John, Let me retract "useless". What really bothers me is that page numbers are actively misleading in the new format. I think that became true the moment a consensus appeared that the preferred presentation format was HTML with flowed text. Regards Brian On 27-Oct-20 11:06, John C Klensin wrote: > Brian, > > I look at the same information and come to a different > conclusion (quite independent of the question of whether a poll > at this point is a useful exercise)... > > --On Tuesday, October 27, 2020 07:56 +1300 Brian E Carpenter > <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> As Julian Reschke observed on the rfc-interest list, since the >> new RFC format was implemented: >> >>> page numbers should not be used to refer to parts of the >>> RFC, because page breaks vary with output formats > > Cross references (and other references) to page numbers have > been discouraged since at least RFC 1543 (in 1993) and banned > soon after that, to the point that the RFC Editor from the last > half of the 1990s would simply remove such references, replace > them with references to section numbers, and complain when > sections got too long for convenient referencing. Nothing about > restricting references to page numbers is new with the new > format. > >> So I can only see confusion if people use page numbers for >> any purpose whatever. So it doesn't matter if people want >> page numbers; they're now useless. So I won't be answering >> a poll, and I don't think the results are interesting. > > However, getting from "references to information by page numbers > have always been a bad idea, prohibited for a quarter-century, > and even more obviously a bad idea as we move to multiple > formats" to "any purpose whatsoever" is a big jump. At least > some of us have tools and macros floating around that are > dependent on pagination and, as an exception to the > "referencing" rules, it is still not clear (at least to me) how > to build and format a document index using anything else (at > least without a lot of effort). There are even simple and > obvious reasons: If one is going to print an RFC from the text > form (or render it into printable form), something is going to > do the pagination and being able to easily estimate the page > count may affect how printing is to be set up. > > FWIW, the questions of "should documents be paginated" and > "should the pages be numbered" are also separate ones. > > Moreover, the argument that pagination (and page numbers) are > obsolete and useless for RFCs would be much stronger if the PDF > form for new RFCs were not paginated (or at least not numbered) > ... but it is both paginated and numbered. And, if the issue > is having things lay out well on many different types of > devices, eliminating pagination (and headers and footers) to > facilitate that is bogus: it would be equally or more reasonable > to eliminate (or rethink) line breaks in running text, etc. If > one really wants things optimally formatted for a variety of > different devices, then the right thing to do is to start from > the HTML form and a well-designed style sheet or to go back all > the way to the XML, not to try fussing with the ASCII text form. > > Conclusion: The main arguments that have been given for > eliminating pagination, headers and footers, and page numbering > --at least those based on different devices and references-- are > mostly bogus. > > So, from my point of view as a fan of pagination in the ASCII > form of RFCs, one who has never willingly referenced part of an > RFC by page number, this seems to come down to something else > entirely: if there is a goal to eliminate (or strongly > discourage) the use of ASCII format RFCs in favor of the HTML or > PDF forms (or building directly on the XML), then "no page > numbers" and "no pagination" are among the first few cuts of a > death by 1000 of them. If not, this has all of the hallmarks > of a gratuitous change to a format that has been useful to many > people for a very long time. > > john > > p.s. Just in case I'm the anonymous person John Levine's note > referred to, I didn't just "not participate" in the discussion. > It was made extremely clear that my input was not welcome, so > clear that, after a discussion or two with Heather that I should > spend my time in other ways. If there were a significant number > of others like me (and I have no way to tell, or even to guess) > then claims that the no-pagination form represents community > consensus lie somewhere on the scale between "dubious" and > "bogus". > > > . >
