Subject: [seamoby] Author List on CT Requirements Doc

From: "James Kempf" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 09:14:56 -0800

Folks,

The IESG is trying to cut down on long author lists, unless the authors
contributed substantial text to the document. In view
of the fact that Gary has done practically all of the writing on the CT
Requirements document, I would like to suggest that
the author list include his name as editor, and that the rest of the
contributors be listed in the acknowledgements section.
Note that there is no dishonor in being listed in the acknowledgements
section, if it is a vaild reflection of who was primarily responsible
for the wordsmithing and work on the body of the document.

Comments?

                jak

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From: Pat Calhoun <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 10:19:19 -0800

yes, I have a comment. The IESG's position is that folks that participate
in providing large sections of text are in fact co-authors. However, people
that just participate in discussions are not. However, what the IESG REALLY
doesn't like is having authors on a document to show that a particular company
is backing a proposal. So adding authors purely for political reasons is a no-no.

Fortunately, that doesn't apply to any of our documents.

PatC

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From: "James Kempf" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 09:52:15 -0800

Pat,

OK, so I still have the question if all of the authors on the
current document have contributed text, or have any
just contributed to the discussion? I don't believe
that any are just on for political reasons.

Those that have contributed to the discussion should
go into the acknowledgements section, and those
that have contributed text should go on the author
list. Right?

        jak

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From: Theo Pagtzis <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 19:21:06 +0000

> for the wordsmithing and work on the body of the document.

Jak,

  If you want to be fair and square with the mailing list which tends to
be an open book to pretty much everybody (author or not) I agree with
you..

Theo

UCL/Mobile Systems Group

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From: Pat Calhoun <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 13:04:53 -0800

correct

PatC

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From: "James Kempf" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 16:38:23 -0800

Folks,

OK, well I must apologize for stirring things up unnecessarily. Perils
of being a new WG chair. :-)

From what I've been able to determine, the usual requirement for
authorship on an RFC is that someone contributed the majority of text to
a draft (say 75%) or their intelletual contribution was 75% but their
writing skills were so deficient that someone else had to write it down.

In this case, I'm told that substantial portions of the requirements
were contributed by the folks on the current author list, so I guess
keeping the author list as it currently stands is probably the fairest
thing to do. Removing the company names, as I think Madjid suggested,
would help to shorten the list. Others should be put into the
acknowledgements section.

There is no guarantee that the document will come back from the IESG
with the author list intact, however.

            jak