--On Sunday, 18 May, 2008 07:11 -0700 Dave Crocker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Go'day. > > A private comment on the BATV specification raises a basic > point about specification writing that I thought worth > pursuing independently: > > Some normative statements are placed in a paragraph labeled > "NOTE:" so as to emphasize the requirement of the text. It > has been suggested that that label actually implies less > importance, not more. (In regular prose, a footnote, for > example, is indeed secondary to the main text.) > > I think it is worth distinguishing text that is secondary from > normative text that is being emphasized. So I'm inclined to > agree that "NOTE:" should be used for non-normative stuff. > > That leaves the question of what convention is appropriate for > marking emphasized normative text. > > I don't have a ready suggestion, so I thought I'd ask you > folk...? Dave, I think SM is basically right about this. Let me elaborate... Having used the "Note" convention (following Jon Postel and RFC 1123 in the case of mail specs), I'd offer the hypothesis that this is either a non-problem or one that cannot be fixed by changing terminology. "Note" is, and should be, used to call attention to something that might not be obvious from the preceding or surrounding text. If the material being noted is normative, it will ordinarily contain text that makes that very obvious from context, e.g., one or more of the 2119 words will be present. Otherwise, using 2821bis as an example, it looks like these are purely explanatory, introduce implicit cross references, or are qualified by terms like "Historical". There are exceptions and marginal cases. One of them appears in the I-D boilerplate, where "Note" is used to introduce a comment about "other" I-Ds that may, by now, be largely irrelevant but which is still mostly explanatory. My concern is that, if we try to create differentiation, using, e.g., "Note" and "Note well", "Normative note" and "Informational note", or "Note-type-1" and "Note-type-2", the careful readers won't be helped and the less-careful ones won't notice and appreciate the difference. Worse, authors and editors will get it wrong sometimes and that will create far more confusion than we have today. We will also open ourselves to yet another opportunity for battles with IESG members who would rather find editorial rules to enforce uncritically than to think carefully about readability and individual situations. I believe that would be a net loss; YMMD. john
