Re: Protocol Action: 'INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - SORT AND THREAD EXTENSIONS' to Proposed Standard

[Mark Crispin <[e-mail]>]

Bob:

As the author in question, I assert that nobody EVER stated the existence 
of any such "norm" to me.

I indeed copied RFC 822's form in the earliest IMAP RFC and retained it. 
In reviewing the titles of the RFCs that I have written I see no 
consistent application of case.  Some are all-upper, others are title. 
The all-upper ones apparently began with a stripped down form of the IMAP 
RFC used as a template.

Not only don't I care what case is used, I assert that the application of 
a standardized case for RFC titles is an RFC Editor function, *IF* there 
is such a standard.  Is there?  If not, why not?

The matter is not worth raising with ietf-imapext, iab, or imapext-chairs. 
It may be worth raising with rfc-editor.

Last, and certainly least: as someone who was frequently stuck behind a 
Model 33 or 35 Teletype prior to 1977, and in later years used early 
personal computers with no lowercase capability, I object to the comment 
about "network-illiterate Big Iron users".  Some people who sent all-caps 
messages had no choice.

On Tue, 8 Apr 2008, Russ Housley wrote:
>
> Bob:
>
> I am not pushing for one or the other for this document.  I'm simply pointing 
> out that the authors used the same title case as the document that is being 
> updated.
>
> Russ
>
> At 01:39 PM 4/7/2008, Bob Braden wrote:
>
>
>>   *>
>>   *> See RFC 3501
>>   *>
>> 
>> Russ,
>> 
>> I am trying to figure out whether you are serious.  Of course, there
>> have been individual failures in the past.  In fact, 821 or 822 (I foreget
>> which) was a title-case failure.  But the existence of an occasional
>> error does not seem to justify deliberately doing it wrong in the
>> future.  (I will have to admit to a certain bias... upper-cased
>> titles remind me of the days when network-illiterate Big Iron
>> users would sometimes send all-caps messages to the Internet.)  It
>> is generally agreed, I believe, that some reasonable uniformity of
>> style is desirable in the RFC series.  And the title appears in the
>> index and a dumb-looking title stands out as a wierdness.
>> 
>> Bob Braden
>>
>>   *> At 05:27 PM 4/3/2008, Bob Braden wrote:
>>   *>
>>   *>
>>   *> >   *> The IESG has approved the following document:
>>   *> >   *>
>>   *> >   *> - 'INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - SORT AND THREAD 
>> EXTENSIONS '
>>   *> >   *>    <draft-ietf-imapext-sort-20.txt> as a Proposed Standard
>>   *> >   *>
>>   *> >
>>   *> >Why is this document shouting at us?  Title case is the norm for
>>   *> >RFCs.
>>   *> >
>>   *> >RFC Editor/bb
>>   *> >
>>   *> >  *> Two simple/optional improvements:
>>   *> >   *> Add a normative reference to STD 63 (RFC3629) for UTF-8.
>>   *> >   *> Instead of allowing any 8-bit in BLOBCHAR and NONWSP,
>>   *> > reference the rules
>>   *> >   *> in RFC 3629 for well-formed UTF-8 (UTF8-2, UTF8-3, UTF8-4).
>>   *> >   *>
>>   *>
>
>

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.