On 6/24/2013 1:23 PM, Melinda Shore wrote:
I think "I recommend" is rather clearly different from "you should," in terms of strength and (in the case of normative text) obligation. I don't think that "recommend" is useful in the context of an RFC, may be confusing and a bit subtle, and is probably best avoided.
A number of the notes have offered personal views about the differences between the two words. No doubt each of us could offer such comments. And perhaps some of us might even offer similar meanings.
Unfortunately, the ability of one person to impart their own semantic distinction is irrelevant to the current discussion, which is about normative language used for global standards that are read by widely and wildly different people around the world, with extreme differences in English language skills.
This is technical specification, not literature. Subtlety and nuance -- especially of a linguistic nature -- is wholly inappropriate.
Just as we find simpler technology propagates better across the Internet, so does simpler specification language.
MAY/SHOULD/MUST has proved simple and sufficient. Any gradations beyond that have demonstrated no utility for IETF specifications.
Hell, we still debate the differences of just /those/ 3 words... d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net