Re: how do we make the IETF working language work?

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



----- Original Message -----
From: "Riccardo Bernardini" <framefritti@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "IETF Discussion Mailing List" <ietf@xxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2014 4:06 PM
> On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 4:48 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker
<hallam@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
 > On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 5:16 PM, t.p. <daedulus@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: "John Levine" <johnl@xxxxxxxxx>
> >> To: <ietf@xxxxxxxx>
> >> Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2014 6:31 PM
> >> > >I'm more concerned with reading and writing.
> >> >
> >> > I still don't understand what this is supposed to mean in
practice.
> >> >
> >> > There have been I-D's that desperately needed the help of a
competent
> >> > English speaker to rewrite parts where the language was so
fractured
> >> > that I couldn't figure it out.  In my experience, people with
poor
> >> > English skills who come to the IETF are doing the best they can,
so
> >> > this suggests that if you (the general you) see a draft of
interest
> >> > with language problems, it would be a good idea to offer to edit
or
> >> > coauthor it.
> >>
> >> How?  (seriously)
> >>
> >> I have tried editing the xml and get a sense of why it can be so
hard to
> >> write coherent English in that markup language.  I have tried
editing
> >> the text in the direction I think that it should go but then it is
> >> unclear what changes I am suggesting.  I have tried my own markup
> >> /*rgurnggkjik/regurgitate?/ which I understand but others do not:-(
> >
> > How about HTML?
> >
> > http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-hallambaker-rfctool-02
> >
> > I have a tool that does the conversion. I'll get it packaged up.
Runs on
> > Windows, Linux, OSX or any other platform supported by mono or .NET
>
> I know that I am going to sound heretical, but I do not find  editing
> XML by hand with a normal basic editor (e.g., jedit, gedit, emacs,
> ...) really hard.  It is annoying, I agree, with all those
> <stuff>...</stuff>, but the markup does not interfere, in my opinion,
> with the normal text meaning. [Disclaimer: I am a LaTeX user, so maybe
> I am used to mixing (or shaking :) markup  and text and writing
> without seeing the final outcome.]  I typically use jedit whose
> XML-mode makes a good work in simplifying XML editing (e.g., closing
> tags, suggesting node attributes, and so on).
>
> The only difficulty that sometimes I experience is that you can get
> lost in all the <section>...</section> nesting, so you do not know at
> which nesting level you are.

There's a call out at the moment on a WG list for English reviewers to
review structure, grammar and spelling prior to Last Call.  At such a
time, I really really want to see, and be able to change immediately,
the text, such as it would appear in an RFC.  Having any markup, no
matter how friendly, is a pain and gets in the way too much for me to
attempt it (again! - I have done it with the XML).  Generally, I find
myself suggesting changes to most sections and several sentences in
each.

So that is the problem statement.

Picking an I-D that is ok, but might merit revision, I see the paragraph
below and think:

- why is everything 'suppposed'?  MAY MUST SHOULD anyone?
- what a lot of if-then; can I follow the logic readily? (no)
- think long and hard about ChannelStatus vis-a-vis each data channel -
is this well defined? (probably)
- 'sender of' of 'sender for'?  I think the latter.

So I would suggest splitting this into three cases, three paragraphs,
changing every sentence but hopefully not the meaning.  I just want to
edit the old paragraph into new paragraphs without any encumbering mark
up.


"  Specifically, if the message is a Config message, and the Message_Id
   value is less than the largest Message_Id value previously received
   from the sender for the CC_Id, then the message is supposed to be
   treated as being out-of-order.  If the message is a LinkSummary
   message and the Message_Id value is less than the largest Message_Id
   value previously received from the sender of the TE link, then the
   message is supposed to be treated as being out-of-order.  Similarly,
   if the message is a ChannelStatus message and the Message_Id value is
   less than the largest Message_id value previously received from he
   sender of the specific TE link, then the receiver is supposed to
   check for the Message_Id value previously received from the state of
   each data channel included in the ChannelStatus message.  If the
   Message_Id value associated with at least one of the data channels
   included in the message, the message is not supposed to be treated as
   out-of-order.  All other messages are not supposed to be treated as
   out-of-order."

John's comments earlier in this thread suggest that this is an issue for
more than one WG although in my example above, the grammar and spelling
are sound English and so may not fall into the use cases he had in mind
(this paragraph is a current example for me).

Tom Petch

> Riccardo
>
> > Website: http://hallambaker.com/
>





[Index of Archives]     [IETF Annoucements]     [IETF]     [IP Storage]     [Yosemite News]     [Linux SCTP]     [Linux Newbies]     [Fedora Users]