[rfc-i] RFCs for vanity reasons (was: RFCs accepted journal articles)

SM sm at resistor.net
Tue May 14 21:46:20 PDT 2013

Hi Paul,
At 17:15 14-05-2013, Paul E. Jones wrote:
>There is an acknowledgement section, but that's not really the right place
>to place the names of authors.  Further, that section almost always fails to
>list everyone who contributed to the work of a WG.

I guess that people do not pay much attention when writing 
acknowledgements nowadays.

>I've often wondered why RFCs even have authors' names at the top.
>Historical reasons only?  Perhaps it makes sense for individual drafts or

It's likely because the name is more prominent when it appears at the top.

>RFCs that are not pushed through a WG, but the WG participants IETF
>leadership have a significant impact on the text as it is progressed.  Why
>not publish such RFCs without names attached, perhaps listing only the WG or
>Area?  Most useful RFCs are the product of the IETF WG, after all, not just
>the editor or original authors.

The WG name does not have much value as it is a temporary set-up for 
a group of people to collaborate.  Some editors do much more than a 
copy and paste of text into a document.  I'd say that they take the 
ideas and fit them into the document.  In theory the name of the 
author is there so that someone takes the blame for what is in the 
document.  In practice some authors will take credit and not the blame.


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