Hi Andrew,
At 18:57 30-12-2013, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
I'm really torn about that decision. Let me try to state why and
leave you to do as you wish.
On the one hand, it is indisputably important to be plain and clear in
communication, particularly if one wishes to be understood by a very
wide audience.
On the other hand, part of the goal of the document, as I understand
it, is to bridge some of the gaps between new participants to the IETF
and longer-time participants. (If we were a stable and mostly
homogeneous culture, we wouldn't need to write down our norms;
they'd simply be shared values.) Part of that bridge needs to be
constructed, I think, with illustration as well as statement.
Many people around here seem to like analogies and metaphors. That
is, perhaps, partly because of the expressive power they offer, partly
because the structure of language (maybe all language, if we believe
Lakoff and Johnson), and partly because a lot of the time we are
reasoning about stuff that isn't exactly either invented or understood
yet. As we grope towards shared understanding and better analysis of
what we're trying to specify, the chances are pretty good that we will
end up using analogies and metaphors to find our way.
The analogy in RFC 3184 is, I think, especially apt, both because of
the play on "heated dispute" and "illuminating conversation" and
because it turns on a common idiomatic English expression. I'm aware
of how great a barrier idiom can be -- after years out of practice, it
once again takes me a great deal of effort to understand a Quebecois
conversation. But that is part of the expressive power of language
(as opposed to, say, code). I'm not sure that we're going to make
everything clearer by dispensing with idiom and metaphor in our work.
I agree that the metaphors are part of the expressive power of
language and I agree with what is written above.
The origin of the phrase is from Mike O'Dell and it was written as follows:
"Increase the light and reduce the heat."
Mike O'Dell changed that to:
"Reduce the heat and increase the light."
I did a quick search of the phrase as used in the IETF. There were
241 results. 11 of those results were from messages posted to IETF
mailing lists. Four persons commented about that text (I am ignoring
my comments). My reading of the opinions expressed is that they
leaned towards having that text in the document.
I'll leave this open until 7 January, 2014 so that other persons have
the opportunity to express their opinions.
Regards,
S. Moonesamy