--On Friday, 21 July, 2006 15:12 -0700 Dave Crocker
<dhc2(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net> wrote:
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.
Dave,
I am very sympathetic to this argument but think it can easily
be carried too far. The IETF is becoming more International.
We may find that there is more market for some protocols --and,
over time, for the Internet itself-- in areas where a very
significant fraction of the user and Engineering populations are
not good writers of English (even if they are able to read and
speak it well enough to participate effectively in the work of
the IETF). I think getting the writing quality of those
documents up to a standard where they can be broadly understood
is a community responsibility: if we take the position that
authors who cannot write clearly in English, or WGs where such
people dominate the technical work, are not welcome or able to
play, then we hurt the IETF and the Internet but pushing those
ideas and contributions somewhere else... perhaps even into
islands.
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.
Sure. But that is consistent with expecting design quality but
not necessarily the capability to easily write clear English.
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?)
Actually, I am not sure that we have demonstrated that at all,
amply or not. But, if you say so...
This should all be part of moving the burden of work back to
authors and working groups... where it belongs.
Up to a point. But the point that I think you are positing will
tend to drive some work --work for which there is good community
support and commitment-- out of the IETF. And that is not in
anyone's interest, IMO.
john
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