Subject: Re: [xml2rfc] Footnotes?

From: [email-masked] (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2012 12:20:57 -0400 (EDT)

> From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>

    > No, there is no footnote support (and I believe there shouldn't be one,
    > as we're trying to move away from page-oriented design).

I understand, but I wish there was some place to exile less-pressing text to.
Some texts (e.g. many books, Wikipedia articles) have separate 'footnote'
sections at the end which are separate from 'source notes' sections (a.k.a.
References), so it's not just always 'to the bottom of the page'.

I personally don't like the 'at the end of the book' for footnotes, as I have
to keep flipping back and forth - ditto for the Wikipedia style: scroll up,
scroll down, repeat 172 times.

It wouldn't be so bad if they were implemented (on web pages) as 'tooltips'
(i.e. wave your mouse over it, and you get a tiny little pop-up window), but
in a non-paginated ASCII file, what can one do?

    > I don't see anything wrong with the above (well, except for missing
    > whitespace between "J." and "N.").

When I tried that (I started with "J. N.", and also tried "J.&nbsp;N.", it
truncated it to 'J. Chiappa' in the header page in the output. (Tries it
again to make sure he wasn't dreaming.) Yup, truncates to "J.".

    > I'd like the documents to be consistent; is there a particular reason
    > why the default is a problem?

Sometimes it's ugly, and then the appendices before the references makes more
sense. 

Also, as someone said, having the references before the (variable
length/number) appendixes, which maybe lengthy means the references are in
fact not in a fixed, easily-findable, location.

	Noel

---

From: Tom Taylor <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2012 12:26:54 -0400

My solution for less-pressing text is to indent it in a separate 
paragraph via <list style="empty">.

> in a non-paginated ASCII file, what can one do?
...

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2012 18:37:54 +0200

> in a non-paginated ASCII file, what can one do?

Rendering in paged plain text indeed is the biggest problem, because it 
makes the layout engine much more complex.

> again to make sure he wasn't dreaming.) Yup, truncates to "J.".

Which version of xml2rfc are you trying?

> fact not in a fixed, easily-findable, location.

Maybe. In any case, it would be awesome if we could avoid to make this 
variable; maybe the other default would be better. I recommend you bring 
that up on the rfc-interest mailing list.

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2012 18:53:36 +0200

> Which version of xml2rfc are you trying?

In the meantime I recalled that this is 
<http://trac.tools.ietf.org/tools/xml2rfc/trac/ticket/10>; so this is a 
RFC style requirement; If you don't like it you should bring it up on 
rfc-interest mailing list as well...

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Alice Russo <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2012 17:38:10 -0400

Below is a note from the RFC Series Editor regarding how an RFC author's name appears. I have amended ticket #10 (which Julian pointed to) on this topic.

Thanks,
Alice
RFC Production Center

-----

Traditionally, the RFC Series requests that authors names be presented
with "first name initial, last name".  There have been enough exceptions
over the years, however, to make this a rather fuzzy tradition.

What is most important to the Series is that authors names be consistent
over time and using standard capitalization.  If author feels 2 initials
distinguishes them, then we should allow it.  For the sake of the
readership, however, an author can't switch between H. Flanagan, H. L.
Flanagan, H.L. Flanagan, and so on.

So, what the RFC Editor would like to see out of xml2rfc is more
flexibility to allow for author preferences.  From our side, we will be
documenting this more fully in the new version of the Style Guide, which
will be made available for comment shortly after IETF 84.  This will go
on the web page component of the Style Guide.

Please let me know if there are any questions!

-Heather Flanagan, RSE

On Jul 2, 2012, at 12:53 PM, Julian Reschke wrote:

> In the meantime I recalled that this is <http://trac.tools.ietf.org/tools/xml2rfc/trac/ticket/10>; so this is a RFC style requirement; If you don't like it you should bring it up on rfc-interest mailing list as well...
> 
> Best regards, Julian
> _______________________________________________
> xml2rfc mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/xml2rfc
>

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2012 09:16:10 +0200

> Flanagan, H.L. Flanagan, and so on.

Consistency is good. Right now it's not consistent because the 
additional initials are dropped on the first page, causing people to do 
things like

   HL. Flanagan

It would be trivial to remove this from xml2rfc.tcl; see 
<http://trac.tools.ietf.org/tools/xml2rfc/trac/ticket/10>.

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Glen Zorn <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2012 16:34:31 +0700

> additional initials are dropped on the first page, causing people to do 

Consistency is good, but I'm wondering 1) how to enforce this across
documents and 2) why I can't change my mind (e.g. decide that I prefer
G.W. instead of G.)

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2012 11:36:58 +0200

> documents and 2) why I can't change my mind (e.g. decide that I prefer

Oh, I don't think we can enforce consistency *across* documents.

But optimally, the initials are the same (1) on page 1, (2) in footers, 
and (3) in citations of the document.

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Glen Zorn <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2012 19:10:13 +0700

> Oh, I don't think we can enforce consistency *across* documents.

Oh.  That's what I understood Alice to be requesting, that an author be
consistently recognizable by name.

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2012 13:12:47 +0100

> consistently recognizable by name.

consistent author across all, reauired.  inconsistent syntax between
authors, fine.

randy

---

From: "Worley, Dale R (Dale)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2012 09:59:36 -0400

On Fri, 2012-07-20 at 16:34 +0700, Glen Zorn wrote:
> documents

If we allow different authors to use different formats, there's really
no way to enforce consistency for one author across many documents.

> and 2) why I can't change my mind (e.g. decide that I prefer G.W.
> instead of G.)

Because if some entries in rfc-index.txt list "G. Zorn" and some list
"G.W. Zorn", how is one to judge that they are the same person?
Ultimately, the "author name" on a document is not for the gratification
of the author but for the information of the reader.

Dale

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2012 07:23:15 -0700

On Jul 20, 2012, at 5:10 AM, Glen Zorn wrote:

> Oh.  That's what I understood Alice to be requesting, that an author be consistently recognizable by name.

Alice: what did you mean by:

Is that "within the RFC series", or something else?

--Paul Hoffman

---

From: Alice Russo <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2012 10:40:56 -0400

Glen wrote:
> Oh.  That's what I understood Alice to be requesting,

> Alice: what did you mean by:

To be clear: The note on this topic was written by the RFC Series Editor (Heather Flanagan). She will review your concerns/questions.

Thanks,
Alice

---

From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2012 10:43:10 -0500

> of the author but for the information of the reader.

Exact name conflicts do arise, and THEN how do you know that one
author, J. Sixpack, is or is not the same as another J. Sixpack?  By
having an option to include middle initials you reduce the chances of
such conflicts, though you can't entirely prevent conflicts.

Maybe we should have an IANA registry of authors, that way any second
and third authors with the same name as a first can just assign
themselves (or have assigned to them) a
similar-but-different-and-unique alternative name.  (That's... not a
serious proposal.  The point is that I find this forcing authors to
have/use a single initial to be only somewhat less heavyhanded than
such an IANA registry.)

Forcing the use of a single initial does get us consistency, but it's
a hack.  If I were to suddenly want to use my middle initial and I
understand that doing so will cause a small amount of brief confusion
for a few RFC readers, I might still want to do it.  Why shouldn't I
get to, when I would be the one most affected by the change?

Nico
--