Re: IESG Statement on surprised authors

[Benoit Claise <[e-mail]>]

John,

One reason why a pointer to the surprised acknowledgment was added is 
for statements such as

    Thanks to <insert names> for their valuable comments and support on
    the initial idea of this document

Regards, Benoit
>
> --On Friday, May 29, 2015 13:55 -0700 IESG Secretary
> <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>> The IESG is planning to publish an IESG statement concerning
>> the authorship of Internet drafts. This statement is only
>> focused on the situation where an IETF participant feels
>> he/she has been erroneously listed as an author on a draft.
>> The statement can be seen here:
>>
>> http://trac.tools.ietf.org/group/iesg/trac/wiki/SurprisedAutho
>> rs
> Hi.
>
> I hope this does not turn into a long discussion, but I believe
> the parenthetical note about "surprised acknowledgment" either
> needs to be removed (since this statement isn't really about it
> and does not provide a remedy, default or otherwise) or
> clarified.   Acknowledgments raise several issues that have
> caused controversy in the past.  In summary, our IPR policies
> are usually interpreted as requiring acknowledgment when someone
> has made a significant Contribution to a document [1].  Those
> policies are about Contributions, not about whether someone
> agrees with all, part, or none of the resulting document.
> Certainly an acknowledgment should not claim endorsement or
> support for a document that the person involved does not
> support, but the presumed requirement to acknowledge
> Contributions may not allow a Contributor to opt out entirely
> from being acknowledged.
>
> My sense is that we have not been consistent about resolution of
> cases in which people have objected to having their
> Contributions acknowledged in a document that they do not
> support.  If this statement is going to address the "surprised"
> acknowledgment issue [2], it is going to be necessary to
> establish policy in that area, policy that may require opening
> and either clarifying our fundamental IPR policies and the RFC
> Editor's interpretation of them or trying to produce a detailed
> policy on acknowledgments [3].
>
> best,
>      john
>
>
>
> [1] There have also been controversies associated with people
> not being acknowledged who think they should be.  Those
> controversies and associated questions do not appear to interact
> with this proposed statement.
>
> [2]  I believe that "surprised acknowledgments" are
> indistinguishable in practice from "unwanted" ones.  With both
> acknowledgments and authorship, if actual editors notify the
> offended party in advance about what they are going to do and
> that party objects, the same issues exist whether there is
> actual surprise or not.
>
> [3] Personally, I would discourage the latter in favor of
> continued reliance on author discretion, discussion within WGs,
> etc., and application of courtesy and good sense.   Trying to
> formulate a specific policy would probably take us on a tour of
> ratholes and special cases and end up satisfying no one and
> leaving other cases unresolved.
>
> .
>