On April 21, 2015 5:46:14 AM EDT, "Fred Baker (fred)"
<fred(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com> wrote:
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.
One approach might be to make it so that draft updates are automatically
accepted if the uploader is in either the new or previous version. That way
when this happens, the person that's incorrectly included can upload a -01
removing themselves.
I think it would also make sense to limit auto-accept of drafts from people
with a history of doing this.
Scott K