Subject: Martians

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 14:45:49 -0400

Hi

At last night's plenary, I raised some related issues about the
difficulties posed by the interactions between current systems
for developing and editing documents working groups through the
approval and publication processes and the growing number of
people in the community who do sound technical work but who
cannot express themselves easily and well in clear technical
English.  In one of those comments, I suggested that the issues
were likely to continue to get more important as the IETF
diversified to including participants from areas we haven't seen
before and mentioned likely increased numbers of participants
from Mars.  My intent was to abstract the problem as much as
possible to avoid even the appearance of singling out any one
country or region as the source of the issue.  I don't believe
that is the case and have observed (and did last night) that we
have first-language speakers of English who write good and bad
technical English as well as many first-language speakers of
other languages who write better technical English than the
native-speaker average.

In any event, I've gotten some feedback that some people thought
I was identifying them as Martians and were offended.  No
offense was intended and I used the "Martian" terminology
precisely to avoid that possibility.   I obviously failed and
apologize to anyone who didn't hear or understand what I was
trying to say in the way I intended to say it.  I'll try to
watch my choice of vocabulary even more in the future.

    john

---

From: Marc Blanchet <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:21:39 -0400

Le 2013-03-12 à 14:45, John C Klensin <[email-masked]> a écrit :

> I was identifying them as Martians and were offended.  

I was not offended, but I was in strong disagreement with your second comment that by having a co-editor assigned to help, it would make these "Martians" second-class citizens in the IETF. I completly disagree. Everybody needs help, for improving whatever: technical, writing, QA, etc... That does not make someone a second-class citizen.

Closing and moving forward.

Marc.

> No

---

From: "Carlos M. Martinez" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 17:48:36 -0400

I wasn't offended either, but I can see how some people might have felt.

Moving on, what I do believe is that many i-d's could benefit from a
review by a linguist.

This role, IMO, is different from the role of an editor. The linguist
doesn't need to have any technical background. He is more like a syntax
/ semantic verifier. It's common practice in other fields.

I know this idea raises a host of issues, like for example that it will
probably cost the IETF money, and that it's unfeasible to linguist-check
every single i-d. But maybe a reasonable compromise can be found.

Like the Gen-ART review, maybe the WG chairs or the Gen-ART reviewers
themselves could flag some document for 'Linguist-Review', and have them
second checked by an appropriate linguist.

Whether the original authors were native English speakers or not would
be immaterial, the document would be flagged when an otherwise sound
document suffers from language issues that could hinder implementation.

Apologies for the unorganized email, the idea took form as I was
responding to John's original email.

Warm regards,

~Carlos (married to a picky linguist)

---

From: "Carlos M. Martinez" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 17:49:10 -0400

Oh, I forgot: NOW TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER !!

:D

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From: Roberto Peon <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 14:59:43 -0700

I didn't know we had a leader. I though we were an autonomous collective!

Seriously though, editing for language is something we could take off the
shoulders of technical editors at least part of the time.
I'd want for them (and maybe chairs+ADs) to be the ones using such a
resource, should it exists, though, and not anyone/everyone (else the
cost/benfit probably doesn't make sense).
-=R

On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 2:49 PM, Carlos M. Martinez
<[email-masked]>wrote:

> >> I was not offended, but I was in strong disagreement with your second
> comment that by having a co-editor assigned to help, it would make these
> "Martians" second-class citizens in the IETF. I completly disagree.
> Everybody needs help, for improving whatever: technical, writing, QA,
> etc... That does not make someone a second-class citizen.
> >>

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 13 Mar 2013 03:57:07 -0000

>/ semantic verifier. It's common practice in other fields.

This sounds like what a copy editor does in the publication process.
The RFC production center staff has always done copy editing as part
of the process of turning an I-D into an RFC.

Nonetheless I think that John K's suggestion has considerable merit
for I-Ds whose authors are not fluent in written English (a situation
that I agree has surprisingly little to do with whether the author is
a native English speaker.)  The reason is that often it is hard to
tell what a document is supposed to be saying, and the only way to
find out is to go back to the author and ask.  This is very slow and
time consuming if each iteration has to go from the editor to the
author and back, If the document has a co-author who's working on it
all along, the rewriting could happen as the document was developed,
leaving only a final check for the copy editor.

-- 
Regards,
John Levine, [email-masked], Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly

---

From: Spencer Dawkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 23:08:52 -0500

> watch my choice of vocabulary even more in the future.

At least some of the nerdier nerds were probably thinking "how could *I* 
become a Martian? because that would be so cool!" ...

But just to your point that this wasn't about native English speakers 
... Doesn't Alfred HÎnes still have the indoor record for accepted RFC 
editorial(*) errata in the history of, like, ever? :)

Spencer

(*) and non-editorial errata, too, but that's a different story ...

---

From: Turchanyi Geza <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2013 06:36:27 +0100

Hi,

"Martian” is nice expression.

Top level Hungarian physicists working in various aspects of nuclear
physics in the early forties in the States were called Martians as they
used a funny language amongst themselves, i.e. Hungarian. This group
includes John von Neumann, Leo Szilard, Ede Teller and Jeno Wigner...

Geza

On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 5:08 AM, Spencer Dawkins
<[email-masked]>wrote:

> But just to your point that this wasn't about native English speakers ...
> Doesn't Alfred HÎnes still have the indoor record for accepted RFC

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2013 10:18:29 -0400

--On Wednesday, 13 March, 2013 03:57 +0000 John Levine
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>...
> Nonetheless I think that John K's suggestion has considerable
> merit for I-Ds whose authors are not fluent in written English
> (a situation that I agree has surprisingly little to do with
> whether the author is a native English speaker.)  The reason
> is that often it is hard to tell what a document is supposed
> to be saying, and the only way to find out is to go back to
> the author and ask.  This is very slow and time consuming if
> each iteration has to go from the editor to the author and
> back, If the document has a co-author who's working on it all
> along, the rewriting could happen as the document was
> developed, leaving only a final check for the copy editor.

To be fair, that wasn't my suggestion.  I can't remember who
made it; might have been Hannes.  I expressed some skepticism
about it because, as I think I've said then, I've seen it work
sometimes and not others.  Put differently, I think it is a very
good idea to have in our kit of tools for dealing with the
problem, but it should not be assumed to always be the best tool
or approach, nor should we assume that the idea of assigned
co-editors will always solve the problem.

--On Tuesday, 12 March, 2013 17:48 -0400 "Carlos M. Martinez"
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> Whether the original authors were native English speakers or
> not would be immaterial, the document would be flagged when an
> otherwise sound document suffers from language issues that
> could hinder implementation.

I agree with John L that what needs to be done can usually be
done by a good technical editor (or maybe even a good copy
editor).  Linguists not required and possibly not a good idea.
One idea I've started to explore with the RFC Editor is whether
they should be doing document reviews during IETF Last Call (or,
on special request, earlier) in much the same way that IANA
reviews documents for actions they might need to take and
whether those or well-specified.  The idea would not be to try
to edit the documents but simply to be able to report back to
the community whether they thought they would be likely to have
trouble editing them (or need extra time and resources).  If the
conclusion was "document needs significant work", then the IESG
and WG could figure out how to get that sorted out before
approving the draft.

It is still very much a half- (or quarter-) baked idea.  Finding
out during Last Call that a document is in trouble and needs
extra attention is better than finding out at AUTH48, but still
later than one might like.   But something like it might be
another tool in the collection.

It would, however, cost resources and might lengthen overall RFC
publication times.  I think that is a worthwhile tradeoff in an
increasingly international (even if not yet interplanetary)
community, but others may certainly disagree.

    john

    john

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2013 10:34:02 -0400

--On Tuesday, 12 March, 2013 16:21 -0400 Marc Blanchet
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> I was not offended, but I was in strong disagreement with your
> second comment that by having a co-editor assigned to help, it
> would make these "Martians" second-class citizens in the IETF.
> I completly disagree. Everybody needs help, for improving
> whatever: technical, writing, QA, etc... That does not make
> someone a second-class citizen.

Marc,

I wasn't worried about "second class" in the way I think you
mean it above, but about a few other things:

(1) We often don't have a big surplus of people wanting to be
document authors/editors and having the needed skills.  Having
to say "you can't work on this document unless we find someone
to work with you who will be the _real_ author of the English
text" is problematic in that it "uses up" two people, one of
whom presumably could have done the work by herself.  

(2) In something analogous to the many "teach a man to fish"
stories, I'd like to be sure we focus on supporting and
improving on whatever skills are there rather than on
ghostwriters and making those skills less necessary.  We aren't
helping people gain the skills and experience they need to
assume leadership roles around here nearly quickly enough.  We
aren't helping people gain the skills and experience they need
to be document editors and authors nearly quickly enough either.
And, fwiw, those of us who are first-generation wrt Internet
technology are starting to get _really_ old.

Part of the problem is that we talk about "can't easily write
good technical English" as if it is binary between "can" and
"cannot" or a sharp line.  Many of us need help (as anyone who
has read my sentences and typographical errors when I start
writing quickly knows), but the kinds of help we need are such
that there is not "one size fits all" solution and never will be.

I still think that pairing people as editors is a great idea in
many cases, even though I've tried it will only mixed success.
But I wouldn't want it to turn into a rule or requirement.

  best,
     john

---

From: "George, Wes" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2013 12:32:02 -0400

> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
> Spencer Dawkins
>

[WEG] followed immediately by a complaint thread on this list asking why IAOC hasn't yet found a suitable meeting venue on Mars to encourage better participation in the IETF by Martians.

Wes George

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From: Randall Gellens <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2013 12:48:12 -0700

At 2:45 PM -0400 3/12/13, John C Klensin wrote:

>  I've gotten some feedback that some people thought

Wow, that is actually pretty funny.  Sorry.

-- 
Randall Gellens
Opinions are personal;    facts are suspect;    I speak for myself only
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