Subject: RE: Number of authors on RFCs

From: Eastlake III Donald-LDE008 <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 12:06:44 -0500

I agree that there should be more clarity here.

I think it would be beneficial to have a statement that, while all
significant contributors should be acknowledged, by "author" of an RFC is
meant "editor" (that's how I have tried to treat it, not always
successfully). As a result, the most plausible number of editors is one
although there may occasionally be cases where two people actually
co-edited, or one person did most of the editing and a second person
finished up a document, or one author contributed the overwhelming majority
of a document even though they didn't edit it, where two or even three names
were justified. Whenever I see more than three authors on an RFC, I am
inclined to think that something funny is going on and probably most of them
were not editors of the document.

Given the ever increasing size of the IETF and inflow of new members, it
might even be necessary to add some mechanism related to this. Like
requiring a multiple author justification section or the like before the
IESG will approve such an internet-draft as an RFC.

Thanks,
Donald

-----Original Message-----
From: George Swallow [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2002 10:05 AM
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Number of authors on RFCs

ADs -

There is a good deal of confusion and strife over the issue of how
many authors can be on an RFC.  While I applaud the effort to reverse
the trend of piling on authors simplu to demonstrate support for a
proposal, the current situation is unacceptable.  As a workgroup chair
and as an individual working in a number of workgroup it would appear
that there is no consistent policy on this, and that the limits tend
to vary from AD to AD.  I've been told "about six".  Another workgroup
chair has been told three.  But this month, among the RFCs published,
one has 9 authors (3246), one has 7 authors (3248), and one has 5
authors (3253).

Thus the policy (or really lack of policy) is somewhat capricious and
arbitrary.  I believe the IESG owes it to the community to set forth
clear guidelines on this with a clear rationale for those limits.

I clearly understand the need to limit the number of individuals who
are responsible for a document as it proceeds through the final steps
of approval.   I also sympathize with the notion of authors being
listed on the cover page and having that be a single page.

It is a difficult process to cut down on the number of authors after a
document has been worked on for several years.  In the case of GMPLS,
many have made substative contributions.  Deciding who has done enough
to be "an author" and who is just acknowledged after so much time (and
in this case great cooperation and lively technical debate) can be
painful and could be disruptive of future cooperation.

In the case GMPLS, something that would be acceptable to all of us is
the following.

1. List just the editor on the cover.  The editor serves as a single
   point of contact for the RFC-editor and the IESG review.

2. Note in the abstract and/or introduction that the document was the
   collaboration of an extensive number of people.

3. List all of the authors in the author section.

I've been told that this will not fly.  But I fail to see how such a
proposal fails to serve the community.  It certainly meets the goals I
listed above.  Perhaps there are goals that I am unaware of.

In any event, the community needs clear guidelines and a clear
rationale for them.  

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

...George

======================================================================
George Swallow          Cisco Systems                   (978) 497-8143
                        250 Apollo Drive
                        Chelmsford, Ma 01824

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From: "Jim Whitehead" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 09:35:49 -0800

An additional twist on this issue is the need for academic IETF participants
to be able to receive credit for their efforts. In the academy, authorship
is an indicator of contribution, and so it is important to be on the
author's list. If only one editor is listed, it is a powerful disincentive
for academic participation.

- Jim

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From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 09:41:26 -0800

> An additional twist on this issue is the need for academic IETF
> participants to be able to receive credit for their efforts.

the ietf rfc series is very specifically NOT for this purpose.  publish
in a refereed journal.

randy

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From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 11:41:04 -0600

On 3/26/02 at 9:35 AM -0800, Jim Whitehead wrote:

>participants to be able to receive credit for their efforts. In the 
>academy, authorship is an indicator of contribution, and so it is 
>important to be on the author's list. If only one editor is listed, 
>it is a powerful disincentive for academic participation.

When I was in academia, being published in an edited work was 
perfectly acceptable so long as it was noted somewhere that I was a 
contributing author. Being on the title page was not required by any 
academic institution that I've ever heard of.

pr
-- 
Pete Resnick <mailto:[email-masked]>
QUALCOMM Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102

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From: Luca Martini <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 11:01:10 -0700

Although I agree with a limit on the RFC authors, it is difficult to actually 
set it. Sometimes it is the case that some people did actually write a 
section of the RFC. An example would be my participation to the 2547bis 
draft, I did contribute to the BGP scalability section , but I certainly did 
not write the rest of the draft. I think that as a WG chair I would like  ask 
what exact contributions have been made by each authors and then determine 
the real list of authors/editors.

Thanks.
Luca

-- 
Just say no to summer. Ski all year !
Luca Martini Senior Network Architect, Level 3 Communications - Broomfield, CO
[email-masked] | VE2WKR/W0 | Phone 720-888-1225 | pager [email-masked]

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From: "Dean Willis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 15:09:24 -0600

> I think it would be beneficial to have a statement that, 
> while all significant contributors should be acknowledged, by 
> "author" of an RFC is meant "editor" (that's how I have tried 
> to treat it, not always successfully). As a result, the most 
> plausible number of editors is one although there may 
> occasionally be cases where two people actually co-edited, or 
> one person did most of the editing and a second person 
> finished up a document, or one author contributed the 
> overwhelming majority of a document even though they didn't 
> edit it, where two or even three names were justified. 
> Whenever I see more than three authors on an RFC, I am 
> inclined to think that something funny is going on and 
> probably most of them were not editors of the document.

I would like to point out that the latest SIP RFC actually DID have a
large number of editors (7, as I recall). They literally carved the TeX
source up into separate files, checked it into CVS, and checked it in
and out of CVS as it was updated. We tracked open issues and editorial
assignments in bugzilla, and there were something like 600 of them in
the final phase.

--
Dean