Protected Policy on Repository Merging Process

I just discovered that, as an editor, I cannot make a trivial editorial
change to the TTML2 repository without an approved review by another member.

This new policy was apparently established without discussion or review by
the group, and directly contravenes existing group practice and standing
policies.

For example, in the standing (group approved) TTML2 Editing Process, we
have [1], which states

The editor may merge a PR, with or without changes, at any time, subject to
the review period guidelines described above. The editor may delegate the
merging of a PR to the creator of the PR or to another party. If merging a
PR has been delegated, then the editor and delegatee should coordinate
mergers to avoid unintended conflicts.

If a PR merge is effected prior to the end of the nominal review period,
then a Merge Early label must be applied to the associated issue.

PR merges occur only from a PR branch to the gh-pages (default) branch.

[1]
https://github.com/w3c/ttml2/blob/gh-pages/EDITING.md#pull-request-merging

Furthermore, we have [2]:

This project operates on the principles of lazy consensus, a reasonable
description of which can be found at Apache Rave™ Project
<https://rave.apache.org/docs/governance/lazyConsensus.html>.

[2]
https://github.com/w3c/ttml2/blob/gh-pages/EDITING.md#lazy-consensus-applies

The new, unapproved policy, contravenes the application of the approved and
standing process in a number of ways, including

   - imposes a review-then-commit (RTC) policy on an existing
   commit-then-review (CTR) policy;
   - eliminates editor prerogative to perform merge, specifically,
   editorial or trivial changes;
   - effectively forces every change whatsoever, no matter how trivial, to
   require going through a pull request (PR) process.

This change will have an immediate deleterious effect on the nature and
timeliness of performing common editor tasks. I predict it may result in a
50 to 100% delay of schedule in the process of going from WD to REC. It
will most certainly push out the TTML2 specification's schedule in
significant manner.

Finally, this change is, in my opinion, a vote of no confidence for all
editors, in the sense that it removes a default level of trust in editors
that has applied for the history of this group.

Consequently, I strongly object to this change, and ask the chair and W3M
to reconsider this draconian, and unapproved top-down mandatory policy
change.

G.