--On Wednesday, 14 July, 2004 12:13 -0700 Randy Presuhn
<randy_presuhn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi -
>
>> From: "Daniel Senie" <dts@xxxxxxxxx>
>> To: <ietf@xxxxxxxx>
>> Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 2004 11:30 AM
>> Subject: Re: Names of standards-track RFCs
> ...
>> Now a different viewpoint. When looking at drafts as they go
>> by on id-announce, nothing gets me more annoyed than reading
>> the title and summary, and having no idea what the document
>> is about. The audience for documents spreads beyond those
>> working in the very specific area. New acronyms pop up often,
>> and frequently the same acronym means different things to
>> different folks in this industry. Spelling out is essential.
> ...
>
> Agreed. Spelling things out becomes even more important as
> documents age. Consider, for example, "IMP" in some of the
> older RFCs. I suspect many IETF participants have never seen
> or used one, yet this was probably considered "well known" when
> those RFCs were written.
Randy, that is actually a pretty good example of the problem.
If I tell you that something is an "Interface Message
Processor", and you have no history (direct or indirect) that
goes back to the ARPANET, what are you likely to think it is?
Something to do with email or instant messaging, perhaps?
Certainly neither you, nor any search engine you are likely to
be able to apply, are likely to assume that it is a box of the
same general class of things as "router".
I think the solution to the problem that you and Dan raise
--which I acknowledge is legitimate-- is to insist that
abstracts really reflect purpose and context. That is in the
current rules too -- if you, or Dan, can't figure out what
something is about from the abstract, than the process has
slipped up somewhere. Personally, I think that should be a
legitimate Last Call issue -- I don't know if the IESG would be
very happy about Last Call response notes that say "I couldn't
figure out what this was about from reading the abstract, so
didn't review the document, but the abstract ought to be fixed
and then the Last Call restarted", but it would, IMO, focus the
issue correctly. Certainly, a "good abstracts" rule is harder
to enforce automatically or objectively than "spell out
abbreviations", but trying to put the burden of explaining the
relevancy or lack thereof to someone else's work on a document's
title, with our without abbreviations, is just not feasible, at
least IMO.
best,
john
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