Iljitsch, There are many ways to divide people into groups. For example, it has been said that there are three groups of people in the world: those that are good at math and those that are not. One clear way to divide people into two groups, however, is to distinguish those who use language primarily with an intent to convey content (i.e. to communicate), and those who mostly use a language for some other purpose. Without going into what such other purposes might be, I think it is pretty clear that those who intend to use a language for communication generally like and respect grammar rules. If nothing else, grammar rules give you something to break - when the need exists - and a framework for correctly interpretting meaning in at least most other cases. That said, I think it is also clear that we may want to focus on what is different about the level of "education" required to: 1) "use a language", 2) "represent one self as sufficiently expert in its use to critique the (ab)use of a language by someone else" and 3) "represent one self as sufficiently expert in its use to critique the criticism of an expert (on the basis of whose presumed expertise) we've hired explicitly to critique the (ab)use of a specific language by (presumed) non-experts." What I believe we might discover is that Adrian said we probably should require greater expertise from anyone who wants to do 3, while what you've apparently accused him of is having said that level of expertise is required to do 1. Sorry, but I don't see how you come up with that. By the way, we should also not confuse the expertise needed to construct one set of rules with ability (or even desire) to correctly employ another. -- Eric Gray Principal Engineer Ericsson > -----Original Message----- > From: ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx [mailto:ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx] On > Behalf Of Iljitsch van Beijnum > Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 4:57 PM > To: Adrian Farrel > Cc: IETF Discussion > Subject: Re: [IAOC] RFC Editor costs - Proofreading (was Re: > My view of theIAOC Meeting Selection Guidelines) > > On 11 feb 2008, at 22:11, Adrian Farrel wrote: > > > I think what it points out is that, those of us who do not know > > enough about > > grammar, should not presume to suggest that fixes to grammar are > > unimportant. Bar-room gramarians are, perhaps, as unhelpful in the > > IETF as > > bar-room lawyers, and the reason why we stoop to employ > > professionals is > > because we are not qualified > > That's nonsense. You don't need a degree to use language. > > If a grammar rule is so complex that the group of people who created > things like the "simple" network management protocol can't figure it > out, it would be a mistake to make use of semantics that depend on > that rule. It may be useful to employ people who had training in > spotting these issues, especially as not all RFC authors are native > English speakers, but there is a reason the name of the > author is put > above an RFC, and not the name of the (copy) editor. I.e., > it's always > the author's fault. > > > the American usage that we are required to > > turn out our RFCs in. > > Unless this is kept a secret so only those of us who are RFC authors > know of it, this is not a requirement. > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > http://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx http://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf