Subject: Q about -bis- authorship rules/procedures

From: "James M. Polk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:06:39 -0600

Chairs

I'm presently unable to find or determine the IETF procedures on 
authoring/editing a -bis- of an existing RFC. This is a little 
unusual in several ways (at least it is for me):

- it's a 50+ page RFC now, but am doing this to

     - increase the strength of the document (see bullet below),
       and

     - assign more values within the doc that need new text to
       cover (25-40% more)

- I plan to move this ID through a WG and change its old status as 
informational to either standards track or BCP.

- I've found that I've edited roughly the first 3rd of the doc and 
have significantly changed or completely replaced ~90% of the 
existing text from the RFC. As I more further through the doc, I 
expect this change % to remain or increase.

- 2 of the 3 authors haven't been involved in the IETF for a while 
(that I know of, and their company is no more (i.e., not bought or acquired)).

This seems appropriate to discuss from a timing point of view since 
the community just discussed the "On Authors, Contributors, Editors, 
and overload" thread about who's names get listed on the first page 
vs. an authors contributors section vs. an acknowledgements section.

Clearly to me the authors/editors of the existing RFC should be in a 
contributors section since this new version of the doc is based on 
work previously RFC'd. Yet there is/will be so little of the original 
text left that I don't know if its best to just make this a bis, and 
add my name to it vs. list my name as editor and have the previous 
RFC's authors/editors listed in a contributor's section).

Anyone have any pointers to where this might be covered or opinions 
how I should handle this?

James

---

From: Sean Turner <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:21:35 -0500

James,

On additional thing to consider is the # of the RFC.  If it's before 
5378, then you're going to need to get all the authors to grant 
permission or you will be required to include the pre-5378 boiler plate. 
  When I updated S/MIME I had to track down the 15 or so previous 
authors of v2, v3, and v3.1 to avoid adding the boiler plate text.  I 
got in touch with 14 of the 15 and in the end included the text.

spt

On 1/18/12 7:06 PM, James M. Polk wrote:
> authoring/editing a -bis- of an existing RFC. This is a little unusual
> in several ways (at least it is for me):
>
> - I've found that I've edited roughly the first 3rd of the doc and have
> significantly changed or completely replaced ~90% of the existing text
> from the RFC. As I more further through the doc, I expect this change %
> to remain or increase.
>
> - 2 of the 3 authors haven't been involved in the IETF for a while (that
> I know of, and their company is no more (i.e., not bought or acquired)).
>
> This seems appropriate to discuss from a timing point of view since the
> community just discussed the "On Authors, Contributors, Editors, and
> overload" thread about who's names get listed on the first page vs. an
> authors contributors section vs. an acknowledgements section.
>
> contributors section since this new version of the doc is based on work
> previously RFC'd. Yet there is/will be so little of the original text
> left that I don't know if its best to just make this a bis, and add my
> name to it vs. list my name as editor and have the previous RFC's
> authors/editors listed in a contributor's section).
>
> Anyone have any pointers to where this might be covered or opinions how
> I should handle this?
>
> James
>
>

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:20:35 -0800

Hi, James,

If you're writing 90%, why not simply write 100% and be the sole author, 
citing this work where needed?

If you don't, then IMO you *must* include the other authors. You can 
reorder - i.e., putting yourself first - but unless a specific author 
says "you omitted everything I contributed to the original RFC", I don't 
consider it correct (from a plagiarism and/or copyright issue) to omit 
them as named authors of this document.

As to the boilerplate, I don't see that as relevant; it doesn't relieve 
you from avoiding claims of plagiarism if you use text verbatim that 
isn't clearly delineated as not your own (indented or quoted and clearly 
marked and cited in either case).

That's my view, given the context that I deal with copyright and 
plagiarism issues in both the ACM and IEEE in some detail...

Joe

---

From: "James M. Polk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:52:58 -0600

Thanks Sean

BTW - did you find that adding the text was a hindrance as a practical matter?

At 06:21 PM 1/18/2012, Sean Turner wrote:
>permission or you will be required to include the pre-5378 boiler 
>plate.  When I updated S/MIME I had to track down the 15 or so 
>previous authors of v2, v3, and v3.1 to avoid adding the boiler 
>plate text.  I got in touch with 14 of the 15 and in the end included the text.
>
>spt
>

---

From: "James M. Polk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:59:36 -0600

You get to the heart of my confusion - if I leave some sentences in 
from the original RFC, is it appropriate or expected IETF practice to 
include their names on the first page, or move them into an elevated 
"Author Contributions" section (which is far greater acknowledgement 
than the Acknowledgements section IMO). I would never not include 
text contributors, as that's bad practice (at least) and a slimy 
thing to do (again IMO).

As to why not a 100% rewrite - there's some math that's valuable to 
keep, plus periodic sentences that are too concise to paraphrase or redo.

James

At 07:20 PM 1/18/2012, Joe Touch wrote:
>Hi, James,
>
>If you're writing 90%, why not simply write 100% and be the sole 
>author, citing this work where needed?
>
>reorder - i.e., putting yourself first - but unless a specific 
>author says "you omitted everything I contributed to the original 
>RFC", I don't consider it correct (from a plagiarism and/or 
>copyright issue) to omit them as named authors of this document.
>
>As to the boilerplate, I don't see that as relevant; it doesn't 
>relieve you from avoiding claims of plagiarism if you use text 
>verbatim that isn't clearly delineated as not your own (indented or 
>quoted and clearly marked and cited in either case).
>

---

From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:47:40 -0800

Hi -

> From: "Joe Touch" <[email-masked]>
> To: "James M. Polk" <[email-masked]>
> Cc: <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2012 5:20 PM
> Subject: Re: Q about -bis- authorship rules/procedures
...
> them as named authors of this document.

If any of the original authors is no longer reachable and responsive,
this would be asking for trouble in AUTH48.  Of course their contribution
in the form of the predecessor document should be ackowledged,
but listing them as authors of the new document for purposes of
document processing and aknowledging the IPR rules du jour - for
a version in which they have no active involvement - doesn't make
sense to me.

Randy

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:58:56 -0500

Just to clarify, even if it is necessary to use the IPR declaration for 
something with older material, it is still not necessary to list the old 
authors on the front page.  They need to be properly credited, for 
example with text that says "This document is a revision of, and largely 
based upon, RFC XYZQ written by A and B." In the appropriate section.

Yours,
Joel

On 1/19/2012 12:47 AM, Randy Presuhn wrote:
> Hi -
>
>> From: "Joe Touch"<[email-masked]>
>> To: "James M. Polk"<[email-masked]>
>> Cc:<[email-masked]>

---

From: marcelo bagnulo braun <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 07:48:23 +0100

Hi,

I personally agree 100% with Joe.

I also understand the practical considerations Randy mentions, but I 
guess the easy way to deal with this is send them an email and ask them. 
If they reply, then you can expect them to be responsive in AUTH48 as 
well.  If they don't, i guess you have no choice than to move them out 
of the authors.

Regards, marcelo

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:47:01 -0800

> a version in which they have no active involvement - doesn't make

I understand what you *want*.

However, if you don't quote or indent the text, AND you leave these folks off the author list ("author contributors" isn't relevant, AFAICT), then you expose yourself to plagiarism charges.

In such cases, there's a notion of the "corresponding" author that should be empowered to deal with AUTH48 issues (if that's not the case, the error is in RFC process; this doesn't warrant ignoring plagiarism issues).

Joe

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:48:24 -0800

FWIW, this may fly by RFC rules, but doesn't by plagiarism policies at most institutions - e.g., where the offending author might work.

Joe

On Jan 18, 2012, at 9:58 PM, Joel M. Halpern wrote:

> Just to clarify, even if it is necessary to use the IPR declaration for something with older material, it is still not necessary to list the old authors on the front page.  They need to be properly credited, for example with text that says "This document is a revision of, and largely based upon, RFC XYZQ written by A and B." In the appropriate section.
> 
> Yours,
> Joel
>

---

From: Donald Eastlake <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 04:33:06 -0500

I believe people contributing to IETF standards track documents, by
doing so, permit any use of their contribution in future IETF
standards efforts. Of course, anyone whose authorship is represented
in the document must be acknowledged, unless they ask not to be. Being
listed on the first page, however, is absolutely not a right.

As a WG chair, for example, you SHOULD remove from the first page
anyone who is failing to update a WG draft to correspond to the WG
consensus and appoint someone else who will do so. As above, of
course, any such removed author must be acknowledged appropriately in
the document, unless they ask not to be.

Thanks,
Donald
=============================
 Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   +1-508-333-2270 (cell)
 155 Beaver Street, Milford, MA 01757 USA
 [email-masked]

---

From: Benoit Claise <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:38:14 +0100

Hi James,

I asked the exact same question to my AD (Dan Romascanu) while working 
on the RFC5101bis and RFC5102bis. I shared his answer verbatim to the 
IPFIX mailing

    Knowing that the authors list is sometimes a sensitive topic, I've
    been seeking for advice and guidelines when publishing draft
    standards and I received the following answer:

        The most used current practice is to list on the first page only
        the editors of the latest version and to start the
        Acknowledgments section by mentioning the full list of the
        authors of the previous RFC and mention that this work is based
        upon and develops the original RFC.

At least, everybody is warned in advance (or at least while working on 
the doc.): "you are more than welcome to participate, otherwise your 
name will be moved to the ACK section."

Regards, Benoit
.
> have significantly changed or completely replaced ~90% of the existing 
> text from the RFC. As I more further through the doc, I expect this 
> change % to remain or increase.
>

---

From: Sean Turner <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:47:31 -0500

No hindrance at all.  It turns out the one author I couldn't find worked 
for the US Gov't and I could have left the boiler plate off because US 
Govies can't retain copyright ;)  You live you learn.

spt

On 1/18/12 10:52 PM, James M. Polk wrote:
>> plate. When I updated S/MIME I had to track down the 15 or so previous

---

From: Eric Burger <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:48:22 -0500

[Speaking as a WG Chair, NOT as a Trustee of the IETF Trust]

There are two issues here. The first is plagiarism and the second is copyright. Let me start with the second. The IETF Trust holds the copyright on most RFCs. In particular, that is to enable the IETF to create derivative works, especially when the original authors are unreachable, don't care anymore, or are dead. So, don't worry about whether a document can be updated.

The first issue is a bit more difficult. Especially if the authors are from the academic community, there is an expectation that if a paper has content from an individual, that individual gets listed as an author. One thing that we seem to be forgetting in this thread is "the list of people listed on the first page of an RFC" is NOT NECESSARILY the list of authors. It is often one or more editors, collecting the wisdom of a work group. Which individual gets their stamp on which sentence in the RFC? Likewise, what if there really are 15 authors? We regularly move the list inside the document and only list the document editor(s) on the first page.

That said, it would be totally unconscionable to not at least acknowledge original authors and editors if one was producing a new document based on an old document. If one is not making substantial changes, then one would hope you would do your best to contact and involve the original authors. However, there is no requirement for such. Do remember, the community will treat you VERY poorly if you treat old authors poorly.

On Jan 19, 2012, at 4:38 AM, Benoit Claise wrote:

> Hi James,
> 
> I asked the exact same question to my AD (Dan Romascanu) while working on the RFC5101bis and RFC5102bis. I shared his answer verbatim to the IPFIX mailing
> Knowing that the authors list is sometimes a sensitive topic, I've been seeking for advice and guidelines when publishing draft standards and I received the following answer:
> The most used current practice is to list on the first page only the editors of the latest version and to start the Acknowledgments section by mentioning the full list of the authors of the previous RFC and mention that this work is based upon and develops the original RFC. 
> At least, everybody is warned in advance (or at least while working on the doc.): "you are more than welcome to participate, otherwise your name will be moved to the ACK section."
> 
> Regards, Benoit
> .
>> Chairs 
>> 
>> I'm presently unable to find or determine the IETF procedures on authoring/editing a -bis- of an existing RFC. This is a little unusual in several ways (at least it is for me): 
>> 
>> - I plan to move this ID through a WG and change its old status as informational to either standards track or BCP. 
>> 
>> - I've found that I've edited roughly the first 3rd of the doc and have significantly changed or completely replaced ~90% of the existing text from the RFC. As I more further through the doc, I expect this change % to remain or increase. 
>> 
>> - 2 of the 3 authors haven't been involved in the IETF for a while (that I know of, and their company is no more (i.e., not bought or acquired)). 
>> 
>> This seems appropriate to discuss from a timing point of view since the community just discussed the "On Authors, Contributors, Editors, and overload" thread about who's names get listed on the first page vs. an authors contributors section vs. an acknowledgements section. 
>> 
>> Clearly to me the authors/editors of the existing RFC should be in a contributors section since this new version of the doc is based on work previously RFC'd. Yet there is/will be so little of the original text left that I don't know if its best to just make this a bis, and add my name to it vs. list my name as editor and have the previous RFC's authors/editors listed in a contributor's section). 
>> 
>> Anyone have any pointers to where this might be covered or opinions how I should handle this? 
>> 
>> James 
>> 
>> 
>

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:29:48 -0800

Hi, all,

On 1/22/2012 5:48 PM, Eric Burger wrote:
> There are two issues here. The first is plagiarism and the second is
> copyright. Let me start with the second. The IETF Trust holds the
> copyright on most RFCs. In particular, that is to enable the IETF to
> create derivative works, especially when the original authors are
> unreachable, don't care anymore, or are dead. So, don't worry about
> whether a document can be updated.
>
> The first issue is a bit more difficult. Especially if the authors
> are from the academic community,

I'd classify that as "professional" community; industry has similar 
internal policies to those publicized at universities, FWIW.

> there is an expectation that if a
> paper has content from an individual, that individual gets listed as
> an author. One thing that we seem to be forgetting in this thread is
> "the list of people listed on the first page of an RFC" is NOT
> NECESSARILY the list of authors.

The authors list is that, except where noted explicitly otherwise - 
e.g., with the note "(Editor)" or abbreviation thereof.

RFCs haven't redefined that concept.

 > It is often one or more editors,
> collecting the wisdom of a work group. Which individual gets their
> stamp on which sentence in the RFC? Likewise, what if there really
> are 15 authors? We regularly move the list inside the document and
> only list the document editor(s) on the first page.

That's done with books as well - e.g., where a book is a series of 
chapters, each written by different authors, and the whole set edited by 
the named editor.

> That said, it would be totally unconscionable to not at least
> acknowledge original authors and editors if one was producing a new
> document based on an old document. If one is not making substantial
> changes, then one would hope you would do your best to contact and
> involve the original authors. However, there is no requirement for such.
> Do remember, the community will treat you VERY poorly if you treat old
> authors poorly.

I agree that this is the punchline. The RFC publications process needs 
to bend to consider what happens when we reuse the words of others, and 
be more flexible in allowing the corresponding author to confirm final 
decisions. I don't think we should try to have the RFC publications 
process try to redefine authorship or plagiarism concepts as an 
alternative to that.

Joe

---

From: "C. M. Heard" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:55:02 -0800 (PST)

Perhaps RFCs 2578, 2579, and 2580 provide a good model to follow.

On Tue, 24 Jan 2012, Joe Touch wrote:
> I'd classify that as "professional" community; industry has similar internal
> policies to those publicized at universities, FWIW.
> 
> The authors list is that, except where noted explicitly otherwise - e.g., with
> the note "(Editor)" or abbreviation thereof.
> 
> That's done with books as well - e.g., where a book is a series of chapters,
> each written by different authors, and the whole set edited by the named
> editor.
> 
> I agree that this is the punchline. The RFC publications process needs to bend
> to consider what happens when we reuse the words of others, and be more
> flexible in allowing the corresponding author to confirm final decisions. I
> don't think we should try to have the RFC publications process try to redefine
> authorship or plagiarism concepts as an alternative to that.
> 
> Joe
> 
> >
> > > I asked the exact same question to my AD (Dan Romascanu) while working on
> > > the RFC5101bis and RFC5102bis. I shared his answer verbatim to the IPFIX
> > > mailing
> > > Knowing that the authors list is sometimes a sensitive topic, I've been
> > > seeking for advice and guidelines when publishing draft standards and I
> > > received the following answer:
> > > The most used current practice is to list on the first page only the
> > > editors of the latest version and to start the Acknowledgments section by
> > > mentioning the full list of the authors of the previous RFC and mention
> > > that this work is based upon and develops the original RFC.
> > > At least, everybody is warned in advance (or at least while working on the
> > > doc.): "you are more than welcome to participate, otherwise your name will
> > > be moved to the ACK section."
> > >
> > > Regards, Benoit
> > > .
> > > > Chairs
> > > >

---

From: "DRAGE, Keith (Keith)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:28:11 +0100

To be honest, I think that is messy, and we could easily create examples where there is insufficient room on the cover page.

I'd far rather we changed our procedures (at least for WG documents) to get to the point where only the editor appears on the front page and we have a separate section in the document entitled authors.

To me that is also correct for AUTH48 on a WG document. The editor is the only one responsible for ensuring what is published represents the document they edited to represent working group consensus. 

None of the authors of drafts that may have provided input to the working group document fulfil that role.

Regards

Keith

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On
> Behalf Of C. M. Heard
> Sent: 25 January 2012 03:55
> To: Joe Touch
> Cc: Working Group Chairs
> internal
> e.g., with
> chapters,
> to bend
> been
> have
> (that
> work

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:38:06 -0800

Hi, all,

I agree with Keith below *if* the update involves an editor primarily.

However, the doc in question involved someone who was *writing* 90* of 
the doc. The simplest solution is to revise 100% of the text and be sole 
author or to quote/indent the borrowed text and cite it from the 
previous work. In that case, only the  authors of the current doc need 
be listed.

It's a mistake IMO to list "previous doc authors" separately - even on 
the title page. Unless there's a clear distinction in the body of whose 
text is old/new, the label is *meaningless*.

Joe

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:38:52 -0500

That seems to depend heavily on the working group.  There are certainly 
groups that work that way.  There are others that do not.  And probably 
others that treat different documents differently.

Along the lines that Keith is suggesting, I do think we should try to 
keep front-page listing as something that is done for our needs, while 
proper attribution and credit are handled elsewhere in the document.

Yours,
Joel

---

From: Juergen Schoenwaelder <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:43:35 +0100

> To me that is also correct for AUTH48 on a WG document. The editor is the only one responsible for ensuring what is published represents the document they edited to represent working group consensu…

In the academic work, citations matter and indexing engines happen to
use the names appearing in references in order to do the statistics.
While the contributors section (or a new authors section) of an RFC is
in principle a nice idea, it fails to work (at least) for academics
since nobody cites an RFC with names hidden someone in the document -
only the names on the front page realistically appear in citations. 
(This is I think also true for the author statistics on the IETF's
tools pages.) Hence, if someone authors RFC XYZ which later gets
revised and the name of the original author is moved to a contributors
section, the author looses.

I think the answer really is procedural, that is, when an RFC is being
revised, a serious attempt should be made to contact the original
authors and to involve them. If they declare no interest or simply
disappeared, then their names can be moved to a contributors section.
And I am in favour of being flexible with the limit of the number of
names on the front page in case a revision causes to add an editor
exceeding the normal limit.

/js

-- 
Juergen Schoenwaelder           Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH
Phone: +49 421 200 3587         Campus Ring 1, 28759 Bremen, Germany
Fax:   +49 421 200 3103         <http://www.jacobs-university.de/>

---

From: "DRAGE, Keith (Keith)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:52:09 +0100

There is no +1 name here for revisions.

BFCP is an original RFC with 3 authors.

The kickoff of a revision is a author draft differences document with a number of authors none of whom fall in the first set.

The working group has appointed an editor (who happens to fall into the group of authors of the author document.

Quite frequently any procedure like this ends up doubling the number on the front cover.

And what about the chairs, reviewers and proto shepherds (and area directors) who quite frequently end up contributing more material to a poorly written document than some of the people named as authors.

Quite frankly, the editor appointed by the working group chair is the one that matters. The authors of the original author draft(s) and any replaced RFCs need appropriate acknowledgement elsewhere. 

Keith

> From: Juergen Schoenwaelder [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: 25 January 2012 19:44
> To: DRAGE, Keith (Keith)
> Cc: C. M. Heard; Joe Touch; Working Group Chairs
> > To be honest, I think that is messy, and we could easily create examples
> where there is insufficient room on the cover page.
> >
> > I'd far rather we changed our procedures (at least for WG documents) to
> get to the point where only the editor appears on the front page and we
> have a separate section in the document entitled authors.
> >
> > To me that is also correct for AUTH48 on a WG document. The editor is
> the only one responsible for ensuring what is published represents the
> document they edited to represent working group consensus.
>

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:57:19 -0800

The difference between those who contribute ideas or negligible amounts 
of text and authors is fairly well known in publishing, as is the 
concept of an editor.

The IETF should not try to redefine these distinctions.

I agree with Juergen; true authors MUST be listed as authors of the doc. 
That means they need to show up in the list of authors wherever the doc 
is listed. In RFCs, this happens only for names on the top right of the 
first page. As a result, this is where authors' names MUST appear.

Joe

On 1/25/2012 11:52 AM, DRAGE, Keith (Keith) wrote:
>> Fax:   +49 421 200 3103<http://www.jacobs-university.de/>

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:15:46 -0500

I will point out that many other standards bodies take exactly the 
opposite view.  They refuse to allow ANY names to appear as author or 
editor of the document.  As with the IETF, the standards body owns the 
document.  They insist on describing it that way.

So while I understand the point about academic publication, other bodies 
(IEEE, ITU, ISO, ...) have not felt constrained int his fashion with 
regard to standards.

Yours,
Joel

On 1/25/2012 2:57 PM, Joe Touch wrote:
>> The kickoff of a revision is a author draft differences document with
>> a number of authors none of whom fall in the first set.
>>
>> The working group has appointed an editor (who happens to fall into
>> the group of authors of the author document.
>>
>> And what about the chairs, reviewers and proto shepherds (and area
>> directors) who quite frequently end up contributing more material to a
>> poorly written document than some of the people named as authors.
>>
>> Quite frankly, the editor appointed by the working group chair is the
>> one that matters. The authors of the original author draft(s) and any
>> replaced RFCs need appropriate acknowledgement elsewhere.
>>
>> Keith
>>
>>> From: Juergen Schoenwaelder
>>> [mailto:[email-masked]]

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:23:58 -0800

> (IEEE, ITU, ISO, ...) have not felt constrained int his fashion with

These other organizations also:

- count votes
- require membership to vote
- charge for access to their standards
- do not all publish their standards with ISSNs

We could get rid of authorship altogether, but until we do, we need to 
deal with it properly.

Joe

---

From: Donald Eastlake <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:48:26 -0500

Hi,

On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 2:43 PM, Juergen Schoenwaelder
<[email-masked]> wrote:
> ....

The IETF is not an academic organization. It is an engineering
organization. Perhaps our RFC policies discourage some purely academic
contributions, I have no problem with that.

Thanks,
Donald

---

From: Juergen Schoenwaelder <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:27:44 +0100

> contributions, I have no problem with that.

While I think I understand what the IETF is, it is not clear to me
what you name a "purely academic contribution". I happen to have
authored/edited a number of standards track documents with an academic
affiliation and for people like me, it matters to be listed once in a
while on a front page.

If the IETF were to drop acknowledging individuals who write / edit
documents, the number of people active in the IETF and working at
academic institutions will surely drop. (And frankly, I assume this is
not only limited to people working at academic institutions - I am
pretty sure some big companies are also pretty proud of some of their
frequent RFC authors/editors.)

/js

---

From: Jeffrey Hutzelman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:21:18 -0500

> contributions, I have no problem with that.

Thank you; I've been meaning to point that out.
RFCs are _not_ academic papers, and at least when I first became
involved in the IETF, this was made abundantly clear, as was the fact
that being listed on the front page was reserved for those actually
responsible for production of that document, and not for people who felt
they deserved the form of credit that academic authorship implies.

I don't know what they teach these days, but when I grew up, plagiarism
meant using others' work without acknowledgement, not using others' work
without listing them as a co-author.  Yes, it is right and proper to
acknowledge the work of everyone who contributed to a document, and to
accurately represent the extent of contribution.  No, listing each
person's name on the front page is not the only way to do that.

In the meantime, Juergen has brought up an important point, which is
that some tools computing citation statistics may fail to acknowledge
the contributions of a person whose name is not listed as an "author" in
the bibliographic reference to an RFC.  That is a shortcoming of those
tools, not a moral failure on the part of the IETF or its processes.

We may wish to discuss _changing_ our process to make the lives of such
tools easier, or to provide what appears to be more prestigious credit
to major contributors (or to permit doing so without gumming up AUTH48),
or to be more compatible with the expectations of those who think that
RFCs are academic papers.  However, (1) a desire to do one of those
things does not mean the current process is wrong, and (2) such a
discussion belongs in some other forum, not on wgchairs.

Finally, as to the original question, which was about an RFC author who
revises an existing document and, in the process, places his own name on
the front page and moves the names of the previous authors/editors who
are no longer involved to an appropriate acknowledgement section.  That
action is not only permitted but very nearly required under our current
process.  It is also IMHO entirely reasonable and ethical, provided that
the nature of the acknowledgement does not misrepresent the extent of
the previous authors' contributions.

-- Jeff

---

From: Linda Dunbar <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:49:20 +0000

Agree with Joel. IEEE802-std doesn't list editors, instead, it list all the contributing members when the standard was in discussion. 
They do give editor a nice plaque showing appreciation of contribution to IEEE802 once the project is finished and merged into IEEE802-std. 

Linda 

> Behalf Of Joel M. Halpern
> Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 2:16 PM
> To: Joe Touch
> Cc: C. M. Heard; Working Group Chairs

---

From: Benoit Claise <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:21:25 +0100

On 25/01/2012 20:43, Juergen Schoenwaelder wrote:
> authors and to involve them.
Exactly! Note "involvement" = "contributing to the new text"
> If they declare no interest or simply
Contributors or Acknowledgment?

Regards, Benoit.

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:42:40 -0800

As someone who has helped handle plagiarism issues in the ACM and IEEE, 
let me assure you that these are NOT merely "academic" issues. Neither 
the ACM nor the IEEE are academic organizations, and the IEEE in 
particular also produces standards.

On 1/25/2012 2:21 PM, Jeffrey Hutzelman wrote:
...
> meant using others' work without acknowledgement,

and clear delineation.

> not using others' work
> without listing them as a co-author.

Listing someone as co-author avoids the need to delineate their 
contributions.

So there are two options that work just fine, and are well-established:

- clearly indicate full sentences that are not trivial (i.e., "The 
Internet has been growing over the years.")

	This can be done in quotes ("") or by indenting (as this
	sentence is).

- include the contributor of *verbatim* original text as co-author

Copyright addresses how long these verbatim passages can be without 
permission, but that's not an issue for RFC revisions (if sufficiently 
recent at least). But copyright doesn't cover the issue of plagiarism.

> Yes, it is right and proper to

It is when plagiarism is the issue, and verbatim text is the issue. 
There is a bit of a 'slippery slope' vagueness as to how many such 
sentences need to occur, of course (single sentences or even two not so 
much; two pages definitely, and some debate where the boundary between 
lies).

> tools, not a moral failure on the part of the IETF or its processes.

It is a shortcoming of the IETF to not clearly indicate authorship. 
Obscuring authorship is the IETF's fault, not that of a tool.

If the IETF wants to list authors at the end of the doc, that's fine - 
but when it provides a list with authors' names then they need to be 
included in that entry.

Right now the only names that appear as authors in IETF summaries, XML, 
or other IETF-provided material are those indicated on the first page. 
It is not the job of a tool to 'figure out' when this is being obscured.

Arbitrary rules of the IETF, like limits to the number of authors 
explicitly indicated this way, or involving all authors in AUTH48 are 
IETF failures.

How this is all handled definitely affects WG chairs, as it ends up 
being implemented by them in how they manage these issues in their WGs; 
if this general topic should be taken, e.g., to rfc-interest (where some 
process issues are discussed), that's fine too.

Joe

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:21:48 -0500

I am trying to figure out what I am missing in your description.

Firstly, you seem to be asking for a change in IETF policy.  If so, then 
that needs a different audience than this, as has been observed.

Secondaly, as far as I can tell from your wording, the standards arm of 
IEEE, ITU, etc are committing plagiarism by not listing the authors of 
the words they are using.
I doubt that is what you intend.

Assuming that you ahve no problem with the IEEE policy, would you have a 
problem with a policy whcih said that the only front page listing on new 
RFCs should be the pen-holding editor, who be listed as editor, not 
author?  And all writers would be credited in the body of the document?

Yours,
Joel

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:36:56 -0800

> I doubt that is what you intend.

Standards of the IEEE, ITU, etc. do not list an author who did not write 
the document. They don't incorrectly list an author.

> author? And all writers would be credited in the body of the document?

There is no IEEE standards policy that list all documents by their 
editors and not their authors.

IMO the front matter of RFCs should list editors (where there are such 
individuals) *and* authors (or just authors, absent editors). Relegating 
authors (or editors, for that matter) to the body omits them from the 
XML and other information which is directly exported to other tools, 
which obfuscates them inappropriately.

Joe

---

From: Yoav Nir <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:22:12 +0200

> - include the contributor of *verbatim* original text as co-author

I've seen a lot of cases where this was done differently. Someone on the mailing list will post something like "Section 3.6 is not clear enough", and the chair will reply "can you suggest some alternate text?" and then they'll send their own re-write of section 3.6. If this is indeed better, the editor will replace the content of section 3.6 with the suggested text, and add to the acknowledgement section something like "So-and-so contributed text to this document" or if this is their only contribution, "So-and-so contributed the contents of section 3.6".

In the first case, the text is not clearly delineated, nor is so-and-so added as co-author. Are you saying that this practice is wrong? What about contributions that change or add a single sentence?  What about remarks that "literally" is wrong here and should be replaced with "figuratively"?

Yoav

---

From: "Romascanu, Dan (Dan)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:35:28 +0100

> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf
Of
> Juergen Schoenwaelder
> Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 11:28 PM
> To: Donald Eastlake
> Cc: Working Group Chairs

I would like to add a +1 to what Juergen says. There are very little
things that the IETF can do to pay back somehow the voluntary work that
the individuals invest in their active participation in the IETF, and
recognizing the true editors and authors in a visible manner is one of
them. 

Dan

---

From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:34:59 +0100

I don't care about the arguments on what is legal (copyright etc.).
They only frame the discussion (no, we don't adopt illegal policies),
they don't answer the questions.  And it seems we have made sure we
now have all the breathing space we need, here.  So back to the real
issue.

The RFC series (and that is what we are talking about here) has its
roots in the academic community.  I would (and still do) expect the
minimum standards of the academic to apply.  (If the IETF wants to do
something different, they can go ahead and do a different publication
series, but calling that one "RFCs" would be disingenious.)

In the academic community, there is only one author list.  So I think
we can quickly drop all that discussion about "Editors" and "Kind of,
like, authorshippy contribution" acknowledgement sections.

You are an author or you aren't.

So what does academic authorship imply?

1 -- significant contribution;
2 -- agreement, and thus (reputational) liability for errors.

AUTH48 is a process to handle (2).  Works great.

Now what about (1).  There are several problems that have made RFCs
start to deviate from minimum standards here:

a) the "space on the front page".  The five-author rule is a rather
arbitrary result that has no acceptable justification.

b) the tendency to provide honorary authorships, often in an attempt
to increase the weight of some feeble initiative just strong enough to
make it into an RFC.  Another contributor to the five-author rule.
(Something that needs to be handled intelligently, but not by a random
number posing as a rule.)

c) the conflict between (1) and (2): Somebody who has contributed may
not want to be an author in the end, may not be allowed by her company
to be a figurehead for the document, may not have time to actually
ensure a good result, etc.

Let's focus on (c), because this is the one problem with the
non-obvious answers.

A) It is absolutely unacceptable to be listed as an author for a
document that one does not agree with.
In other words, (2) trumps (1).

B) Since publication is to an end (standardization, which is really
market creation), it is also unacceptable for an unwilling author of a
previous incarnation to be able to slow down a new document.  We have
the copyright stuff in place to make it legally possible to charge
ahead anyway.  We also will have to calibrate our concept of
plagiarism a little bit away from the academic standards in view of
this reality.  Which is OK as long as we say so.

Given A and B, there is no way to always completely fulfill (1).  So
we'll have to accept that there will be cases where documents go ahead
without having all main contributors in the author list.

But, and this is important:

Compromising on (1) is only *ever* acceptable in the face of this
strong conflict.  It is unacceptable to completely give up on the
concept of authorship just because it cannot be realized in a
conceptually clear way in all cases.  In other words, (c) is no
justification for not listing authors where that is actually possible.

We still have a bit of wiggle room on the "significant" in (1).
With hindsight, maybe RFC 3095 wouldn't need to have had 16 authors.
But it sure had way more than 5.

Back to the concrete case:

James' original question strikes me as more of a "standing on the
shoulders of" situation.  E.g., copying the math really just calls for
a citation of the previous document, and even re-using some good
crispy key sentences just calls for lavish acknowledgement.

But the really interesting case would come up if one of the authors
of the previous version actually were interested in co-authoring the
-bis effort.  Here, I would consider it highly prudent to accommodate
him (if circumstances permit), even if that gives him just a minor
role.  As long as (2) is still maintained! (Which excludes
over-stretching the "corresponding author" principle -- I do believe
AUTH48 is exactly the right way to handle (2) in an Internet age.)

Gruesse, Carsten

PS.: The economic argument that Dan and Juergen have been making,
rephrased: The IETF has one scarce resource, which is highly qualified
participation.  If the IETF can incentivize that resource by granting
authorships, and some of the potential contributors indeed would be
benefitting from that incentive, this will improve allocation of that
scarce resource.  (The fact that some other contributors may not
benefit is not an argument against, except maybe if the
non-benefitting contributors were now drowned out by the stampede of
benefitting contributors.  Even with the misuse of Internet-Drafts by
some funding agencies, I don't see that drowning-out happening any
time soon.)

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:32:32 -0800

Hi, Yoav,

On 1/26/2012 12:22 AM, Yoav Nir wrote:
>> On 1/25/2012 2:21 PM, Jeffrey Hutzelman wrote:Hi, Y
>> ...
> I've seen a lot of cases where this was done differently. Someone on
> the mailing list will post something like "Section 3.6 is not clear
> enough", and the chair will reply "can you suggest some alternate text?"
> and then they'll send their own re-write of section 3.6. If this is
> indeed better, the editor will replace the content of section 3.6 with
> the suggested text, and add to the acknowledgement section something
> like "So-and-so contributed text to this document" or if this is their
> only contribution, "So-and-so contributed the contents of section 3.6".
>
> In the first case, the text is not clearly delineated, nor is
> so-and-so added as co-author. Are you saying that this practice is
> wrong? What about contributions that change or add a single sentence?

I have already addressed this. A single sentence is probably OK to 
acknowledge at the end, or sometimes not even at all. A full section 
requires the person listed as author on the front page, IMO. In between, 
there is debate on where to draw the line.

However, when you are taking the text from a previous version and you 
either "don't know" or are taking large portions verbatim (multiple 
whole paragraphs, not necessarily in a row), then IMO you need to 
consider this the contribution of an author who is not you. If you know 
who it is from the original author list, you can include just that 
person; if not, you need to include them all.

> What about remarks that "literally" is wrong here and should be replaced
> with "figuratively"?
>
> Yoav

I didn't use those words, so I'm not sure what you're referring to.

Joe

---

From: Yoav Nir <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:41:11 +0200

> there is debate on where to draw the line.

I don't know. Part of the working group process is the members of the working group suggesting text. When working groups are functional, this could be a lot of people. This gets us to 10 people on the front page. You don't generally see academic papers like that. 3-4 seems to be the practical limit there.

> person; if not, you need to include them all.

I agree.

> I didn't use those words, so I'm not sure what you're referring to.

That's just my low-end example of a contribution. I don't think we should list nit-pickers as authors, but they do usually get acknowledged.

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:00:01 -0800

Hi, Yoav,

On 1/26/2012 8:41 AM, Yoav Nir wrote:
> I don't know. Part of the working group process is the members of
> the working group suggesting text. When working groups are
> functional, this could be a lot of people. This gets us to 10 people
> on the front page. You don't generally see academic papers like that.
> 3-4 seems to be the practical limit there.

