Re: [Tools-discuss] datatracker, I-Ds, and email addresses

Jay,

Sorry for the delay in responding.  Not what I intended to
suggest, or at least I hope not.  As I think about it and read
your, Robert's, and Brian's later notes, I think there are two
separate issues.

(1) On the pagers that are our primary reference / anchor points
for I-Ds, typically
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/DOCUMENTNAME, the email address
listed for an author should reflect whatever is in that I-D.
The only circumstances in which the system(s) should be looking
for another address (e.g., from the profile page for a given
author) is, maybe, if the I-D does not include an email address
for that author.  Whether the submission tool should allow I-Ds
to be posted that do not have email addresses for all authors is
somewhat more subtle question because there are legitimate cases
of that (in some cases there there should not be an email
address on the author's profile page either).

(2) I don't know that it is ever wise to update information on
an author's profile page and what those circumstances might be.
I do think it might be helpful to notice when an I-D shows a
different address than what is listed in the profile (if there
is even an email address there) and query the author as to
whether the profile should be updated with the new address.

I assume it follows that I don't believe it is desirable for
addresses on a document page (as in (1)) to ever be updated.  If
someone is looking for a "most current" address, rather than the
one in the document, let them check the profile.  If an author's
address changes while an I-D is active and they want to be
reachable, let then submit a new I-D with the address updated.
Finally, while I think it is far less important than the email
address, I believe that the presentation form of the author's
name on the I-D document page should reflect the author's name
in the document as well.  It is fine for there to be a link to
the profile associated with the author's name even if the name
in the profile is slightly different, but the name on the
"Author(s)" line on the document page should match the document.

Is that more clear?

thanks,
   john

--On Tuesday, May 30, 2023 10:35 +0100 Jay Daley
<exec-director@ietf.org> wrote:

> John
> 
> Are you suggesting that when an I-D is submitted, the email
> addresses of the authors are automagically added to their
> Datatracker profiles, even if they themselves omitted to do
> that?
> 
> Jay
> 
>> On 28 May 2023, at 01:36, John C Klensin <john-ietf@jck.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>> Brian,
>> 
>> Yes, typo.  Sorry.
>> 
>> And, yes, I can imagine such a heuristic.  At the same time,
>> if that most recent RFCs is decades old and the (new) I-D is
>> fully posted, it seems to be that a competent heuristic would
>> either go with the information in the I-D or point the
>> inconsistency out and ask for human assistance.   (FWIW, I am
>> not able to figure out what it would mean to identify an I-D
>> as less than fully posted when the announcement had bee sent
>> to
>> IETF-announce, the datatracker page was up, and the document
>> was online in the places that both specified, all of which
>> are the case here.)
>> 
>> best,
>>   john
>> 
>> 
>> --On Sunday, May 28, 2023 11:53 +1200 Brian E Carpenter
>> <brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> To avoid confusion, I think you mean RFC 2693.
>>> 
>>> I'd guess that we are dealing with a heuristic for the case
>>> where
>>> the DT profile is incomplete. "Use the most recent RFC" might
>>> appear safer than "use the most recent I-D" in some lights.
>>> Or maybe "use the most recent I-D" won't work before the I-D
>>> has been fully posted.
>>> 
>>> Regards
>>>    Brian
>>> 
>>> On 28-May-23 11:24, John C Klensin wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>> 
>>>> Until very recently, I assumed that the email addresses
>>>> shown in the Datatracker, particularly those shown on the
>>>> home pages for various I-Ds, would be the most up-to-date
>>>> ones we had except, possibly, for old I-Ds where they might
>>>> reflect the addresses shown as Author Address information
>>>> in those I-Ds.
>>>> 
>>>> That does not appear to be the case.   If one examines
>>>> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-rivest-sexp/
>>>> an address is shown for the first author, Ronald L. Rivest,
>>>> of rivest@theory.lcs.mit.edu.  His datatracker page does
>>>> not show any email addresses at all.  RFC 1186 (October
>>>> 1990) shows that address under Author's Addresses as does
>>>> RFC 2593 (September 1999).  But that address has been dead,
>>>> or at least not-preferred, since at least July 2003 when
>>>> LCS was merged into CSAIL and MIT, IIR, was already
>>>> strongly preferring user@mit.edu styles of email addresses
>>>> over
>>>> user@department-or-lab.mit.edu ones before I left about a
>>>> decade earlier.
>>>> 
>>>> In any event, the Authors' Addresses section of
>>>> draft-rivest-sexp-00 shows the correct current email
>>>> address, rivest@mit.edu.  Why is the datatracker picking
>>>> up, and showing on that I-D page, a two decade-old address
>>>> rather than the one in an I-D posted a couple of days ago?
>>>> And, especially assuming that there might be other
>>>> instances of similar relationships, can this be fixed and
>>>> fixed more generally than patching that particular page
>>>> (although that would be good too)?
>>>> 
>>>>       thanks
>>>>        john
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> ___________________________________________________________
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>> 
>> 
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