Like Keith, I believe we can benefit a lot from users being able to
freely annotate RFCs with implementation notes, corrections and even
opinions ("this protocol option sucks!").
But I also tend to agree with Joel that the wiki format is inappropriate
for this purpose, because if people are allowed to change one other's
comments, we are very likely to repeat the WG discussion, but without
the processes and incentives that enable us to eventually achieve
consensus. So I am not as optimistic as Keith about the wiki format
leading to a status quo. The same people who would argue their point
forever on a mailing list would just keep editing and re-editing the
wiki page.
I think the Annotated CPAN example ( http://www.annocpan.org/) is near
perfect for our needs:
- The main text is visually distinguished from the annotations.
- Annotations are visually near the relevant text, rather than appended
at the end.
- The main text cannot be changed.
- Annotations can be freely added by anybody, it is trivial to open an
account.
- Users are identified but with no strong authentication.
- One user can comment on another user's comment, but cannot change it.
- There is some moderation behind the scenes (I haven't studied it, but
it's essential in order to avoid spam).
- There's an average of 1-2 comments a day, so a small number of
moderators can handle the traffic.
Thanks,
Yaron
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