Subject: [Rfced-future] What would an "RFC Series Consultant" actually do?

From: Nevil Brownlee <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 16:56:01 +1200

Hi all:
Watching the list for the last few days, we seem to be proposing an "RFC
Series *Publishing) Consultant" to "handle Strategy Development for the
series."

When thinking about what the consultant (whatever we call her) actually
does, let's start with the things Heather actually did ...

1. The RPC often runs into tricky edge cases that don't quite fit the Style
Guide.  Heather used to have weekly meetings with the RPC editors (which I
sat in on for 8 years or so); as a group we resolved those issues quickly,
and the RPC saved them for updates to the Style Guide.  I suspect that John
Levine is doing that rather well now.

2. Changes to the series.  That's probably what the list sees as "Strategy"
questions, so the Series Editorial Board (whatever form it eventually
takes) is probably the right place for discussions about that.  Such
changes could, for example, have included how best to provide long-term
digital preservation for the series - Heather spent rather a lot of time on
that.

3. Implementing changes.  Heather actually put a lot of time into the
svg2rfc v3 implementation, a fair bit of that work was contracted out and
overseen by the Tools Team; i.e. we have a precedent for contracting such
work.  However, the ongoing part of the v3 changes is to collect feedback
from authors, the RPC, etc, and feed that back into updates of software and
documentation.    That's a long-term task, but presumably one that could
also be contracted out.

Overall the Series Consultant role does indeed comprise quite a range of
tasks, and I believe the long-term development ones really do need someone
with Publishing and Information Management expertise.

As for finding a suitable person for the "Consultant" role, the 2018 RSOC
formed a Search Committee, which was able to find about eight applicants
with publishing or library experience. We brought three of them to IETF 79
in Beijing so that they could find out about the IETF and how it worked,
and we could interview them.  From those three we chose Heather.  In short,
although it's not easy to find people with the right background, we managed
to do it in 2010.

Cheers, Nevil
-----------------------------------
Nevil Brownlee, Taupo, NZ

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 10:39:10 +0100

Thanks Nevil,

I find that a useful set of points.

Can I note that the whole style guide was a joint product of the RSE and RPC. This is important because (sweeping generalisation) the copy-editor function applies a style guide while the editor produces the style guide.

(If anyone here is unaware of the value and importance of a style guide, I’d be happy to provide some pointers off-list.)

Best,

Adrian

From: Rfced-future <[email-masked]> On Behalf Of Nevil Brownlee
Sent: 10 July 2020 05:56
To: [email-masked]
Cc: Nevil Brownlee <[email-masked]>
Subject: [Rfced-future] What would an "RFC Series Consultant" actually do?

Hi all:
Watching the list for the last few days, we seem to be proposing an "RFC Series *Publishing) Consultant" to "handle Strategy Development for the series."

When thinking about what the consultant (whatever we call her) actually does, let's start with the things Heather actually did ...

1. The RPC often runs into tricky edge cases that don't quite fit the Style Guide.  Heather used to have weekly meetings with the RPC editors (which I sat in on for 8 years or so); as a group we resolved those issues quickly, and the RPC saved them for updates to the Style Guide.  I suspect that John Levine is doing that rather well now.

2. Changes to the series.  That's probably what the list sees as "Strategy" questions, so the Series Editorial Board (whatever form it eventually takes) is probably the right place for discussions about that.  Such changes could, for example, have included how best to provide long-term digital preservation for the series - Heather spent rather a lot of time on that.

3. Implementing changes.  Heather actually put a lot of time into the svg2rfc v3 implementation, a fair bit of that work was contracted out and overseen by the Tools Team; i.e. we have a precedent for contracting such work.  However, the ongoing part of the v3 changes is to collect feedback from authors, the RPC, etc, and feed that back into updates of software and documentation.    That's a long-term task, but presumably one that could also be contracted out.

Overall the Series Consultant role does indeed comprise quite a range of tasks, and I believe the long-term development ones really do need someone with Publishing and Information Management expertise.

As for finding a suitable person for the "Consultant" role, the 2018 RSOC formed a Search Committee, which was able to find about eight applicants with publishing or library experience. We brought three of them to IETF 79 in Beijing so that they could find out about the IETF and how it worked, and we could interview them.  From those three we chose Heather.  In short, although it's not easy to find people with the right background, we managed to do it in 2010.

Cheers, Nevil

---

From: Eric Rescorla <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 05:39:19 -0700

> Series *Publishing) Consultant" to "handle Strategy Development for the

Hmm... In my conception I don't actually think to "handle" strategy
development but rather to advise on technical matters, both to a community
strategy development process and to the RPC.

> 1. The RPC often runs into tricky edge cases that don't quite fit the
> Style Guide.  Heather used to have weekly meetings with the RPC editors
> (which I sat in on for 8 years or so); as a group we resolved those issues
> quickly, and the RPC saved them for updates to the Style Guide.  I suspect
> that John Levine is doing that rather well now.
>

I would imagine that this would be largely unchanged.

> 2. Changes to the series.  That's probably what the list sees as
> "Strategy" questions, so the Series Editorial Board (whatever form it
> eventually takes) is probably the right place for discussions about that.
> Such changes could, for example, have included how best to provide
> long-term digital preservation for the series - Heather spent rather a lot
> of time on that.
>

I would expect that whatever community process we have would have a
Consultant as an advisor on long-term retainer and would have them present
for some fraction of the discussions, depending on how much it was found to
be useful. We did this in a smaller way with IASA 2 where Brad was
available and regularly consulted.

> documentation.    That's a long-term task, but presumably one that could

My impression is we have rough consensus to break out the project
management pieces. That would be good to understand.

> although it's not easy to find people with the right background, we managed

I was not part of that recruitment process, but the idea here is precisely
to make the role require a set of qualifications that are easier to hire
for, in part by removing the project management pieces.

-Ekr

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>

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 18:16:15 +0200

Good afternoon Eric.

Only on this point:

> My impression is we have rough consensus to break out the project management pieces. That would be good to understand.

Indeed we have a related question to gauge consensus.  I think we might want to be more specific around this point tho.  The chairs will have a quick exchange on this.

Have a good weekend,

Eliot