Re: Poll: RFCs with page numbers (pretty please) ?

[Toerless Eckert <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, Oct 27, 2020 at 12:51:39PM +1300, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> John,
> 
> Let me retract "useless". What really bothers me is that page numbers are actively misleading in the new format. I think that became true the moment a consensus appeared that the preferred presentation format was HTML with flowed text.

I do not understand: Who is mislead about what ?

Also: Given how there are so many possible presentation methods and consumption use-cases,
why do you think that prohibiting a particular format is helpful to the community ?

Cheers
    Toerless

> 
> Regards
>    Brian
> 
> On 27-Oct-20 11:06, John C Klensin wrote:
> > Brian,
> > 
> > I look at the same information and come to a different
> > conclusion (quite independent of the question of whether a poll
> > at this point is a useful exercise)...
> > 
> > --On Tuesday, October 27, 2020 07:56 +1300 Brian E Carpenter
> > <[e-mail]> wrote:
> > 
> >> As Julian Reschke observed on the rfc-interest list, since the
> >> new RFC format was implemented:
> >>
> >>>  page numbers should not be used to refer to parts of the
> >>>  RFC, because page breaks vary with output formats
> > 
> > Cross references (and other references) to page numbers have
> > been discouraged since at least RFC 1543 (in 1993) and banned
> > soon after that, to the point that the RFC Editor from the last
> > half of the 1990s would simply remove such references, replace
> > them with references to section numbers, and complain when
> > sections got too long for convenient referencing.  Nothing about
> > restricting references to page numbers is new with the new
> > format.   
> > 
> >> So I can only see confusion if people use page numbers for
> >> any purpose whatever. So it doesn't matter if people want
> >> page numbers; they're now useless. So I won't be answering
> >> a poll, and I don't think the results are interesting.
> > 
> > However, getting from "references to information by page numbers
> > have always been a bad idea, prohibited for a quarter-century,
> > and even more obviously a bad idea as we move to multiple
> > formats" to "any purpose whatsoever" is a big jump.  At least
> > some of us have tools and macros floating around that are
> > dependent on pagination and, as an exception to the
> > "referencing" rules, it is still not clear (at least to me) how
> > to build and format a document index using anything else (at
> > least without a lot of effort).  There are even simple and
> > obvious reasons: If one is going to print an RFC from the text
> > form (or render it into printable form), something is going to
> > do the pagination and being able to easily estimate the page
> > count may affect how printing is to be set up.
> > 
> > FWIW, the questions of "should documents be paginated" and
> > "should the pages be numbered" are also separate ones.
> > 
> > Moreover, the argument that pagination (and page numbers) are
> > obsolete and useless for RFCs would be much stronger if the PDF
> > form for new RFCs were not paginated (or at least not numbered)
> > ... but it is both paginated and numbered.   And, if the issue
> > is having things lay out well on many different types of
> > devices, eliminating pagination (and headers and footers) to
> > facilitate that is bogus: it would be equally or more reasonable
> > to eliminate (or rethink) line breaks in running text, etc.   If
> > one really wants things optimally formatted for a variety of
> > different devices, then the right thing to do is to start from
> > the HTML form and a well-designed style sheet or to go back all
> > the way to the XML, not to try fussing with the ASCII text form. 
> > 
> > Conclusion: The main arguments that have been given for
> > eliminating pagination, headers and footers, and page numbering
> > --at least those based on different devices and references-- are
> > mostly bogus.
> > 
> > So, from my point of view as a fan of pagination in the ASCII
> > form of RFCs, one who has never willingly referenced part of an
> > RFC by page number, this seems to come down to something else
> > entirely: if there is a goal to eliminate (or strongly
> > discourage) the use of ASCII format RFCs in favor of the HTML or
> > PDF forms (or building directly on the XML), then "no page
> > numbers" and "no pagination" are among the first few cuts of a
> > death by 1000 of them.    If not, this has all of the hallmarks
> > of a gratuitous change to a format that has been useful to many
> > people for a very long time.
> > 
> >     john
> > 
> > p.s. Just in case I'm the anonymous person John Levine's note
> > referred to, I didn't just "not participate" in the discussion.
> > It was made extremely clear that my input was not welcome, so
> > clear that, after a discussion or two with Heather that I should
> > spend my time in other ways.  If there were a significant number
> > of others like me (and I have no way to tell, or even to guess)
> > then claims that the no-pagination form represents community
> > consensus lie somewhere on the scale between "dubious" and
> > "bogus".
> > 
> > 
> > .
> > 

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