Re: [apps-discuss] On "supporting the publication of this document"

[Nico Williams <[e-mail]>]

On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 4:10 PM, Dave CROCKER <[e-mail]> wrote:
> On 5/10/2011 1:51 PM, Pete Resnick wrote:
> Taking responsibility requires establishing one's involvement.  Within an
> on-going working group discussion, a context exists and a "+1" is an
> efficient tool within that.  (Note that a review tends to start with a
> factual summary of what is being reviews; this establishes that the reviewer
> has enough understanding to offer an opinion.)
>
> For a Last Call, there typically is no such context for most of the folk

I assume you mean an IETF LC, not WG LC here.

> submitting an opinion. Therefore, each person submitting an opinion should
> assume that the first requirement is to establish the basis for their
> involvement, knowledge, interest, or the like in the paper.

I worry that this approach will lead to an obnoxious level of
formalism (a formalism that may be quite fine for lists like secdir),
where reviewers start their comments with:

"I have read I-D draft-....  My comments are below.  My background
is...  I'm interested in this work for the following reasons...  Blah,
blah, blah."

Seems a bit much.

Good technical opinions are good regardless of the speaker.

I'm not sure I care to see each commenter establish the basis for
their involvement, etcetera.  There are anonymous and pseudonymous
participants too, and I don't really care to ignore them for being so,
or to force them to disclose information about themselves that they
might wish to keep private.  New or infrequent participants should be
encouraged to make some such statements provided they are comfortable
doing so.

It's one thing to ask for more substantive statements than "I support
publication", and quite another to ask for people to establish their
bonafides (something we've never really done at the IETF merely for
participating).  I oppose the latter.  But even the former seems a bit
much wherever it means effectively repeating what has already been
stated.  "+1" is concise, and depending on context can also be quite
precise.  There's no need to be exceedingly verbose (and now I must
watch the length of this reply).

> No doubt there are a few IETF Well-Known Culprits (WKC) who might respond to
> one person's posting by just adding a +1, and the rest of us will know how
> to interpret it.  But that's a poor rule for general commenting.  (That is,
> a +1 for a LC makes sense if you are a WKC and know you are...)

If there's any doubt one can always ask for clarification.  ISTM that
the best thing to do is to ask *in the LC announcement* for
substantive statements of support or opposition, and that any "+1"s or
"me too"s be clear as to what's being agreed to.

Nico
--