Dave Crocker wrote:
Stephen,
I fear that this is a real matter of technical confusion -- not just
literary taste -- and that the source of confusion is common to the
topic and not just how the document is written.
That's not to say that the writing might not be contributing to the
confusion.
So let's see if we can have a brief dialogue to clarify the points of
distinction, which might make better wordsmithing easier.
The current wording is trying to emphasize the difference between
reference and referrant, or the thing and a label for the thing.
Identity is meant to refer to the thing itself, such as you, where as
identifier is meant to refer to a label, such as "Stephen Farrell".
From my own historical confusion in these sorts of discussions, as well
as the confusion i keep seeing in others, making and maintaining the
distinction between thing and label is very real challenge, often failed.
To the particulars of the document:
A domain name is an identifier. The organization owning it is the
identity. The trademarked name of the company is another identifier.
Sometimes the domain name is treated as the online name of the company,
as well as its "address". That's ok. It's still an identifier, even if
it is thought of as similar to the registered corporate name.
(Distinguishing between domain name and company name might be important
for assessment services, but it isn't for DKIM signature validation.)
So how about adding a paragraph like the above to the document?
It'd help me at least.
So with the above as background, can you elaborate a bit on the
confusion you are seeing? Anything that you or others can provide might
help us better understand the underlying writing problem that we need to
address.
So I can volunteer to check the output of "grep [Ii]dent" on the
document based on your identity/identifier distinction above, if
you guys don't get to it before me (might be next week before I
get to it). If you get it done first, I'm happy to believe you've
done a good job:-)
Stephen.
Thanks.
d/
Stephen Farrell wrote:
(As a participant only again)
The use of the term "identity" throughout is somewhat confusing. I
don't have a simple change to suggest. As an example, the start of
section 2 says: "Given the presence of that identifier, a receiver can
make decisions about further handling of the message, based upon
assessments of the identity that is associated with the identifier."
I find that hard to understand and could imagine it being very confusing
to general readers.
My suggestion would just be to ask the editors to give it a pass
where they check that the various uses of this and related terms
are ok and clear. As far as I'm concerned this issue can be closed
as soon as they say "yes, we did that"
S.
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