Ietf64 Nov 2005 1

Report on the Early-copy-editing

Experiment

Bert Wijnenbwijnen@lucent.com

Nov, 2005

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Up-to-date info

• Ops.ietf.org/ece

• Lists the documents that have gone through the process up to now

• Will be kept up to date as we learn more later in the process or if we do more documents

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Experiment Initiators

• Leslie Daigle (IAB)

• Allison Mankin (IESG)

• Bert Wijnen (IESG)

• Aaron Falk (RFC-Editor)

• Joyce Reynolds (RFC-Editor)

• Bob Braden (RFC-Editor)

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Experiment Workers

• Alice Hagens (RFC-Editor) – Great Job

• Editors/WG-chairs of these WGs:– Aaa (OPS area)– Adslmib (OPS area)– Mobike (SEC area)– Secsh (SEC area)– Sip (TSV area)– V6ops (OPS area)

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The experiment objectives• Improve document quality early on • Experiment to perform as much of

the editorial work as possible early in the process, e.g., before working group last call.

• This was/is a very limited initial experiment that should begin to sort out the issues. We can then decide whether further experimentation is warranted.

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Expected (or hoped for) Impact• positive impact on WG Last Call, AD

review, IETF Last Call and IESG review. – This is expected because of clearer/better text

early on.

• less copy-editing, so faster process after IESG approval. – This hopefully reduces the time between IESG

approval and RFC publication.

• Reduction of time spend in status AUTH48. – This is expected because there should be less

changes (if any) between the approved text and the rfc-to-be-published.

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What we did

• Serialize input from WGs into RFC-Editor via Bert

• Submit/edit .XML source files to/by the RFC-editor

• RFC-editor returned .XML file via Bert• Author checks/edits .XML and then regenerates

I-D • That I-D gets WG Last Called

– .XML file of that ID to Bert

• Kept track of timings and number of changes

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Data Points – my summary

• Average elapsed days at RFC-Editor – 17 days for 6 docs = approx. 3

• Hours spend by RFC-Editor– 43 total 354 page = approx 1 hr/8-9 pages

• # of changes by RFC-Editor– 1149 lines

• # of changes by Author to returned doc– 1360 (311 for future tense) (860 by error)

• Number of changes after WG Last Call– Still to be checked (not sure all LCs ended)

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Summary of my perception• We skipped the source control steps

– Pity. We may need an IETF service for that

• Positive experience• Great turnaround• Cannot channel/serialize if production• Need to be careful what we ship each way• Need to follow what happens in WGLC, AD

review, IETFLC, IESG review, RFC_ED and AUTH48

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Next steps

• Follow up what happens with docs that participated in experiment

• More experiments– To get more data points– To check other source formats– Using a commodity copy-editor

• But wonder if we can channel it all via one person (for the serialization and recording of changes and ensuring proper steps followed)