I’m not sure what list this question belongs on, so I’m bringing it here. Happy
to be redirected.
I have had a problem on a number of occasions with my name being listed as an
author on a draft that I had not agreed to co-author, and in some cases, that I
hadn’t even seen. In most cases, I have been able to get the putative co-author
to remove my name in a -01 version. I can point to at least one draft that I
didn’t initially agree to co-author, was unsuccessful in getting my
"co-authors" to remove it, and wound up largely re-writing, which involved a
lot of work. I’m not alone in this; various people have complained of third
parties listing them as co-authors on drafts without their consent.
I’m bringing it up this time on the behalf of some Cisco colleagues, who found
themselves "co-authoring" a draft that they didn’t know anything about in one
working group, got their names off the draft, and then discovered their names
on a related draft in another working group. It seems to me that an ethical
line was crossed in the interest of showing support for a concept.
First, I’d like to believe that this isn’t an acceptable practice. I’d like to
believe, shock of shocks, that a co-author is first someone that has agreed to
co-author, and is someone that has text or at least concepts that are included
in the draft.
Second, I wonder if there is a way we can manage this. A simple approach would
involve the posting tool. When we ask to post something, the authors are polled
in email to ensure that the email address in the draft actually gets to them,
and they have to reply either in email or on the web. What would it take to,
when posting a -00 draft, require all of the co-authors to positively respond,
and have the posting fail if they don’t, or if any responds negatively?
This would also clear out people whose addresses change; I understand an
address changing in a later version of a draft (someone(_at_)example1(_dot_)com
becomes someone+else(_at_)example2(_dot_)com) and being missed in a draft
update, but I don’t understand an incorrect address on the -00 version.
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