Re: [Rfcplusplus] Conversation as metaphor

[Bob Hinden <[e-mail]>]

Andrew,

> On Jul 10, 2018, at 12:28 PM, Andrew Sullivan <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Jul 10, 2018 at 12:19:58PM -0700, Bob Hinden wrote:
>> Worse, I suspect it will make it harder.
> 
> Of course, as people have pointed out in other threads, we actually
> just have no real data about this and our gut feelings about what
> might happen are not a good guide.
> 
>> The RFC Series is well known, the “IRTF-Masterpice” series will be
>> new and not trusted.
> 
> One thing we _do_ have some data about is the low regard in which the
> RFC series is held in many academic contexts, because it is not
> considered a peer reviewed publication and because it is often
> considered a series for technical standards rather than for academic
> research.  That is data that has been provided by various IRTF
> participants over several years, and with few exceptions I'm unaware
> of that having changed in any large degree recently.
> 
> A different series with a different publication standard might have an
> easier time of getting acceptance for this role than an established
> one that "everyone knows" isn't a peer-reviewed publication.
> Certainly in the mists of time when I was still an aspiring academic,
> it was easier to establish a new journal's reputation than it was to
> rectify the reputation of a journal that was widely regarded as having
> passed its peak.  Rather than speculating, however, I'd be inclined to
> do some research on journal ranking in the past decade among computer
> science people.  This is again something that I doubt can be done
> without some investment.

Fair point.

I think that’s a good summary for the whole topic of the BOF.   We don’t understand the problem (or even agree there is a problem), nor have we done any real research on solutions.

I continue to think a better way to approach these issues, is to hand them to the RFC Editor and let her come back with a recommendation.

Bob