[rfc-i] Notes on "submission format"

[Paul Hoffman]

On Sep 21, 2012, at 4:33 PM, Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 21/09/2012 23:09, Paul Hoffman wrote:
>> On Sep 21, 2012, at 2:40 PM, Dave Crocker <dhc at dcrocker.net> wrote:
>> 
>>>>   Submission format = the format submitted to the RFC Editor by
>>>>   authors.
>>>> 
>>>>      *  might not be the same as the canonical formats (though it would
>>>>         make the workflow somewhat simpler for the RFC Editor if it
>>>>         were);
>>>> 
>>>>      *  will be converted to another format for further processing and
>>>>         publication if necessary
>>>> 
>>>>      *  Currently: .txt (required), XML (optional), NROFF (optional)
>>>> =====
>>>> 
>>>> "Authors" do not submit to the RFC Editor: stream managers do.
>>> 
>>> Strictly speaking, reference to the actor doing the submission is not needed; as demonstrated here, it's even distracting.
>>> 
>>> So, neutral language would work better, such as:
>>> 
>>>  = the format submitted to the RFC Editor for publication
> 
> +1
> 
>> 
>> I prefer to keep the "stream manager" in because some people in the earlier discussion conflated two different ideas: "the format I turn in Internet Drafts in my intended stream" and "the format the stream manager would turn in to the RFC Editor". It is plausible that if the submission format was X in the future, Stream Y might accept Internet Drafts in format X and Z, but would covert Z to X when they are ready to become RFCs.
> 
> In the real world, the author or document editor submits the file(s) to a tool
> that puts them in the tracker database, and the RFC Editor pulls the file(s)
> from there. The stream manager just sends an approval notice.
> 
> We're computer scientists, so we know the difference between call by name
> and call by value, but it's an implementation detail. I think that
> Dave's passive tense formulation is true for all possible implementations
> and therefore better.

I agree that Dave's formulation is true; I think it hides a part of the process that has been empirically shown to be misunderstood, even by people who are active in this conversation.

--Paul Hoffman