I feel a little bad saying this, because these individuals deserve
recognition. But I rather think this memorial page is not a good idea.
If the IETF is around long enough, eventually all members of the
community will die. (Unless medical science makes some amazing
achievements, I suppose...) It's easy today to recognize a few people
that made large contributions earlier in the IETF's history. But at some
point the list will grow large, until it has lost its significance. And
yet, at that point, it may be unseemly to stop the tradition, and even
more unseemly to delete the existing memorial.
I don't want to be insensitive, and I'm sorry to point this out. But I
think we're better off with heart-felt, personal memorials from living
people that remember and care about the departed.
-Benson
On 10/21/12 11:43 AM, Adrian Farrel wrote:
Good idea, but suggest to go wider than your a-d and stick to:
anyone who was "part
of the IETF community".
In practice, that will mean, anyone who someone else thinks was a part of the
community.
It would not be seemly to squabble about whether someone had really played a
significant part in the IETF, and would be better to include anyone on request.
I think the reality is that no=one would make the request unless they felt that
the IETF had been a significant part of the deceased's life.
Cheers,
Adrian
-----Original Message-----
From: ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx [mailto:ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Dave
Crocker
Sent: 21 October 2012 17:32
To: IETF Discussion
Subject: In Memoriam IETF web page
Folks,
A thread on the nanog list, about abha ahuja, reminds me of a suggestion
I made casually to a few folk after the last IETF meeting:
We should consider having a persistent IETF page in memory of
people who were part of our community.
While the idea is simple, the comments I got back make clear that it
needs to be pursued carefully. That requires some formality.
There are two different lines of consideration. These are offered as a
starting point for discussion:
1. Who should be listed?
A number of different models make sense, but the challenge is
something that is workable. For example, it does not seem like the sort
of thing that would be appropriate for a consensus call to the
community, for each entry. I think that means the rules should be
entirely mechanical.
Conceptually, the goal should be to include anyone who was "part
of the IETF community". I'll suggest that any of these would qualify:
a. Held a formal position in the IETF (AD, WG Chair, IAOC/Trust,
IAB, IRTF, Nomcom, ...are there others?)
b. Held a position on an IETF committee (directorate,
advisory, ...)
c. Held a position on IETF staff (IAD, RFC Editor and, I think,
this should include on-going contractors, including AMS and RFC
document editors.
d. RFC author
2. What should be the form of the page?
I suggest we keep it extremely simple: an alphabetic listing by
name, with a photo, if available, and a pointer to a page if they have
one. In some cases, the IETF might formulate its own page for a person,
but that's distinct from this basic listing.
Thoughts?
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net