Subject: RE: from the horse's mouth

From: "Nelson, David" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2005 10:36:37 -0500

JFC (Jefsey) Morfin writes...

> Describing this way the key societal matters at hand
> certainly shows the IETF is not interested/competent and does not
> intend to invest in them.

I agree, and I see others who seem to concur, that human behavior is of
legitimate concern in systems design, and therefore in protocol design.
When we consider typical, individual human behavior it is often called
Human Factors Design, or more generally user-friendly design.
Consideration of human behavior in the aggregate, i.e. social issues, is
different.

While I haven't followed this general thread (the IETF is ignorant,
insensitive and ethnocentric) carefully, it seems that the subjects of
debate surround what natural languages we support in our protocols, and
who gets to own or control what set of Internet resources (addresses,
names, bandwidth, access, etc).  This is more in the realm of
international geo-politics.

I think that the IETF SHOULD be concerned with Human Factors Design
issues in its work products, as well as some level of support for
multiple natural languages (or at least providing for a level playing
field).  As to all the other issues, which I lump into the categories of
international politics and national strategic interests, I don't think
the IETF is the right place to address these issues.  Good engineering
discipline is largely orthogonal to these political concerns, IMHO.

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From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Nov 2005 16:56:53 +0100

David, as usual your message is thought provoking and skirts the limit 
of our understanding.  Here, however, I am concerned about knowing what 
we don't know, to coin a phrase ;-)

> Consideration of human behavior in the aggregate, i.e. social issues, is

I have more than once been in a meeting in which someone who has a PhD 
in the subject as well as successful experience has had to say, "I know 
you know computer science, I know you know networking, and I know you 
think you know what's intuitive for the average person, but you know 
NOTHING about human factors."  And she was absolutely right.

Conveniently at the protocol level it often doesn't matter too much. 
But it might matter in areas like Spam abatement and certificate 
verification and internationalized domain support where we have trained 
people to assume certain things, and we have limited real estate in 
which to deliver information.

I guess what I'm saying is that who develops the running code and who 
actually knows how the code should be developed to interact with humans 
  can be very different, and while we at the IETF have the expertise in 
writing code, we probably have very little on the CHI side, and probably 
cannot, with the rare exception of the person who has transitioned careers.

That can present a problem at times, but the simplest of resolutions is 
to make sure that those who spot these issues are adequately reflecting 
the views of those who are experts in CHI, when it comes to design.

Eliot

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From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Nov 2005 18:00:53 +0100

At 16:56 01/11/2005, Eliot Lear wrote:
>That can present a problem at times, but the simplest of resolutions 
>is to make sure that those who spot these issues are adequately 
>reflecting the views of those who are experts in CHI, when it comes to design.

The problem is when these views conflict with the motivation behind 
the technical proposition. Who is to arbiter the conflict since by 
definition of the case there is no human factor IETF expert in the area?
jfc

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From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Nov 2005 06:25:03 +0100

JFC (Jefsey) Morfin wrote:
> The problem is when these views conflict with the motivation behind the 
> technical proposition. Who is to arbiter the conflict since by 

It would seem to me that the market as always will be the ultimate 
arbiter.  If people can't use the work or don't find it palatable they 
won't.  Arguably the decruft experiment demonstrated this in some cases.

Sometimes written opinions from CHI experts might also help to prevent 
networking Edsels, if you would.

Eliot

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From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Nov 2005 11:26:49 +0100

> won't.  Arguably the decruft experiment demonstrated this in some cases.

Remember that the market has also chosen Microsoft Outlook..... I *still* 
refuse to accept that model as a CHI model that works for me.

> networking Edsels, if you would.

Having people invite comments from CHI experts - and having IETF people 
respect those comments when they arrive! - would be a Good Thing.

                           Harald

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From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Nov 2005 12:37:43 +0100

> networking Edsels, if you would.

It has been pointed out that my reference above to the Edsel may not be 
well understood by some.  The Edsel was a car made by Ford that was 
generally found to be unacceptable by the U.S. market in the late 50s. 
It lasted 3 years.  Here is one link might prove interesting:

---

From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Nov 2005 12:51:14 +0100

At 11:26 02/11/2005, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
>--On onsdag, november 02, 2005 06:25:03 +0100 Eliot Lear 
><[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>Remember that the market has also chosen Microsoft Outlook..... I 
>*still* refuse to accept that model as a CHI model that works for me.

