References: <14164@lambda.UUCP> <587@unmvax.unm.edu> Sender: usenet@convex.UUCP Reply-To: psmith@convex.COM (Presley Smith) Organization: Convex Computer Corporation, Richardson, Tx. Lines: 94 In article <50500174@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> hirchert@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes: > >jlg@lambda.UUCP writes **The X3J3 response to my first round public review comments **finally arrived. It was dated 17 November, but was not mailed **until 27 November (postmark). This is irritating for two **reasons. First, there is a 15 day limit to reply to the **committee if I think their response didn't address my comments **fully - they used 10 days of that limit waiting to mail the **letter! Second, the response contained the addresses for **obtaining the second draft of the standard as well as the **address to send second round comments - but the second public **review ENDED three days BEFORE they mailed this information. ** **Fortunately, I had ample warning of the second public review **from other sources. It is clear that the committee had no **strong intent to widely advertise it (although _some_ individual **members of the committee did). ** **Finally, for the most part the response did _not_ address the **issues I raised in my first round commentary. For example (as **I predicted) the committee incorrectly cited my first round **comments as support for the new POINTER facility. ** **Outrage would be a mild term for my opinion of this event. **This is especially true since there was nothing particularly **individual about the responses. The committee aparently **completed and cataloged all the responses months ago. The **response to me was a generic cover letter together with an **automatically mapped set of responses to my comments - how **long could that take? * *1. As a general rule, the committe tried to generate letters postdated by * several days in order to insure that respondents would have their full * 15 days. Apparently, something went wrong in your particular case, but * this shouldn't have been the norm and most certainly was not done * intentionally. * *2. The text of the responses was approved last May. At that time, the * committee believe that all the responses would be mailed out within a * month, so it believed that an enclosure with the responses would be * sufficient. Had it realized the delays that would occur, I believe it * would have arranged for a separate mailing. X3J3 _did_ arrange for this * comment period to be 4 months rather than the customary 2 months. X3J3 * _did_ send notices of the comment period to all the publications that were * notified of the first comment period. In other words, X3J3 attempted to * advertise this comment period just as strongly as the first comment period. * With 20/20 hindsight, we can see that in some cases, these measures were not * as effective as they were the first time, but there was no reason to expect * this at the time the committee was taking action. What do you think the * committee should have been doing additionally to advertise the second * comment period? * TEXT Deleted... In fact, the letters that received around here were dated on October 23rd, postmarked on October 25th, and received on October 30th. So several people lost a week from the date of the letter to the receipt of the letter. In fact, the rules called the SD-2, are fairly clear that all letters are supposed to be sent prior to the start of the next review and that the negatives are to be addressed with the commenters before the start of the next review by response to those commentors. That is all part of milestone 14 which must be completed before the return to milestone 12 which is another public review cycle. Since several people did not get their responses from the 1st public review until the 2nd public review had closed, and since most commenters from the first public review got their responses with less than 1 month left of the 2nd public review process, I would expect that the ANSI/X3 group will get to address this issue. There is a protest and appeal mechanism to address such problems at the X3 and ANSI levels. If anyone is seriously unhappy about the way the public review process was handled and wishes to file an appeal or protest, such protests should be directed to: X3 Secretariat CBEMA 311 First Street, NW Suite 500 Washington, DC 20001-2178 Attn: Jean-Paul Emard Director On an appeal or protest, you will get a much higher level of attention that what you get with the public review letter. The management groups of the standards processes work the protests and appeals. If you have questions on this process, I'd be glad to answer e-mail on the subject at psmith@convex.com. I don't want to start a debate on the net about this subject, but everyone should be aware of your rights and options in this process.