Re: imparting clues to the trade press

[Dave Crocker <[e-mail]>]

At 08:08 PM 8/26/99 , John  W. Noerenberg wrote:
>AltaVista found 1463 web pages mentioning RFC822 since the beginning of this

Hmm.  The query I just made found 13,486 for "rfc822" and 8485 for "rfc 822"...

For some others:

  "rfc 1123" =   1903 and "rfc1123" = 1078
  "rfc 821"  =   2879 and "rfc821" =  1077
  "rfc 823"  = 495340 and "rfc823" =    77
  "rfc 824"  = 528240 and "rfc824" =    33

And how many of you know what RFC 823 was about, without looking?  Bob 
Hinden is disqualified, since he wrote it.

>year.  There were 4 references to STD11.  This is the *same* 
>document!  (Ok, I didn't count the reference to dance studio STD11 at 
>Danceworks.com...)  References to *any*  IETF BCP was listed on only 311 
>pages.  Keith, you are absolutely right, an RFC label is a powerful 
>instrument.  Granting it to a

But as the exercise above makes clear, the label of RFC is not sufficient 
to guarantee popularity.

So, yes, there are some people who abuse the process and some who make 
exaggerated claims, but I believe there is very little evidence of long 
term benefit to them or detriment to the IETF.

As to the press, well, some reporters are diligent and others (these days, 
most) are not.  In spite of years of history with hype-of-the-moment, many 
continue to play up the latest simplistic, unlikely claim.

We aren't going to fix that.  It sells papers.

>But work such as Dan's -- properly done -- or perhaps the hypothetical 
>paper described by Rahmat M. Samik-Ibrahim, deserves a place in the 
>pantheon of


Absent effort to publish fraud or slander, the most we should do is require 
addition of explanatory material from the IESG which helps clarify context, 
concerns, and the like.

d/
d/

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Dave Crocker                                         Tel: [phone]
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