--On Saturday, April 10, 2021 10:06 +1200 Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> We're talking about a s/X/Y/g substitution that would be >> recommended or required by the STYLE guide and which may not >> get applied. The idea with eliding IESG approval and IETF LC >> at this stage is that if this was controversial, it would >> have been caught earlier, and to avoid divisive later >> controversy like what we're seeing. > > It's much better for everybody, I think, if it was caught > earlier. >... Ah. There is another part of the above that is worth commenting on. Experience (and my shelf of style manuals contains pieces on, e.g., non-sexist writing and associated terminology changes go back to the 1970s --the terms of greatest interest may be relatively new, but the discussions are not) suggests that many of the substitutions will not be s/X/Y/g and that some may require subtle editorial judgments and then enforcement of consistency. Two simple examples: if "we" decide that the solution for "he" and "she" is "them", then, if the author wrote "he or she" you would not want to end up with "them or them", which is what that sort of mechanism substitution would give you. In addition, someone needs to decide whether, if "them" is substituted for "he" as the subject of a sentence, it takes a plural or singular verb. I stopped caring about the choice long ago but it should be made in a way that is consistent, and consistently applied, across the RFC Series or at least within individual documents. On the other hand, if this really were s/X/Y/g, the IESG could decide to build it into the mandatory part of the nits checker and avoid the whole "enforcement" discussion. john
