Hiya, On 05/10/2019 22:39, Michael StJohns wrote: > Hi Stephen - I hope I've gotten far enough back in this thread to make a > sensible comment on the topic and sorry for the top post, but I couldn't > figure where place to paste the various items. > > My concern about the broader community is not so much characterizing or > enumerating them, or binding them into our discussions on the RFC > Series, but more about ensuring that our (IETF, IAB, IRTF, etc) > parochial views of the RFC series as authors/users does not limit the > usefulness of the series to that broader community (e.g. by doing what's > important to us and only that, without considering what might be > important to them). Fair point. > As long as the RFC editor was somewhat independent, > I was pretty sure that there would be resistance to imposing a narrower > world view (e.g. to bring the RFC series more in line with what the IETF > needs/wants/demands at the expense of somewhat undefined more global > needs). > > I think you've got a good grasp on the problem - and I like your > discussion points with Christian below - I think they're on target. > > one more point for thought: A given document or book generally has a > somewhat limited community of some sorts - authors, implementers, > reviewers, teachers, students. A library - by it's nature - has a much > broader community, even if you might not be able to enumerate or > characterize each one.  Maybe that's a better model for thinking of > some parts of the RFC Editor model? Yep, I tend to agree that the series has a value over and above the set of individual RFCs. Not sure I'd be able to describe that well myself though, but one to ponder. Cheers, S. > > Later, Mike > > On 10/4/2019 5:17 PM, Stephen Farrell wrote: >> Hiya, >> >> On 04/10/2019 19:21, Christian Huitema wrote: >>> On 10/4/2019 2:31 AM, Stephen Farrell wrote: >>>> On 04/10/2019 08:51, Christian Huitema wrote: >>>>> I have heard Brian Carpenter's argument that if there is not an >>>>> authorship community, there is a readership community. That leaves me >>>>> skeptical. Clearly, authors and publishers should care about their >>>>> readership, and I wish we had better ways to assess the impact of our >>>>> publications. But passive readership does not create a community, no >>>>> more than me reading ITU publications makes me part of the ITU >>>>> community. What creates a community is engagement, contributions and >>>>> sharing. >>>> I guess I disagree with you there Christian - ISTM that >>>> at the very least, people who read RFCs and write related >>>> code that is part of many network stacks, but who do not >>>> engage with the IETF or RFC editor at all, do deserve more >>>> consideration than you imply. I can see arguments for a >>>> bigger set of people deserving consideration but omitting >>>> the above example set seems just broken to me. >>> >>> Sure, >> As in: you agree that particular set of people do deserve >> consideration in the upcoming discussion? If so, I think >> that's correct. >> >> But, that implies we should also be thinking if there are >> other sets of folks (adding up <<7.7 billion:-) who similarly >> deserve consideration. >> >>> but if they don't somehow communicate, how do you know they are there? >> For the set I mentioned? Do you really doubt they're there? >> I do not. >> >>> And if they do communicate, the question is "with whom"? >> I don't think that's a question we need address at all. That's >> just their business. >> >>> Where do they >>> send the message saying that they are trying to implement protocol FOO >>> but they don't get what section 3.1.5 of RFC XXXX really means? >>> Slashdot? Stack overflow? Some Reddit group? >> Yes. stackexchange etc. mostly at present it seems. It'd >> once have been things like Dr. Dobbs magazine and/or >> comp.<various> via usenet I guess. >> >>> Actually, it would be very >>> nice if the IETF had a documented feedback channel for such exchanges. >>> That would be a nice way to grow the community. >> We did discuss exactly that (a stackexchange <something>) at >> the IAB retreat - not for IETF process-wonkery like this, but >> for protocols that are widely used like HTTP. I think someone >> there was gonna look into it but can't recall if anything's >> been done since. I can totally such a channel working for HTTP >> or maybe DNS, but I'd guess not for this discussion. Might be >> worth a try regardless though, even if it didn't work for this >> discussion, we'd learn HOWTO. >> >> I do however have a glib answer for how we could try communicate >> with people who read some RFCs but who don't otherwise get at all >> involved... we write an RFC. Maybe one describing the upcoming >> discussion and try see if promoting that in various places gets >> any feedback. So there may be a case for writing charter-like >> text for the upcoming discussion in an RFC (I guess that'd be >> an IAB-stream RFC if we did it). >> >> For other subsets of people, other mechanisms will I guess be >> needed, hence me wondering if it'd be good to try characterise >> better who might really be in that "bigger" community. We seem >> to have identified at least one set of people already so maybe >> it'll not be too hard to find more sets or agree we've found >> enough. >> >> Cheers, >> S. >> >> >> >>> -- Christian Huitema >>> >>> > >
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