It depends on the area; in some arenas - esp. applied physics - author 
lists are well into the double-digits:

http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2010/04/long_author_lists_and_books_no.php

I think you're in the wiggle area where there is a legitimate decision 
as to how much a contributor adds to be come an author. IMO, one 
sentence is too small; one page is large enough, and the devil is 
inbetween. However, IMO that's a mutual decision for the primary 
author/editor and the contributor to determine. Once someone is an 
author - or was, of a previous work - it's not anyone's business to 
remove them unless a work is published absent all authors (e.g., as with 
IEEE standards) -- and that's not the case for RFCs.

> That's just my low-end example of a contribution. I don't think we
> should list nit-pickers as authors, but they do usually get acknowledged.

If someone fixes one nit, not necessarily even acknowledged. Again, 
that's a mutual decision for the contributor and the primary 
author/editor - not something the IETF should limit, IMO.

Joe

---

From: "DRAGE, Keith (Keith)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 01:21:10 +0100

I specifically limited my comments previously to those documents which are working group documents, and below that constraint still applies.

You seem to identify that the concept of author is well understood in academic and publishing circles. I'm not so sure it easy to apply those arguments to working group documents.

I did some browsing around definitions and there seem to be two concepts that apply to authors which I would summarise briefly as:

1)	They are responsible for the content of the document.

2)	They hold the IPR on the document.

If any author of a working group document attempted to control the content of that document, particularly against the consensus of the working group, then I as a working group chair would dismiss him immediately from the editorial control.

Consensus discussion means that the resultant working group document may well contain very little that any one person can claim absolute IPR against. Certainly, the only body that can claim IPR for the whole of a working group document, albeit potentially derivative IPR, is the IETF itself.

If you have some other aspect in mind then maybe you should identify it.

If someone is interested in RFCs as a route of publishing documents they can really claim responsibility for as above, then I would suggest they use the individual publication stream, rather than submit their documents to working group discussion and adoption.

Regards

Keith

> From: Joe Touch [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: 25 January 2012 19:57
> To: DRAGE, Keith (Keith)
> Cc: Juergen Schoenwaelder; C. M. Heard; Working Group Chairs
> > The kickoff of a revision is a author draft differences document with a
> number of authors none of whom fall in the first set.
> >

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:30:26 -0800

Hi, Keith,

On 1/26/2012 4:21 PM, DRAGE, Keith (Keith) wrote:
> I specifically limited my comments previously to those documents
> which are working group documents, and below that constraint still
> applies.
>
> You seem to identify that the concept of author is well understood in
> academic and publishing circles. I'm not so sure it easy to apply
> those arguments to working group documents.
>
> I did some browsing around definitions and there seem to be two
> concepts that apply to authors which I would summarise briefly as:
>
> If any author of a working group document attempted to control the
> content of that document, particularly against the consensus of the
> working group, then I as a working group chair would dismiss him
> immediately from the editorial control.

Sure. That's WG process. But you do NOT have the right to omit someone 
as author who has contributed substantial text to the document. If, by 
IETF process, keeping someone who interferes as author complicates 
AUTH48, then AUTH48 is what is broken.

> Consensus discussion means that the resultant working group document
> may well contain very little that any one person can claim absolute IPR
> against. Certainly, the only body that can claim IPR for the whole of a
> working group document, albeit potentially derivative IPR, is the IETF
> itself.

That's certainly true in some cases, but not all.

However, taking words verbatim that have been tagged as authored by a 
group of people REQUIRES including them as author or indenting/quoting 
the text.

If you don't feel that the words were that of the authors in the first 
place, then you mistakenly listed them as authors. In that case, a doc 
might have an editor but no specific authors listed - and this happens 
frequently in the IETF. There are other cases where specific authors 
write the bulk of the text and are listed as authors.

> If someone is interested in RFCs as a route of publishing documents
> they can really claim responsibility for as above, then I would suggest
> they use the individual publication stream, rather than submit their
> documents to working group discussion and adoption.

That's between the authors and the WG chairs to decide how to resolve, 
including rewriting the entire doc. WG chairs can push such text off to 
the independent stream. IMO, what they cannot do is remove authors from 
the author list and continue to copy their words verbatim UNLESS they 
are clearly marked by quotes or indention.

Joe

---

From: Benoit Claise <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:50:45 +0100

Joe,
> Right now the only names that appear as authors in IETF summaries, 
> XML, or other IETF-provided material are those indicated on the first 
> page. It is not the job of a tool to 'figure out' when this is being 
> obscured.
That's no quite true for my reference tool: 
http://www.arkko.com/tools/allstats
See for example http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5101. I was the editor, so 
the only one on the first page, but Thomas got the recognition at 
http://www.arkko.com/tools/allstats/thomasdietz.html
And this is a good thing!
The speed of an SDO based on voluntary individual work depends on the 
speed of the individual contributors. So anything that motivates people 
and helps progress, such as visibility and recognition, is a good thing.

I would even go one step further and improve 
http://www.arkko.com/tools/allstats/thomasdietz.html to include a 
"contributor" and "acknowledgment" section. Ok, it would be difficult 
for a lot of reason, but would make a lot of sense...

Regards, Benoit.
> being implemented by them in how they manage these issues in their 
> WGs; if this general topic should be taken, e.g., to rfc-interest 
> (where some process issues are discussed), that's fine too.
>
> Joe
>
>

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:06:16 -0800

> http://www.arkko.com/tools/allstats

There are certainly tools that provide other info, but this isn't what 
the IETF provides that is indexed by other entities.

We can tweak our tools to do whatever is useful, but what's important is 
what the face of the IETF does.

Joe