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Re: Protocol Action: 'INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - SORT AND THREAD EXTENSIONS' to Proposed Standard




Bob:

As the author in question, I assert that nobody EVER stated the existence of any such "norm" to me.

I indeed copied RFC 822's form in the earliest IMAP RFC and retained it. In reviewing the titles of the RFCs that I have written I see no consistent application of case. Some are all-upper, others are title. The all-upper ones apparently began with a stripped down form of the IMAP RFC used as a template.

Not only don't I care what case is used, I assert that the application of a standardized case for RFC titles is an RFC Editor function, *IF* there is such a standard. Is there? If not, why not?

The matter is not worth raising with ietf-imapext, iab, or imapext-chairs. It may be worth raising with rfc-editor.

Last, and certainly least: as someone who was frequently stuck behind a Model 33 or 35 Teletype prior to 1977, and in later years used early personal computers with no lowercase capability, I object to the comment about "network-illiterate Big Iron users". Some people who sent all-caps messages had no choice.

On Tue, 8 Apr 2008, Russ Housley wrote:

Bob:

I am not pushing for one or the other for this document. I'm simply pointing out that the authors used the same title case as the document that is being updated.

Russ

At 01:39 PM 4/7/2008, Bob Braden wrote:


  *>
  *> See RFC 3501
  *>

Russ,

I am trying to figure out whether you are serious.  Of course, there
have been individual failures in the past.  In fact, 821 or 822 (I foreget
which) was a title-case failure.  But the existence of an occasional
error does not seem to justify deliberately doing it wrong in the
future.  (I will have to admit to a certain bias... upper-cased
titles remind me of the days when network-illiterate Big Iron
users would sometimes send all-caps messages to the Internet.)  It
is generally agreed, I believe, that some reasonable uniformity of
style is desirable in the RFC series.  And the title appears in the
index and a dumb-looking title stands out as a wierdness.

Bob Braden

  *> At 05:27 PM 4/3/2008, Bob Braden wrote:
  *>
  *>
  *> >   *> The IESG has approved the following document:
  *> >   *>
*> > *> - 'INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - SORT AND THREAD EXTENSIONS '
  *> >   *>    <draft-ietf-imapext-sort-20.txt> as a Proposed Standard
  *> >   *>
  *> >
  *> >Why is this document shouting at us?  Title case is the norm for
  *> >RFCs.
  *> >
  *> >RFC Editor/bb
  *> >
  *> >  *> Two simple/optional improvements:
  *> >   *> Add a normative reference to STD 63 (RFC3629) for UTF-8.
  *> >   *> Instead of allowing any 8-bit in BLOBCHAR and NONWSP,
  *> > reference the rules
  *> >   *> in RFC 3629 for well-formed UTF-8 (UTF8-2, UTF8-3, UTF8-4).
  *> >   *>
  *>



-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.