Subject: Re: [edu-team] outline of editor training

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2003 11:27:57 -0700

thanks Avri!

--On 30. august 2003 12:27 +0900 avri <[email-masked]> wrote:

> hi,
>
> my deliverable for the month was an outline of proposed editor training.
> the attached document, although it looks like slides, is really an
> outline, with most every bullet the title of other (future) slides.
>
> it, obviously, has a ways to go, but it is as far as i got this month and
> the target date for sending it out has come.

it seems to be rightly aimed - if the editor knows reasonable answers to 
these questions, the editor will have an easier time doing his/her job.

one that struck my eye was this list of questions, which looked important, 
but where I couldn't see clear answers to some.... my "immediate reaction" 
answer proposals filled in below.

Questions:
? Can the editor decide on content?
  YES for strawman proposals or "filling in details" from a WG decision
  NO for overrriding WG decisions
? Can the editor decide when the doc is ready for last call?
  NO - WG Chair's role. However, editor will be a chief advisor to chair
  on this issue, I think. "I have more nits to fix" is usually a
  show-stopper comment.
? Can the editor be replaced?
  YES
? Can the editor control the language usage?
  as in "which version of English"? I think so.
? What can the editor decide on his or her own?
  Good question.

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---

From: avri <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2003 12:14:07 +0900

On torsdag, sep 4, 2003, at 03:27 Asia/Seoul, Harald Tveit Alvestrand 
wrote:
>> .
>
> it seems to be rightly aimed - if the editor knows reasonable answers 
> to these questions, the editor will have an easier time doing his/her 
> job.

thanks.

>
> one that struck my eye was this list of questions, which looked 
> important, but where I couldn't see clear answers to some.... my 
> "immediate reaction" answer proposals filled in below.

i will definitely use this info to seed the slides on the topics.  i 
was not sure that there was a clear answer to each of them, but beleive 
they are questions editors ask themselves in one way or another at some 
point or another (i did).  in the case that there isn't a clear answer, 
i think the presentation should talk about the sides of the ambiguity.

>  YES for strawman proposals or "filling in details" from a WG decision

i am not sure to what extent this is allowed.  there is sometimes a 
sensitivity that an editor putting words on paper creates a fait 
accompli.  and since, as you correctly point out below, the editor 
can't decide on the consensus point, filling in details on decisions 
can raise lots of demons (as in the demons are in the details).  so i 
saw this one as one of the ambiguous ones.

>  as in "which version of English"? I think so.

again a difficult question in my mind.

  certainly in terms of whether one uses American standard or Australian 
standard, probably- yes.  with the near world coverage of English 
however, there may be variants that are acceptable in the countries 
where  spoken that would not work for an RFC.  another issue concerns 
what happens when  a new American editor takes over an existing 
document from a British editor - if there is a concern for consistent 
language in an RFC then the issues may be slightly more ambiguous.

i meant more, however, the choice of words that one uses.  I think  
that there needs to be an awareness that content does not only include 
large items like protocol features and algorithms, but can come down to 
a choice of words.  the degree of techno-political sensitivity that one 
needs to take into account varies per document and per working group.  
in some cases like Nomcom and Problem, it is all about word choice and 
some of the most bitter discussions were over a single world; e.g. 
class and consultation. in some cases like netconf, i think the issue 
is middle of road given the sensitivity modelers have to the language 
and its definitions.  in GSMP it probably does not matter all that much.

> ? What can the editor decide on his or her own?

and not one that can be defined explicitly. so it will be necessary to 
indicate the constraints each editor needs to take into account in 
deciding on what can be decided and what needs to be checked with wg 
chairs or the group.  and while obviously this question is in some 
sense the superset of the others my goal here is to make sure that 
folks come out of the class with the question and with methods for 
solving it in their own work.

a.

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2003 16:12:39 -0700

--On 4. september 2003 12:14 +0900 avri <[email-masked]> wrote:

> accompli.  and since, as you correctly point out below, the editor can't
> decide on the consensus point, filling in details on decisions can raise
> lots of demons (as in the demons are in the details).  so i saw this one
> as one of the ambiguous ones.

very clearly a sensitive issue, and one where the sensitivity of the editor 
is crucial to getting the right things to happen.

IPR is a case where the editor feels that he has very wide license to "fill 
in the right words" - nomcom has been a case where the editor has been 
rather tightly constrained in what he gets into the document.

To mention two recent experiences of mine.... in the (too?) common case 
where the editor is also the original author and the chief fount of ideas, 
and has a very clear architectural picture in mind, this can become very, 
very difficult...

                 Harald