Followup to `Jargon File Editorial Philosophy'

[Eric S. Raymond]

In my posting titled `Jargon File Editorial Philosophy' of 5 Dec 1990, I
discussed several significant editorial issues in re the new Jargon File and
invited comment from the net.

My mailbox has since been well-stuffed with comments which were, in the main,
thoughtful and carefully reasoned -- and supportive of my effort even when
critical of various specific aspects of it.

I post this to thank you all, to report the trends that have become apparent as
I've read this mail and the various threads in alt.folklore computers, and to
report my decisions on these issues based on current data.

<OPEN ISSUES BEGIN HERE>

ISSUE #1: THE PAST VS. THE PRESENT

The consensus that the Jargon File ought to reflect primarily present usage
rather than past history is overwhelming (more so, actually, than I had
expected).

Decision: I will continue updating examples to reflect current attitudes and
usage, appending information on the evolution of those examples where it seems
reasonable. I may get a bit more aggressive than I have been about changing
minor ITS and PDP-10 references which were once explanatory but are now
obfuscatory.

Opinion is more divided on how much historical `tail' ought to be kept and how
it ought to be organized. So far, a slim majority appears to favor my tactic of
including historical material in a `high moby' appendix, but a strong minority
favors returning the historical material to main text tagged `archaic' or
`obsolete'. One or two posters advocated dropping the historical material
entirely or spinning it off to a separate document.

Decision: The present organization will be continued unless and until a clear
consensus to re-merge the `low' and `high' mobies develops.  Historical
material will *not* be dropped.

ISSUE #2: LEXICON OR ENCYCLOPEDIA?

There is a very clear consensus for sticking to a lexicon format.

There is no clear agreement, though, on what ought to be done with
encyclopedic material.  Most respondents didn't address this issue at
all, or confounded it with issue #3.  One poster who said he favored
sticking to a lexicon format also encouraged me to write more inline
`encyclopedia' entries and even inline some of the stuff in the
preamble! Perhaps he was confused. A few others advocated putting the
material in appendices.

Decision: The guidance I got on this was vague and contradictory, and
my own thinking is in a state of flux.  Therefore, I'm not going to
try and `improve' on the present disorganization; if a new
encyclopedia-style entry looks like it wants to go in main text I'll
put it there, and if it looks like appendix material I'll do that.

This issue is still open.

ISSUE #3: INCLUDE MORE FOLKLORE?

Response was about evenly split between those favoring a folklore appendix and
those proposing one or more separate documents dedicated to things like THE
UNTIMELY DEMISE OF MABEL THE MONKEY. A few posters suggested I forget the whole
idea, pointing out (possibly correctly) that it might involve too much extra
work for me to be practical.

Decision: For now, this stuff will go in an appendix. For one thing, some of
the main text entries really need it for background. For another, there's a
substantial amount of long-form material rescued from Steele-1983 (the
out-of-print ``Hacker's Dictionary'' paper edition) that really deserves to be
in the on-line File but doesn't really fit in a lexicon format -- and, since
that pretty much forces me to have a folklore appendix anyhow, I might as well
do it right.

ISSUE #4: PROPER-NAME ENTRIES

There was a clear consensus for continuing to include name references to
individual hackers, and in fact for adding new ones. This surprised me a
little.

Those respondents who addressed the question at all were unanimous in agreeing
that name references are valuable.  One newbie said he very much wanted to have
some pointers to the leading people in the culture.  Others allowed as how that
sort of thing could get out of hand but thought the effort to do it in a
disciplined way desirable.

Sentiment for keeping the pdl reference to Dave Lebling in was strong.  On the
other hand, only one poster expressed any concern about losing the `Lesser
Quux' entries (and his problem was that he didn't want anyone else to re-use
the nicknames inadvertently). One MIT hacker who claimed to be contemporary
with Guy Steele wrote that nobody at MIT had ever heard of those people either,
and that he'd always assumed they were in jargon-1 mainly to amplify Steele's
running QUUX joke.

Decision: I bow to the wisdom of the net, and reverse my previous inclination
against name & network-address references to `name' hackers in the main text.
Policy is now that you can be cited in the main text provided you're
well-enough known not to need to be...

The pdl at dm reference stays, with an xref to ZORK. The lesser quuxes go (there's
precedent for this in Steele-1983, they're not there either). Larry Wall is
now fingered under PERL and Henry Spencer under REGEXP.

I'm open to suggestions as to who else should be in there. I'd prefer that
`name' cites come as part of an entry about well-known software or
hacker-history events. Please *email* these.

That still leaves a lot of people eligible. Rich Salz?  Dave Taylor?  Erik
Fair? Brad Templeton? Jef Poskanzer? Dan Heller? Gene Spafford? Rick Adams?
(anybody wanna write a UUNET entry?)

<OPEN ISSUES END HERE>

Finally:

Many of you wrote to say that you think I've done a terrific job; thank you.
Some averred that I should ignore the few critics and nay-sayers entirely and
do things ``my way''.

While I appreciate the sentiment, I must respectfully decline the offered
crown. I've ended up in the editorial role almost by accident and my conception
of it requires that I function as a transparent instrument of the hacker
culture (insofar as that is possible).

This, to me, implies taking to heart criticisms from other people who care
about the culture and trying to have as little ego in the way of being
corrected as possible.

I will, accordingly, continue to bend over backwards to accept and use critical
input.
-- 
      Eric S. Raymond = eric at snark.thyrsus.com  (mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews)