On Sep 17, 2011, at 5:37 PM, Yaron Sheffer wrote:
> Like Keith, I believe we can benefit a lot from users being able to freely
> annotate RFCs with implementation notes, corrections and even opinions ("this
> protocol option sucks!").
>
> But I also tend to agree with Joel that the wiki format is inappropriate for
> this purpose, because if people are allowed to change one other's comments,
> we are very likely to repeat the WG discussion, but without the processes and
> incentives that enable us to eventually achieve consensus. So I am not as
> optimistic as Keith about the wiki format leading to a status quo. The same
> people who would argue their point forever on a mailing list would just keep
> editing and re-editing the wiki page.
Maybe a workable compromise would be to let people re-edit their previous
contributions. Though I'm also about the tendency for large numbers of people
to submit irrelevant material. I think that some sort of moderation might be
in order, which begs the question - who should do the moderation?
Slashdot-style moderation, at least, doesn't seem to work well - it favors
those who comment early rather than those who submit the best comments. What
you want to do is favor the contributions that summarize an issue and/or its
resolution fairly, clearly, and succinctly; and then make the set of comments
that do this, and cover the more important issues associated with an RFC, the
ones that are the most visible.
> I think the Annotated CPAN example ( http://www.annocpan.org/) is near
> perfect for our needs:
>
> - The main text is visually distinguished from the annotations.
> - Annotations are visually near the relevant text, rather than appended at
> the end.
> - The main text cannot be changed.
> - Annotations can be freely added by anybody, it is trivial to open an
> account.
> - Users are identified but with no strong authentication.
> - One user can comment on another user's comment, but cannot change it.
> - There is some moderation behind the scenes (I haven't studied it, but it's
> essential in order to avoid spam).
> - There's an average of 1-2 comments a day, so a small number of moderators
> can handle the traffic.
As a starting point, this might not be too bad, especially if the code is
available and can be adapted (even if it is written in Perl, sigh). Though I
think that anything of this nature is going to have to adapt over time as
experience with it is gained.
Keith
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