Re: rfc-ed reference style [Re: Last Call: Instructions to Requestfor Comments (RFC) Authors to BCP]

[Pekka Savola <pekkas@netcore.fi>]

On Mon, 17 Mar 2003, John C Klensin wrote:
> This is not just "a tradition", it is an approved form in some
> style manuals.  It is most often used along with
> [AUTHyyS]-type references, where "AUTH" is two or four letters
> from the first author's name, yy are a two-digit year, and S
> is "a"..."z" if there are more than one reference for the same
> author, or for an author with the same (last) name.  One of
> the controversies about the method (controversy == different
> sources make different recommendations) is whether, say two
> articles, one each by Joe Jones and Fred Jones, should be
> cited as [JONE03a] and [JONE03b] or whether they should
> preferentially appear as [JONJ03] and [JONF03].  
> 
>    LastName1, initials1, initials2 LastName2, ...
> form is preferred to
>     initials1 LastName1, initials2 LastName2, ...
> because it is easier for the reader to identify the author
> name and match it to the above referencing variants.   And
> those manuals tend to prefer "Initials Lastname" (more
> generally, having names appear in their natural order) in the
> absence of other considerations because it is really nice to
> not have ambiguity about what people are really called (those
> Asian names that are normally written with the family name
> first appear in natural order in that scheme, without the key
> commas).
> 
> The RFC Editor's real "tradition", as I understand it, has
> been to permit any reasonable reference form to be used, as
> long as it is applied consistently.   I am personally
> sympathetic to that tradition; I think an argument for forcing
> a single format should focus clearly on the method to be
> chosen and why it represents an improvement.  And, in doing
> so, please remember those Asian and Spanish-style names.

It seems I was not clear enough and you misinterpreted my point.  Let try 
to clarify,

> >>    [10] Eastlake, D. and E. Panitz, "Reserved Top Level DNS
> >>    Names", RFC 2606, June 1999.
> >> ==> hopefully this isn't the reference practise, should be
> >> s/E. Panitz/Panitz, E./, right?

I have a problem of writing the author list as "Eastlake, D., and E.  
Panitz", rather than "Eastlake, D., and Panitz, E."

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "You each name yourselves king, yet the
Netcore Oy                    kingdom bleeds."
Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings