RFC 7760

Statement of Work for Extensions to the IETF Datatracker for Author Statistics

📅 published January 2016, from ietf

RFC 7760: Statement of Work for Extensions to the IETF Datatracker for Author Statistics 📊✨

Part 1 of 2 💅

Okay bestie, here's the title block tea ☕. RFC 7760 was written by R. Housley of Vigil Security, dated January 2016, with ISSN 2070-1721. It's filed as Informational, so it's not a standard, just useful info 🧚. The title block has no Obsoletes or Updates line, so this doc isn't replacing or amending anything 🌸.

Abstract 🦋

Okay so the abstract is short and sweet. This is the Statement of Work (SOW) for extending the IETF Datatracker so it can show statistics about RFCs and Internet-Drafts and the people who write them 📈.

Status of This Memo 📝

Not a Standards Track spec, bestie 🙈. It's published for informational purposes only.

This is an IETF product, so it reflects the consensus of the IETF community 🫶. It got public review and was approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Not every IESG-approved doc is a candidate for any level of Internet Standard, though. See Section 2 of RFC 5741 for the details 💜.

You can find the current status, any errata, and ways to send feedback at http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7760.

Copyright (c) 2016 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved 🌈.

This doc is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents, which you can read at http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info as they stood on the publication date. Please actually read them, because they explain your rights and restrictions 🎀. If you pull Code Components out of this document, they must include the Simplified BSD License text described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions. They come without warranty, as the Simplified BSD License describes 🔥.

Table of Contents 🗺️

1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  2
2.  Purpose  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  2
3.  Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
  3.1.  Documents  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
  3.2.  Authors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
  3.3.  Affiliation of Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
  3.4.  Countries of Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
  3.5.  Continents of Authors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
4.  IETF Meeting Attendees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
  4.1.  Countries of IETF Meeting Attendees  . . . . . . . . . . .  6
  4.2.  Continents of IETF Meeting Attendees . . . . . . . . . . .  6
5.  Existing Code  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
6.  Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
7.  Thoughts on Future Enhancements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
8.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
9.  Informative References   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8

1. Introduction ✨

So a prominent member of the IETF community built a set of tools that make statistics about RFC and Internet-Draft authors 🙌. They work by analyzing the documents themselves to produce stats about both the docs and their authors. The goal here is to get similar stats built into the IETF Datatracker and make sure the software stays maintained as part of the IETF information services 💜. Some data may still have to be pulled out of the documents, but as much as possible should be kept in the IETF Datatracker database [DATATRACKER] 🧚.

You can see the current stats on the web at http://www.arkko.com/tools/docstats.html 📊.

The code that makes these stats lives at http://www.arkko.com/tools/authorstats.html 💻.

2. Purpose 🌸

Author stats let the community see where the work is happening and who's doing it 👀. They show which individuals, companies, and regions are the most active contributors, and how that changes over the years 📈.

Some of the stats are just "nice to know" 🤓. Others get used to point at a particular participant's contributions to the IETF, or to study trends in IETF work. For example, the IETF has been trying to grow the diversity of its participants, and these stats are one way to see whether those efforts are working 🌈. The most active individuals are also potential candidates for leadership positions 👑.

3. Statistics 📈

The Datatracker enhancements shall provide stats and graphs about documents, document authors, author affiliation, author country, and author continent 💅.

The stats should also cover trends among IETF meeting attendees, which the current tools don't track 🫶.

For these requirements, "recent Internet-Drafts" and "recent RFCs" mean documents published in the last five years ⏳.

3.1. Documents 📄

The stats shall show the number of authors per document 👯. The current web page presents this as stats plus a bar chart, and you can see it at http://www.arkko.com/tools/rfcstats/authdistr.html 📊.

The stats shall also show how big the documents are 📏. The current web page presents this as stats plus a bar chart, and you can see it at http://www.arkko.com/tools/allstats/pagedistr.html. Since the document format is changing, some other way to measure size might make more sense, such as word count 🤔.

On top of that, stats about the document format the authors used should be provided, which the current tools don't do 🎀.

The stats shall also show how the various specification techniques get used, such as ABNF, ASN.1, C code, CBOR, JSON, and XML 🧠. The current web page doesn't include all of these, and you can see it at http://www.arkko.com/tools/allstats/formatdistr.html 🙈.

3.2. Authors 🧑‍💻

The stats shall show how authors are distributed by how many documents they've written, for recent Internet-Drafts, recent RFCs, and all RFCs 💖. The current web pages with similar info include stats and a bar chart. They live at http://www.arkko.com/tools/stats/authactdistr.html, http://www.arkko.com/tools/recrfcstats/authactdistr.html, and http://www.arkko.com/tools/rfcstats/authactdistr.html 🌟.

The stats shall also show the relative impact of authors, measured by how many of their RFCs other RFCs cite 🔥. The current web page is at http://www.arkko.com/tools/rfcstats/hindextop.html 💜.

