> On May 5, 2025, at 5:23 PM, Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpen...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > On 05-May-25 20:13, Martin J. Dürst wrote: >> Hello Martin, Brian, >> On 2025-05-05 09:13, Martin Thomson wrote: >>> On Mon, May 5, 2025, at 07:10, Brian E Carpenter wrote: >>>> How would we feel about the following statement, in a hypothetical >>>> draft about ASCII art: >>>> >>>> "Normative descriptions of protocols, systems, etc. must be fully >>>> represented in the text of the RFC, and must not be contingent on >>>> comprehension of any ASCII art." >>> >>> My recollection is that this has been the case for as long as I've been >>> involved in putting RFCs together. >>> >>>> Do we need an exception to the non-normative rule for cases where the >>>> SVG is directly equivalent to ASCII art for a PDU? >>> >>> I don't think so. There are some cases where RFCs have escaped into >>> publication without a textual description of the PDU, but I do not consider >>> that to be acceptable. It's almost trivial to provide words that describe >>> the PDU layout at the same time as the field semantics are defined. RFC >>> 791 set a good example there. >>> >> I agree. Occasionally, ASCII art may be slightly more accessible than >> SVG, but it will still require a lot of effort for some blind person to >> understand it. In case we haven't required text equivalents for ASCII >> art, that's something that we should fix. > > I was a bit surprised by Martin Thomson's reply because I don't think I have > ever seen it written that ASCII art is non-normative. It's not in the style > guide as far as I can see. RFC 2360 describes packet diagrams but doesn't > clarify their status, and does not state that a textual packet description is > *required*: > > "Most link, network, and transport layer protocols have packet > descriptions. Packet diagrams included in the standard are very > helpful to the reader." > > However, the RFC 2360 checklist implies that packet diagrams are desirable: > > "Does it give packet diagrams in recommended form, if applicable?" > > I agree that this should be clarified. That's orthogonal to the SVG issue, > and probably fits under accessibility. >
Brian: I bet you recall this... When you were IETF Chair, I was Security AD and my co-AD was Sam Hartman. There were several DISCUSS positions that were put on documents that did not repeat MUST and SHOULD requirements from diagrams in the body. Sam could not get the information from the diagram (ASCII or otherwise). For a blind man, Sam had incredible skills, but his text reader could not parse diagrams. Russ -- rswg mailing list -- rswg@rfc-editor.org To unsubscribe send an email to rswg-le...@rfc-editor.org
