[hrpc] Possible options for a HRPC research publication

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Hi,

**

*Recently it has felt to me as though the HRPC RG was spinning its
wheels. Our documents aren't moving along the path to RFC very easily
and except for interesting presentations at meetings, well worth while
in themselves, we have not been making great progress with our research.*

*

Part of this comes from a disagreement about the use of RFC publishing. 
While I know it is not a requirement for the IRTF, I strongly believe
that research published as a RG RFC should have RG agreement for
publication. This does not mean that there must be agreement on all the
ideas and statements in the doc, but on the finished product. This was
the process we followed with RFC 8280 and I believe it works. A bit
cumbersome and slow at times, but it led to what I believe was a better
document. 


Not everyone, including my co-chair, agrees with this approach. To many,
the RFC series is the publication method used by the IRTF and not
everything needs to be a rough consensus document. In addition to
individual submissions, IRTF submissions are not bound by IETF rules.
They rightly ask why HRPC should be so strict when there is no
requirement to be. This question in one way or another has been asked by
several people in the RG over the last few years. The recent difficulty
has also been named as a reason for why researchers have seemed a bit
less willing to work on documents lately; what is the point if they
won't get published.


I can see this point of view, and yet, I still find myself unable to
support sending a RG document to the IRSG  that the RG does not think is
ready for publication. Of course individual submissions would be a
different matter as those do not need to be shepherded by the RG chair
in the same way.


Mallory and I have been discussing this impasse on and off for the last
two years. The last time we talked we both felt, I believe, that it was
time to try something different to break the impasse.  I made a
suggestion for working with two tracks, one the RFC track where RG
internet drafts need RG support for publication as RFCs, and the other,
the production of a yearly publication that is an edited volume that
does not require RG approval. Mallory suggested that I bring this to the
RG for discussion.


What I am suggesting for the non RFC track is that we pick a topic per
year and publish a collection of research, essays, and commentary on
that topic. How we would publish this remains to be discovered; could be
anything from a wiki site to an ebook or even finding a journal to do a
special release, if such a thing is possible. Mallory and I would act as
lead editors, but we would need to enlist help from members of the RG in
terms of putting such an effort together, as it does take work and
contributions.


In terms of topics for a first year, I have thought of two, but am not
wed to either of them at all. We would need to find a subject that
members of the RG, and hopefully others, would be willing to contribute
their writing to.


1 - Take the draft-politics as the seed and build the edition around the
various aspects of that discussion and the issues it raises.


2 - Take the HRPC core question on “whether standards and protocols can
enable, strengthen or threaten human rights” and explore the various
viewpoints on that question, including the pros, the cons and anything
in between.


This topic is on our upcoming meeting agenda, and I hope to gather some
viewpoints that will guide how we can move forward, or not as the case
may be, with the idea. Also interested in opinions on the list.

Thanks

avri


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