Exactly.
Where Dave and I disagree, I think, is that I consider getting
from "technically correct and coherent but not in English that
is acceptable to non-native speakers who primary language also
differs from that of the author/editor" to be a community
responsibility, while Dave considers it a WG (or other advocacy
group) one... At least I hope I have that right.
That work is arguably best done by professionals because it
requires considerable skill; skill that improves with experience.
There are several reasons I want to see it handled as a
community responsibility rather than as a WG one, but the most
important is that, if people have to be hired to do the work, I
don't want to see our working groups turn into mini-consortia
with their own budgets, funding sources, hired editors, etc.
It seems to me, based on both thought experiments and experience
with other standards bodies, that would lead to side effects we
just do not want.
john
--On Monday, 24 July, 2006 09:07 -0700 "Fleischman, Eric"
<eric(_dot_)fleischman(_at_)boeing(_dot_)com> wrote:
I spent the first many years of my professional life overseas
working as a Linguist writing and speaking other people's
languages. Even though my own proficiency was inadequate by
their standards, I relied upon talented native speakers to
enhance my publications so that they became well written in
the target language. This is what the IETF also needs to do.
The IETF authors needn't be very proficient in English, but
they need to be proficient enough to coherently explain their
technical points so that others can understand them. What is
needed is to ensure that somebody, with the authors'
oversight, is enlisted to improve the drafts so that the
ultimate IETF documents themselves are in very good English.
Because the IETF is now International, all the IETF documents
must be in well-written English because we now come from so
many languages and cultures. It is hard enough dealing in
foreign languages without exacerbating the problem for the
non-native English speaker by asking them to understand
garbled versions of English. If it is difficult for the native
English speaker to understand, it is much worse for the
non-Native speakers (unless they happen to speak the same
language as the garbler).
BTW, some native English speakers also produce horrid
documents because they are poor writers. These individuals
also need to leverage editors who can translate their thoughts
into coherent English.
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