Re: [Errata-design] sanity notwithstanding...

[Stephen Farrell <[e-mail]>]

On 23/12/14 17:39, Barry Leiba wrote:
>>> I'd suggest getting rid of the entire concept of errata and just
>>> allowing anyone to comment on RFCs but with a way for the RFC editor
>>> or stream controllers to mark some comments as important. (Someone
>>> would need to handle comment spam of course.) Such systems exist, we
>>> should just use them.
>>
>> I have a knee-jerk reaction against this one; errata are really important

We'll be fine to work around it, but no, I very much disagree.

Most RFCs are not important. And even fewer errata are important,
in fact most are utterly pointless. But feel free to show me the stats
as to how many errata are needed/read/anything.

Note, I count important as being something needed by implementers,
and I get that your view may properly put much more emphasis on the
integrity of the RFC series as a whole. But while some form of
comment/correction/errata *system* is important, almost none of
the actual errata are at all important - they are today a fairly
meaningless waste of time and effort and collectively they are a
real annoyance and a waste of significant time and effort for ADs.

>> and are a common thing to look for in technical publications.  Doing away
>> with them such that people have to hunt through a list of comments seems
>> less than idea.  However, you probably have a more detailed set of reasons
>> in your head on why this would be a good thing.  I suggest holding off
>> discussing this until January, when I should have the members of the design
>> team all on board.  Then you can make your case to all of the above, and
>> we'll see if I'm in the rough here.
> 
> While leaving most of the discussion for January, I'll just say that
> what Stephen wants and what Heather wants don't have to be mutually
> exclusive.  

Right. Happiness is entirely possible:-)

> Stephen's point isn't that there should be no errata
> posted, but that the system for having arbitrary people post errata
> should go away.  

No. The part I want to go away is that each posted erratum consumes
effort for folks other than the poster. (Incl. me:-) I do want anyone
(without needing authorization) to be able to post a comment.

> It's certainly workable that comments that stream
> controllers (or their delegates) mark as important could then be shown
> through an "errata" link.  My guess is that that'd make both Stephen
> and Heather happy (with the nice effect of making me happy as well).

That'd be fine. I'd prefer a vote-up/down system myself for anyone with
a datatracker account maybe (for IETF stream) but there are ways in
which this can be crowdsourced and produce a better outcome and still
use off the shelf open-source I bet.

S.


> 
> Barry
>