This posting was somehow delayed, but still seemed to generate some comments. See proposed resolutions inline. Stephen Hayes > -----Original Message----- > From: Joel M. Halpern [mailto:jmh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] > Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 3:11 PM > To: ietf@xxxxxxxx > Subject: Re: LC on draft-mankin-pub-req-08.txt > > > Reading this, a few items caught my eye. > > The POSTEDIT requirements seem to be worded as if it is desirable to > minimize the changes that the document editor makes, or even the > changes the document editor can make. The general tone of "don't > mess with the words we have carefully honed" is > understandable. However, in practice many of the words have not been > carefully honed. And they need to be. For example, there is a > document I just reviewed to which my personal reaction is "this needs > massive editing." It is not technically wrong. But the language use > makes it hard for the reader to understand what is intended. I would > sincerely hope that if it is approved as-is by the IESG that the RFC > Editor would edit the document. > In general the editor has little or no way to tell which words are > "carefully crafted." I would hate to have a presumption that all the > words a sacrosanct. > I realize that the text calls out the special case of "don't touch a > letter of this", and even acknowledges that it is a rare case. But > the wording of the earlier text is not in line with > that. Specifically, POSTEDIT-4 reads "The IETF Technical editor > should refrain from changes to improve readability that may change > technical and consensus wording." This appears to be a directive > that prohibits almost all changes, since in a formal sense all the > words in an WG and IETF LC approved document are "consensus > wording." That leads to what I consider a bad situation where we > have essentially prohibited the editor from editing. > > On a related note, POSTEDIT-3 seems to be inadvertently worded too > strongly. It prohibits changes which "introduce a substantial review > load but only provides incremental increase in the clarity of the > specification." However, by definition any change at all, even a > significant change that transforms a document from unintelligible to > highly readable, is always an "incremental increase in the clarity of > the specification." > > With regard to the metrics, I think that it would be helpful to > separate the notion of having metrics from the specific values. I > would suggest moving the specific values to an appendix, with a > notation that these values are advisory and based on IETF perception > at the time of writing. I don't want to lose the numbers, but I > think that they have a different status as requirements than the > point that these time frames should be tracked, and should have well > understood targets. Separating this also allows for negotiation of > cost-benefit tradeoffs without violating "requirements." > The proposed compromise is to change "refrain from" to "exercise restraint in making" in requirements POSTEDIT-3 and POSTEDIT-4. Making everybody 100% happy with this text is impossible because we are talking about shades of grey. Nobody wants poorly written documents and nobody wants the editor changing the semantics of a document. However, based on the comments I have received, I believe that the bulk of the IETF community would prefer to err on the side of maintaining the author's semantics. Still I hope the proposed text of exercising restraint in making changes is acceptable. I think it respects the professionalism of the publisher while at the same time communicating the risks of improving readability. > > As a minor matter, figure one is trying to make a useful statement, > but one of the headings caused me to have to spend more time staring > at the figure, rather than making things clearer. In the row labeled > "Actors", WGLC and IETF LC appear. Those are states, not > actors. Also, the action listed (Formal Reviewing) does not, as far > as I know, currently occur during those phases. The formal reviewing > occurs after IETF LC ends, during IESG deliberations. Propose to change WGLC->WG, IETF LC-> IETF, and Formal Reviewing-> Reviewing. > > Yours, > Joel M. Halpern > > > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf