On 31 July 2010 08:54, William_J_G Overington <wjgo_10...@btinternet.com> wrote: > > I wonder how long all of the balloting will take and how long will be idle > time between ballots and meetings.
The standardization process and balloting regulations that govern ISO/IEC 10646 are set out in Part 1 of the ISO/IEC Directives <http://isotc.iso.org/livelink/livelink?func=ll&objId=4230455&objAction=browse&sort=subtype> together with the ISO/IEC JTC1 Supplement <http://isotc.iso.org/livelink/livelink/open/jtc1supplement> If you read these documents carefully you should be able to get a good understanding of the rigorous processes involved in producing an international standard. I give a slightly more accessible summary of the processes involved in producing the Unicode and 10646 standards at <http://babelstone.blogspot.com/2007/06/unicode-and-isoiec-10646.html> -- read especially the section entitled "The Ballot Process" (note that the balloting process followed by JTC1 is currently being changed, which will result in a somewhat longer ballot period, and consequently a longer "idle" period between meetings ... of course the "idle" period is anything but idle for those involved in character encoding proposals). > Are there constitutional procedures such as "extraordinary meeting" and > "urgent question" that could get the encoding done faster? No. I cannot speak for Unicode, but international standards are produced according to rigorous and inflexible procedures which are necessary to assure the high quality and reputation of standards produced by ISO. Holding an extraordinary meeting (either physical or virtual) would not expedite the matter as the due balloting process still needs to be followed. In any case such a (hypothetical) meeting could not be arranged before the next scheduled meeting for WG2 in October. >Could an extraordinary meeting for the one symbol be held over the internet >using a teleconferencing system? I don't think so. > So whether the symbol is encoded in 2010 or 2011 or later could make a > difference even some years later. Well, it won't be encoded until late 2011 at the earliest, and people will just have to live with that. > Yet do make haste! If you don't like Latin, how about "More haste, less speed!" Andrew
