Subject: Re: AB's comments on April Fools RFCs (was Call for Review of draft-iab-styleguide-01.txt, "RFC Style Guide")

From: "George, Wes" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2014 11:25:38 -0500

Changed subject line to avoid further polluting the thread about the style guide, since this has little to do with it.

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>>

 I don't think the funny RFC is a best practice style.
WG] you’re correct, the April Fools RFCs are not BCPs, or standards. No one implied otherwise.

One of the important issue of document styles, is the each style purpose or benefit to all readers. Documents are for readers and mostly new readers. RFCs should consider new readers, especially the funny RFCs (in some cultures they may not think that style is funny).
WG] I support the idea of avoiding humor that might be offensive to some readers, but I’m unaware of anyone offended by the extremely nerdy but IMO otherwise innocuous humor in an April Fools RFC. I’ll echo comments made earlier, I want no part in a humorless IETF that is so Serious and Busy Doing Very Important Things that it can’t make fun of itself. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_relief]
In fact, many people who are not active in IETF but familiar with the subject matter discussed do read and enjoy the humor RFCs.

IMHO , The RFC editor output general style should change to welcome/match more reader styles. Authors should not do documents without clarifying purpose of their writing style.  Furthermore, editors should motivate their document to easy readings to understanding.
WG] I do agree that the RFC format could use some work to modernize it, but the style guide being discussed by this draft is for current RFCs and their syntax/format, not their technical content or category. A more significant format change for future RFCs is being tracked in RFC6949, and I think it’s fair to say that making documents (visually) easier to read via support for more non-canonical formats is a goal.
However, as is becoming a theme, the information clarifying the purpose is there (in the boilerplate and the doc status) but you’ve chosen not to use it, and then expect us to make changes to compensate for that.

The special RFCs are not part of the IETF Stream and they are not an IETF standard in any way.
You need to tell all possible readers that,
WG] again, we do. See my previous message for an example.

or IETF should work hard to make media know about its special RFC.
WG] I don’t know about letting the media know, but often the documents do get coverage on tech blogs that track the different April Fools jokes put out by internet companies like Google, Facebook, and others, as April Fools day has been embraced more and more as the Internet’s holiday. There’s even a dead tree edition: http://www.amazon.com/The-Complete-April-Fools-RFCs/dp/1573980420 And a wikipedia article… and >35 years' history of producing them…

 I agree that some of these RFCs might be difficult for some readers to understand.
That is good, so those docs are not making things easy to readers but making it easy to others to joke or make fun or waste time. Some Readers may not have time for jokes like the author or editor have. The doc style affect the time and benefit of reader/writer.
WG] <sarcasm> I apologize on behalf of all of the amateur humorists that have penned or are considering penning IETF April Fools drafts for wasting your time. We’ll use TCP next time to make sure you get the joke. </sarcasm>
On a more serious note, learning to quickly parse IETF documents to determine whether a given draft is “signal” or “noise” (i.e. Relevant to them and their area of expertise vs not) is a vital tool for participants to learn if they are to avoid having their time wasted. Not all IETF documents are useful for all readers (even within a given WG) nor should they be, given IETF’s wide range of participants and focus areas.

Wes George

Anything below this line has been added by my company’s mail server, I have no control over it.
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From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 17:44:00 +0000

ryuu.psg.com:/Users/randy> egrep -i 'Abdussalam|Baryun' ids/1id-index.txt rfcs/rfc-index.txt 
ryuu.psg.com:/Users/randy> 

   +----------+
   |  PLEASE  |
   |  DO NOT  |
   | FEED THE |
   |  TROLL   |
   +----------+
       |  |
       |  |
     .\|.||/..

procmail is your friend

---

From: IETF Chair <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2014 18:47:10 +0000

Randy,

As we discussed in the IESG open mic session at the plenary last night, it's not appropriate to call people trolls, or anything else.  If you think someone's comments are not helpful, address that. It's not appropriate to argue the person behind the comment.

Jari Arkko, IETF

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2014 23:50:20 +0000

and this list has been addressing those comments for about a year now...

I miss Jefsey.

Lloyd Wood
http://about.me/lloydwood
________________________________________
From: ietf [[email-masked]] On Behalf Of IETF Chair [[email-masked]]
Sent: 06 March 2014 18:47
To: Randy Bush
Cc: ietf list
Subject: Re: AB's comments on April Fools RFCs (was Call for Review of draft-iab-styleguide-01.txt, "RFC Style Guide")

Randy,

Jari Arkko, IETF

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 15:58:04 +0000

jari:

> As we discussed in the IESG open mic session at the plenary last
> night, it's not appropriate to call people trolls, or anything else.
> If you think someone's comments are not helpful, address that. It's
> not appropriate to argue the person behind the comment.

point taken and apologies.  my posting was ad hominem.

but i think we have a problem where a poster is *repeatedly* causing
massive useless discussion which overwhelms the useful content of the
list.  as their postings are probably well intended, asking to censor
them would be harsh.  asking folk not to be drawn into the response
cycle is not simple.

randy

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2014 16:24:31 +0000

Randy,

> point taken and apologies.

Thank you.

> discussion which overwhelms the useful content

I certainly agree that we have such discussions. That is also something that deserves attention and in some cases action (even though, as you point out, the options are not easy).

Jari

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2014 16:22:38 +0000

Randy,

Thank you.

Jari

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 16:36:01 +0000

> I certainly agree that we have such discussions. That is also something that deserves attention and in some cases action (even though, as you point out, the options are not easy).

As was noted to me about this continuing and real issue about 
unproductive postings, this is another case that lends itself to 
focusing on the substance rather than the person.

In this case it is the thread itself that is the substance, rather than 
a technical item.

So, for example:

    Folks, this thread is repetitious and does not appear to have any 
productive content.  Please stop congesting the list with postings on 
this thread.

In fact, wg chairs or list moderators sometimes explicitly declare a 
thread closed.  Any of us can make a public request to the same effect.

d/

-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2014 17:08:30 +0000

On Mar 7, 2014, at 3:58 PM, Randy Bush <[email-masked]> wrote:
> asking folk not to be drawn into the response
> cycle is not simple.

Asking folks is simple.   Expecting them to do it is simple.   Them doing it is simple.   But only if they decide that it matters.   That is what's not simple.

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2014 17:53:26 +0000

> thread closed.  Any of us can make a public request to the same effect.

As Randy rightly said, this is *not* simple. Depending on the context 
(including the perceived seniority of the person doing the posting and 
the controversy of the topic being discussed), even saying something 
like, "This thread is repetitious and does not appear to have productive 
content" in public can be (perceived or truly) simply a 
passive-aggressive attempt to shut down a real and serious discussion. 
The characterization of a discussion as "repetitious" and "unproductive" 
by any random of member of the community can be problematic.

Sending a private email to someone who keeps getting drawn into a silly 
discussion (and preferably someone with whom you agree) to remind them 
to not get wound up is a good plan. Asking someone like the list 
moderator or chair (or someone who we all agree has been given the 
responsibility to keep such things in check) to please step in is also a 
good plan. But taking it upon yourself to publicly control others is 
dicey. Not simple.

pr

-- 
Pete Resnick<http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. - +1 (858)651-4478

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 18:00:33 +0000

> As Randy rightly said, this is *not* simple.

in fact, i did exactly what is traditional on ops lists.  wrong action
in the ietf context.  instead i should have posted 342 messages
discussing nits. :)

being high thomas's list is not a prize.  being high often should cause
one to introspect considerably.

randy

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 18:02:02 +0000

> As Randy rightly said, this is *not* simple.

Forgive me, but there are two different and independent issues here.

One is what to do with a problematic pattern of posting.

The other is what to do about personal attacks.

It's just dandy to treat the first as subtle, complicated or whatever.

But it has nothing to do with the second, which is a very simple matter.

With respect to the tendency to think that frustration with the first 
justifies the latter... uhhh, no.  (Though yeah, for some of us it takes 
impulse control...)

d/

---

From: Bjoern Hoehrmann <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 20:32:06 +0100

>productive content.  Please stop congesting the list with postings on 

I would file that under "This has made a lot of people very angry and
been widely regarded as a bad move." One reason is that it is easy to
ignore parts of a thread with anything that qualifies as a mail client;
in my case, I probably skip over the uninteresting mails faster than I
can read a mail with the text above, so it's wasting my time more than
the mails it is complaining about, and adds unnecessary drama that is
likely to put people in a bad mood.
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:[email-masked] · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/

---

From: Loa Andersson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2014 13:41:40 +0100

Jari,

Not speaking of the current case, but I don't not fully agree with you.

We both know that over the years we have seen trolls on our mailing
lists (troll = someone that repeatedly and repetitively causes useless
discussions on topics that even with the wildest stretch can't be said
to belong on an IETF mailing list).

I think we should be allowed to call a troll a troll! Most of the time
it is just best to ignore them, but we have seen cases where removing
posting rights has been the only effective way to handle this.

Randy,

I think you correctly describe a problem below. Well intended disruptive
(or at least non-productive) postings are still disruptive/non-
productive. And I think the right method is not to respond, and
encourage others not to do it.

/Loa

-- 

Loa Andersson                        email: [email-masked]
Senior MPLS Expert                          [email-masked]
Huawei Technologies (consultant)     phone: +46 739 81 21 64

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2014 12:57:13 +0000

On 3/7/14 6:02 PM, Dave Crocker wrote:
> justifies the latter... uhhh, no.  (Though yeah, for some of us it 
> takes impulse control...)

As luck would have it, the message from you to which I responded:

> thread closed.  Any of us can make a public request to the same effect.

And the message from Randy in which he claimed that things weren't simple:

On 3/7/14 3:58 PM, Randy Bush wrote:
> i think we have a problem where a poster is*repeatedly*  causing

were both about the "problematic pattern of posting", and not about 
"personal attacks". So we are in full agreement. The issue of 
problematic patters of posting is quite subtle and, as I said, replying 
to it in the way that you suggested might be problematic.

The reason that they are not completely independent issues is because 
people's public responses to problematic patterns of posting, even if 
completely well-intentioned or said in apparently 
non-personally-attacking ways, can be interpreted as and can quickly 
escalate into personal attacks.

pr

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2014 14:50:18 +0000

> I think you correctly describe a problem below. Well intended
> disruptive (or at least non-productive) postings are still
> disruptive/non-productive. And I think the right method is not to
> respond, and encourage others not to do it.

in the new istf, it is more important to be politically correct than
correct.

randy

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From: "Murray S. Kucherawy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 09:44:16 -0700

> in the new istf, it is more important to be politically correct than

These are not mutually exclusive.

-MSK

---

From: Eric Gray <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 17:40:33 +0000

True, but it's the cases where they differ that involve hard work.

From: ietf [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Murray S. Kucherawy
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2014 12:44 PM
To: Randy Bush
Cc: IETF Chair; IETF Disgust
Subject: Re: AB's comments on April Fools RFCs (was Call for Review of draft-iab-styleguide-01.txt, "RFC Style Guide")