3.3. Affiliation of Authors 🏢

The stats shall show the affiliations of authors for recent Internet-Drafts, recent RFCs, and all RFCs 💼. The current web pages with similar info include stats and a bar chart. They live at http://www.arkko.com/tools/allstats/companies.html, http://www.arkko.com/tools/stats/companydistr.html, http://www.arkko.com/tools/recrfcstats/companydistr.html, and http://www.arkko.com/tools/rfcstats/companydistr.html ✨.

The stats shall also show how the affiliations of RFC authors have changed over the years 🕰️. The current web page is at http://www.arkko.com/tools/rfcstats/companydistrhist.html 📜.

3.4. Countries of Authors 🌍

The stats shall show the countries of authors for recent Internet-Drafts, recent RFCs, and all RFCs 🗺️. Country stats have been useful, and so has showing the European Union (EU) as a single "country" so it can be compared with other big countries 🇪🇺. The current web pages with similar info include stats and a bar chart. They live at:

The stats shall also show how the number of Internet-Draft and RFC authors per country has changed over time 📉. The current web page is at http://www.arkko.com/tools/rfcstats/countrydistrhist.html 🌸.

3.5. Continents of Authors 🌏

The stats shall show the continents of authors for recent Internet-Drafts, recent RFCs, and all RFCs 🌎. The current web pages with similar info include stats and a bar chart. They live at http://www.arkko.com/tools/stats/d-contdistr.html, http://www.arkko.com/tools/recrfcstats/d-contdistr.html, and http://www.arkko.com/tools/rfcstats/d-contdistr.html 💫.

The stats shall also show how the number of Internet-Draft and RFC authors per continent has changed over time 🦋. The current pages can be seen at http://www.arkko.com/tools/rfcstats/d-contdistrhist.html 🧚.

5. Existing Code 💾

okay so the new code is gonna be driven by the Datatracker database as much as possible, which means the existing code might not be super useful 🥲 it was always meant to be a temporary fix and it needs a full rewrite. BUT a set of heuristics the code uses might still be useful ✨ those live in a separate rule database and only get used as a last resort when there's otherwise too little info. the heuristics cover author aliases, some recognized authors and some recognized affiliations, domain name data for figuring out location and affiliation, and mappings for some of the ways people write their country in a postal address 🗺️

authors are not consistent about how their names show up across documents 🙈 like one doc has their given name and another has a nickname. the Datatracker database has a way to capture aliases, but not all of the aliases from the documents have been added yet. it's giving messy but fixable 💅

the current Datatracker database doesn't have tables for heuristics other than author aliases, so the tables the current tool uses are missing. appropriate tables to hold the additional heuristics from the current rule database should be added to the Datatracker database, in a manner agreed by the group of people that maintain the Datatracker source code 🫶

a workable web interface, possibly using Django Admin, to update the new heuristics tables shall be provided. so yes, somebody's gotta make it easy to edit these tables 🧚

the current code lives at http://www.arkko.com/tools/authorstats.html. it's openly available, but comes without any warranty, so use it with eyes open 👀

the software is split into two parts: the code itself, and the heuristics database, which is kept separate. the two main components of the code are authorstats, which produces the statistics and generates the statistics web pages, and getauthors, which performs document analysis 💖

6. Deployment 🚀

the current tools analyze the documents themselves to produce statistics. some of the data needed for those stats isn't in the Datatracker database yet 😭 this development effort will include adding the ability to capture that data in the Datatracker database and populating it for all RFCs and Internet-Drafts posted over the last five years. it may be cost-effective to leverage the existing code to extract the info and then verify it one time 🧠

the URLs for the current tools are all over the Web, so once a suitable replacement tool is available, the author of the original tools has promised to provide a suitable form of redirection. a glow-up with a redirect, iconic 🦋

7. Thoughts on Future Enhancements 🔮

with the planned change in document format, some of the info we currently get through heuristics might be extracted more directly from the XML file ✨ once this format is being used by a significant number of authors, a future effort might move away from heuristics and toward extraction from the XML file. to support that, it would be desirable for the new XML schema to make the author's continent of residence available, even if it isn't used in formatting the human-readable document 🌍

right now the Datatracker has info about document authors, but not other contributors. if info about contributors is added in the future, the statistics can be expanded to cover contributors as well as authors 🌸

8. Security Considerations 🔐

⚠️ okay bestie, this part is serious, so read it carefully. this document contains the SOW for enhancements to the IETF Datatracker to provide author statistics. these enhancements do not affect the security of the Internet. the enhancements provide statistics about documents that are available to the public without prior authentication, and the statistics will also be available to the public without prior authentication. so nothing here is locked behind a login, and that's the whole vibe 🙈💀

9. Informative References 📚

[DATATRACKER] is the reference we need here: [DATATRACKER] Internet Engineering Task Force, "IETF Datatracker", <https://datatracker.ietf.org/>. 🎀

Author's Address 💌

Russ Housley
Vigil Security, LLC
918 Spring Knoll Drive
Herndon, VA  20170
United States

Email: housley@vigilsec.com
📦 where this page comes from