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Re: RFC Editor Function SOW Review

2006-07-21 15:14:18


Joe Touch wrote:
However, such an editorial effort it expensive and I do not understand why 
this
additional expense is needed.  It was not needed for 25 or so years.  And 
now we
are more sensitive to expenses.

The set of people writing docs has increased substantially. The writing
skills of that set have diversified, and the pool of potential support
has increased. It seems like the two mutually support the use of
professional editing.


We have always had some authors who were truly awful writers.  Whether we have
more of them today is, I believe, really not relevant.

If an effort is worthy of adoption by the Internet, surely it is reasonable to
demand that it have enough support to be able to obtain its own means of
ensuring that the writing is adequate.

Having sufficient community support is an essential requirement, if an effort it
going to be successful.  Requiring that the effort demonstrate that support, in
various pragmatic ways, is merely reasonable.  What is NOT reasonabel is a model
that has the IETF formal infrastructure -- management, editors, etc. -- do the
grunt work of making design and writing decisions.  We have amply demonstrated
that this latter model does not scale or is, at the least, too expensive.
(Well, I guess that's a form of not scaling?)

This should all be part of moving the burden of work back to authors and working
groups... where it belongs.

d/
-- 

  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  bbiw.net

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