Hello Eliot, others,
On 2024-01-29 17:07, Eliot Lear wrote:
Hi Brian,
On 27.01.2024 22:21, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
I don't like the "work in progress" phrase. I occasionally have to
cite very old drafts such as
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-carpenter-aeiou/ to explain to
somebody why IPv6 is what it is, and those drafts are very definitely
not "work in progress". I have no problem with the "reference
material" phrase, but it is already implied by calling something a
"draft".
It's a shortcut to be sure. Works in progress don't always...
progress. I think we run the risk of clarity versus accuracy, where we
could say: "work in progress at the time of posting". But does that
really add anything?
I just want to add- I am eternally grateful to academics who I are the
most responsible for citation of drafts.
Not sure how to parse that sentence (around the third 'I').
But I think academics are indeed relevant to the current discussion.
Remember that the Internet was born in a mostly academic context. In
that context, and at that time, the label "work in progress" was used to
refer to unpublished stuff, stuff maybe only available to the author (at
the extreme end, only in the author's head :-).
Also, regarding the conflict between "work in progress" and a draft
being expired, the expired drafts indeed disappeared from the
repository, so they couldn't be cited anyway. And in those cases where
they were cited, that was by academics, who supposedly knew what to do
(e.g. to write "(expired)" rather than "(work in progress)", or to
simply not add a label if it was clear from the context that the
citation was for historical purposes.
But times and context have changed, and so I agree that finding better
terms than "expired" and "work in progress" makes sense.
Regards, Martin.
It's the one exception to the
rule; and it is a good reason why old drafts should somehow remain
accessible, so that people can choose to agree or disagree with critical
analysis in literature. But everyone should be clear on what is
current, and I do applaud both Paul and Martin for seeking to improve
the situation. We just must be careful in how we do so.
Eliot
Eliot
