Re: Status of <draft-ietf-6man-default-iids-16.txt> in AUTH48

[Alissa Cooper <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

I had been refraining from commenting on this so that the rest of the WG could have a chance to do so without hearing from the authors, but at this point I feel it’s probably better to represent my own line of thinking on this. Here are the relevant excerpts from my messages to the rest of the authors and document approval chain during AUTH48:

   Message 1:

> I don’t believe thanking family members is an appropriate addition to the Acknowledgments during AUTH48. If this text had been in the document when it was still up for IETF consensus, we could have had a proper discussion with the full community about whether we want to start adding family member acknowledgments to RFCs. But that didn’t happen, so it’s not appropriate to add this text now. I think there is a long-standing precedent that Acknowledgments is a place to recognize people who made technical or editorial contributions or who reviewed the document for technical content or editorial style, or to provide transparency about where authors’ funding comes from if that is not otherwise clear.

   Message 2:

> My main objection to this text is that it was added during AUTH48. Since RFCs are consensus documents of the IETF, I think it’s important for the community to have the opportunity to review the substantive content of the document before it gets approved. I think the content you added is substantive in that it can set a precedent for what gets published in the RFC series going forward. I don’t recall previously seeing a standards track RFC where individuals are acknowledged for their love of the author. If you have examples, please share them.

> 
> If this text had been added prior to the document’s approval, I would have argued during community discussion that it makes me uncomfortable as a co-author to have people thanked in the document for their love. As I said before, I think the scope of acknowledgments is more limited than that, and by having you thank people for their love it raises the question of why I am not doing the same, or conversely it puts the burden on me to have to explain to the people who love me why I am not acknowledging them in this document. That is not a predicament that I care to be in as the author of an RFC. But we didn’t have that discussion with the community because the document is already approved.

Subsequent to sending message 2, I learned that this is at least the 10th document in which Fernando has inserted similar acknowledgment text during AUTH48. Those documents and the associated text are listed at the bottom of this message. The bulk of these documents were single-author documents, so no other IETF participant would have been alerted to the text prior to publication since it was not included in the versions of the documents that were put out for community review. Nor were they all working group documents, as default-iids is. But since to my eye this raises a novel question of editorial style for which the community has not provided guidance to the RFC Editor, I thought it would be important to surface it to the community in some way.

Of course, people in the WG and the community are free to disagree with any of the premises stated above — that this is a substantive change to the document content, that even non-technical content deserves community review, that what gets written in acknowledgments is not precedent-setting, that the existing precedent is what I think it is, etc. But I did not feel comfortable approving the document without having that discussion in the community. It was up to Suresh, Bob, and Ole to decide what to do from there. I will certainly go along with whatever the rough consensus ends up being.

Alissa

   ---

   1) RFC 6528:

   Fernando Gont wishes to thank Jorge Oscar Gont, Nelida Garcia, and
     Guillermo Gont for their love and support

   2) RFC 6633:

   Fernando Gont wishes to thank Jorge Oscar Gont, Nelida Garcia, and
     Guillermo Gont for their love and support.

   3) RFC 6946:

   Finally, the author wishes to thank Nelida Garcia and Guillermo Gont
     for their love and support.

   4) RFC 6980:

   Finally, the author would like to thank his brother, friend, and
     colleague, Guillermo Gont, for his love and support.

   5) RFC 7217:

   Finally, the author wishes to thank Nelida Garcia and Guillermo Gont
     for their love and support.

   6) RFC 7359:

   The author wishes to express deep and heartfelt gratitude to Enrique
     Garcia and Vicenta Tejedo, for their precious love and support.

   7) RFC 7739:

   The author would like to thank Buffy for her love and support.

   8) RFC 7872:

   Fernando Gont would like to thank Nelida Garcia and Guillermo Gont
     for their love and support.

   9) RFC 7943 (independent stream):

   Fernando Gont would like to thank Nelida Garcia and Guillermo Gont
     for their love and support, and Diego Armando Maradona for his magic
     and inspiration.