What is the context of technical astuteness? How do you compare people with different technical focuses? You can't.
Giving ADs a private veto (private in the sense of not discussed in public) seems to compare technical astuteness and assign more weight to ADs. I suggest public discussion avoids giving ADs' technical astuteness undue weight.
If an AD raises an issue about a document (from area X) that it conflicts or causes serious problems (from the perspective of area Y), how do you ensure that the more technically astute people (particularly on Y but also a bit on X) participate in the discussion?
By making the discussion public...
[...]
There is nothing to prevent making such discussions public. Many groups already do so so; the comments are already recorded in a public database, and when the WG (chair or document editor) follows up on those, e.g., by discussing the Discuss, it can be done Cc'ing the mailing list.
Or do you have the problem that the discussion is held on the WG list (and not on a wider forum), and for individual submissions, probably in private? (individual submissions are problematic in this sense, but they _are_ individual..)
So I don't see what problem you're seeing. To me, a Discuss is a flag an AD can raise "I think there may be a serious issue here, and we need to discuss it in case you disagree".
In principle, I consider that reasonable given the responsibily of the IESG for technical quality.
However, sometimes this has some issues. Specifically, sometimes ADs seem to be very busy and do not have time to respond to attempts at initiating dialogue or the round-trip time between messages is high. (Also, there are cases where the WG drops the ball for months, and then gets back later -- by then the AD has probably already forgotten what (s)he said and has to re-read parts of the spec.) This is a particular problem if the WG thinks AD's issue is not really relevant or is flat out wrong; it may take a while to convince the AD (though the responsible AD may be able to help in these scenarios).
Maybe _this_ is something where we should consider how to increase the timeliness and effectiveness of the dialogue.
-- Pekka Savola "You each name yourselves king, yet the Netcore Oy kingdom bleeds." Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings
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