Re: [Rfced-future] Bike shedding?

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

(slightly less snarky)

--On Friday, January 14, 2022 14:11 +1300 Brian E Carpenter
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> On 14-Jan-22 13:38, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
>> On 1/13/22 5:28 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>>> This may be bike shedding,
>> 
>> It gladdens me that we've reached the bikeshedding phase.
>> 
>>> but I had a horrible thought last night.
>>> Sorry to arrive with this at such a late stage.
>>> 
>>> "RFC Series Approval Board (RSAB)"
>>> 
>>> Suppose an outsider sees this out of context? They might
>>> imagine that the RSAB is there to approve RFCs.
>> 
>> Might they also imagine that the RSWG is the place where all
>> RFCs are developed?
> 
> I debated that with myself and decided that it really wouldn't
> matter - it's the word "Board" that tends to suggest authority.

But maybe the "B" stands for "Body" or even "Bakery".  Or, more
likely, the "A" is interpreted, not as "Approval" but as
"Advisory".   If we had used "RFCAB", then it would be rational
to assume that it was a group advising on or approving RFCs.
But we picked "RS" to convey the idea that this was about the
Series (not individual documents) and "Approval Board" would
then refer to approving things about the Series and not
individual documents, which, I think, is exactly what we wanted.

FWIW, I also note the IETF's history of choosing atrocious and,
in some cases, so cute as to be deliberately misleading,
abbreviations and acronyms for WGs.  We have also had real world
problems with the Internet Advertising Board and the
Intergalactic Astronomy Bureau probably lies in our near-time
future..  Anyone with any experience reading our documents has
learned to be careful about understanding our acronyms.  FWIW,
the RFC Editor has had longstanding policies about this sort of
thing.

Sorry, but I suspect we have better and more productive ways to
spend our time.  But, because it just came in as I was writing...

--On Friday, January 14, 2022 14:39 +1300 Brian E Carpenter
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> I can certainly accept "We've thought about it and we don't
> care" if there's consensus for that.
> 
> (I would, however, hold one "I told you so" in credit for
> later use :-)
> 
> Before anyone suggests RSPB, https://www.rspb.org.uk/

But, as sort of suggested above, we've had RSVP (see either
www.rsvp.com or www.rsvp.org).  If one picked a random sample of
people with more than a modicum of training in computer
scientist and ask them what LISP was, how many of them do you
think would guess an IETF WG rather than, for example, something
that would lead them to an obit for John McCarthy
(www.lisp.org)?  Or how about rum?  Nope, Captain Morgan has
been there.  And those don't even get to trying to treat the
terms as acronyms or abbreviations.  If you want to go down that
path, try asap.org.

Going to the birds suddenly feels more attractive.

   john