This is exactly the reason why I *will* refuse to accept your 
internationalisation model.

>Having people invite comments from CHI experts - and having IETF 
>people respect those comments when they arrive! - would be a Good Thing.

Amen.

CHI's main question is who is the master, who is the slave? The human 
or the computer? For more than 30 years I am opposed in this area 
because I say: the human is the master. However, making the computer 
the master is simpler and permits to control the human and his market.

The practical response is (IMHO) in NHI (network/human interaction) 
where humans interactions are computer assisted. For good of for bad, 
common human behaviour/usage (brainware) does not care about what the 
computers do, but about what they think the computers do or should do 
on their opinion. IETF is well used to this: the Standard Track deals 
with computers and the BCP with brainware.

This is why trying to constrain brainware within the limits of 
computer's localization projects is a layer violation which can only 
work when the brainware has no impact. What we can call a "default" 
situation. Computer localization must be user defined, this is what I 
call personalisation. But it cannot be implemented (except in 
"dafault" cases) on an internationalized medium which is too limited 
by its underlaying constraints. It calls for a true universalisation 
of the medium. In being user defined it is free to chose the referent 
of his spaces of exchanges (vernacular), but also to adapt to the 
context of each relation.

Do not look anywhere else for the IDNA failure. It is only a very 
simple brainware bug. You can easily correct.
jfc

PS. Correct that bug and you will get rid of the brainware man I am 
far faster than with a PR-action. I am only interested in a proper 
IETF brainware support.

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From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Nov 2005 11:48:35 -0500

In message <[email-masked]>, Harald Tve
>respect those comments when they arrive! - would be a Good Thing.

Very much so.  In my opinion, a very high percentage of security 
problems are due to UI failure as well.  (When I was an AD, I tried to 
get an evaluation of one (IMHO ghastly) document from a CHI expert.   
But he had no time, and said that the general area had never been 
studied due to lack of time.)

		--Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

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From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Nov 2005 09:08:58 -0800

> studied due to lack of time.)

Mix variable system performance, with cognitive psychology, with bell-curve 
statistical distribution of behaviors, and the challenges for good usability 
design make QOS-based routing protocol design (and operation) look like a 
kindergarten exercise.

It is one of the very good reasons that the IETF has done well to keep 
almost completely away from that realm.  As a community, we lack the 
expertise, and even the experts often lack the expertise.

The idea that random folk, like technical writers would have any particular 
clues about Interaction Design further highlights how far we are from 
wanting to deal with this topic.

d/

-- 

Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
<http://bbiw.net>

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From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Nov 2005 02:29:12 +0100

At 18:08 02/11/2005, Dave Crocker wrote:
>>problems are due to UI failure as well.  (When I was an AD, I tried 
>>to get an evaluation of one (IMHO ghastly) document from a CHI expert.
>Mix variable system performance, with cognitive psychology, with 
>bell-curve statistical distribution of behaviors, and the challenges 
>for good usability design make QOS-based routing protocol design 
>(and operation) look like a kindergarten exercise.
>
>It is one of the very good reasons that the IETF has done well to 
>keep almost completely away from that realm.  As a community, we 
>lack the expertise, and even the experts often lack the expertise.
>
>The idea that random folk, like technical writers would have any 
>particular clues about Interaction Design further highlights how far 
>we are from wanting to deal with this topic.

how true you are. RFC 3935 preserves us against such errancies 
(principle of competence). Hence my surprise and my determination 
when the IETF wants to take the world's lead in the languages 
identification area, being used as a reference to influence the 
specialised ISO efforts. Also that no one at IESG rises question on 
the IETF competences and addresses its resulting responsibilities.

I would look a fool to suggest IETF ventures in music, education, 
en-commerce or maybe Olympic issues? Languages and cultures are much 
more complex issues. We have the experience of the IDNA failure. When 
we run into areas out of our domain of competence, the IETF runs into 
the increased risk of issuing political oriented documents without 
realising it. This is why I call for the restauration and the help of 
the ISTF/ISSG.

jfc

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From: "Candice Masters" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2005 18:19:11 -0800

i was told i was remoned from this mailing list why am i still receiving
emails from the list

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of
JFC (Jefsey) Morfin
Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 5:29 PM
To: [email-masked]; Steven M. Bellovin
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: from the horse's mouth

jfc