Subject: RE: downgrading authors to contributors?

From: Eric Burger <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 14:27:32 -0400

This is the kind of thing I'm getting as a chair:

"I can't speak for the others, but I know that XYZ authorizes me to spend
the extensive time I have these past few months on speechsc because of the
importance of the specification and XYZ's desire to be one of the leaders in
this space.  Receiving editorship attribution (below that of Sarvi, of
course, who is God for this specification) is one of the ways for XYZ's
contribution to be recognized."

The person sending this to me has contributed a lot - easily 20% of the
document.  He also is proposing two others who have participated quite a
bit.

That said, I am loath to have four or five "Editors".  We really want to
make sure this gets through the RFC Editor process smoothly.

How is this for a concrete proposal:

There is one and only one Editor.  That person does the AUTH48 stuff.

There are up to 5 Contributors; possibly more with permission.  These are
the people who do the writing.

There are a cast of thousands (or at least a work group :) of
Acknowledgements.  That's where you can have the page of quad-column 5-point
font listing everyone who touched the document thread.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: James Carlson [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2004 6:56 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: RE: downgrading authors to contributors?
> 
> 
> [email-masked] writes:
> > > I think that contributing just to see your name up in lights is
> > > perhaps the worst of all possible motivations, and ought not be
> > > encouraged.  Frankly, we need more people who care about 
> the integrity
> > > of the standards being produced than in fame.
> > 
> > Is this something we are suffering from? I can think of 
> many better ways
> > to get fame and fortune than by writing Internet Drafts.  
> In fact, many
> > working groups are currently suffering from a dearth of 
> good authors /
> > editors.
> 
> I suppose it depends on the group.
> 
> -- 
> James Carlson, IP Systems Group                
> <[email-masked]>
> Sun Microsystems / 1 Network Drive         71.234W   Vox +1 
> 781 442 2084
> MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757   42.497N   Fax +1 
> 781 442 1677
>

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 16:51:43 -0400

>>>>> "Eric" == Eric Burger <[email-masked]> writes:

    Eric> That said, I am loath to have four or five "Editors".  We
    Eric> really want to make sure this gets through the RFC Editor
    Eric> process smoothly.

    Eric> How is this for a concrete proposal:

    Eric> There is one and only one Editor.  That person does the
    Eric> AUTH48 stuff.

I'm certainly involved in documents where there are multiple active
editors and where I think having all of us involved in auth48 is
appropriate and desirable.  I'd hate to see this policy.

---

From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 22:52:57 +0200

> the people who do the writing.

In English the people who do the writing are called "authors" (except 
maybe for Politician's memoirs, which this is not).
I'm still at a complete loss why it is so hard to give them the small 
attribution they deserve.

Gruesse, Carsten

PS.: Oh, and an editor is "a person responsible for the editorial 
aspects of publication".
Could be, or could not be, an author.  We do tend to attribute them, 
too, in academic publications.

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 23:01:38 +0100

Hi,

Consider RFC3472.
This started of with 101 authors and grew over time.

It was cut to:
- two editors
- Acknowledgments
   - reflects the existence of many authors
   - acks the minor contributors
- Contributors addresses (all 3,000 of them)
- Editors addresses

RFC3469 even manages a little note in the Contributors addresses section.

Somewhere I have seen a section added somewhere around the Introduction (like the RFC2119
citation) to tell people there are more authors and to point them at the list of names in
the Contributors section. This is a nice touch, I think. You could even list the names
(but not the addresses) at that point if people are feeling really sensitive.

Adrian

---

From: Thomas Narten <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 08:45:43 -0700

> attribution they deserve.

The way I've understood it, in the IETF context, is that "authors"
sometimes seems to denote more of an "ownership" of the ideas/text as
if the document belongs to the authors (and I've certainly run into
individuals who feel that way). In contrast, an editor, assembles the
text from multiple input sources, and does not really claim ownership
of the ideas and/or text per se.

While individual cases vary (so no hard/fast rule will work in all
cases), in theory, all WG documents are owned by the WG and the
authors of the documents are in fact editors in that they are
assembling text as called for by the WG. They do not have the right to
just put in whatever they want (as might be implied by authorship).

In many cases, we don't have to worry to much about the difference
between an author and editor in the above because the author/editor is
being responsive to the WG. But there are also cases where it really
is useful/necessary to make it clear to an author that they are in
fact an editor, and do not have the authority to do with a document as
they please.

Thomas

---

From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 16:37:51 +0200

On Aug 23 2004, at 17:45 Uhr, Thomas Narten wrote:

> cases),

I agree with all you said.
In particular, I wholeheartedly agree with the quoted excerpt.
My knee just jerks when I read another proposal for a hard and fast 
rule that just wouldn't work very well in the IETF work I happen to 
see.

Gruesse, Carsten

---

From: Gorry Fairhurst <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 19:17:26 +0100

Thanks Carsten,

I do like guidelines.

I too agree with your comment below.

Gorry

Carsten Bormann wrote:

> My knee just jerks when I read another proposal for a hard and fast rule 
> that just wouldn't work very well in the IETF work I happen to see.
> 
> Gruesse, Carsten
> 
> 
>