one minor tweak > On Mar 28, 2016, at 10:09 AM, Barry Leiba <barryleiba@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> The wishy washy descriptive rather than proscriptive language in the abstract was because I, >> the IESG and the community were not of one mind to say that the use of such capitalized >> terms should be mandatory - quite a few people felt that the english language was at >> least good enough to convey the writer’s intent without having to aggrandize specific words. >> Thus the abstract basically was saying: if you want to use capitalized words here is a standard >> way to say what they mean > > Ah. Then perhaps the clarification needs to go a little further and > make this clear: > - We're defining specific terms that specifications can use. > - These terms are always capitalized when these definitions are used. these definitions are only meaningful if the words are capitalized > - You don't have to use them. If you do, they're capitalized and > their meanings are as specified here. > - There are similar-looking English words that are not capitalized, > and they have their normal English meanings; this document has nothing > to do with them. > > ...and I'd like to add one more, because so many people think that > text isn't normative unless it has 2119 key words in all caps in it: > > - Normative text doesn't require the use of these key words. They're > used for clarity and consistency when you want that, but lots of > normative text doesn't need to use them, and doesn't use them. > > Barry