Early Review of draft-ietf-nmop-terminology-07
review-ietf-nmop-terminology-07-genart-early-kyzivat-2024-11-11-00

I am the assigned Gen-ART reviewer for this draft.
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<https://trac.ietf.org/trac/gen/wiki/GenArtfaq>.

Document: draft-ietf-nmop-terminology-07
Reviewer: Paul Kyzivat
Review Date: 2024-11-11
IETF LC End Date: TBD
IESG Telechat date: TBD

Summary:

This draft is on the right track but has open issues, described in the 
review.

ISSUES: 2
NITS: 2

1) ISSUE: choice of term names

Most of the terms defined in this document are very common words in 
colloquial speech and writing. The defined terms are specializations of 
their common meaning. In a standards document I fear it will be 
difficult to discern whether a particular usage of one of these words is 
to be understood based on its common meaning or the specific meaning 
defined here.

I suggest that you establish a way to resolve this ambiguity. I can 
suggest several alternatives:

- rename these terms to something that is not a common English word;

- specify some typographical convention to distinguish these words.
   E.g., special punctuation - 'State'

- replace each word with a phrase that is recognizably unique. E.g.,
   NMOP-State, or NMOP State.

Apparently you intend to use capitalization as a typographical 
convention. That *might* be sufficient since in common usage these words 
would only be capitalized when at the beginning of a sentence, but it is 
subtle and might still cause some confusion. If this is your intent it 
would be helpful to explicitly discuss it.

2) ISSUE: Unclear Figure notation

In Section 3, the notations used in the figures are not defined and not 
entirely obvious. For instance, in Fig 1, what do the arrows mean? I 
*guess* they mean "contains" or "composed of". Fig 2 is even less 
obvious. The text describes what the diagrams are supposed to show, but 
I don't see it. Perhaps it would help to place a descriptive label on 
each arrow, describing the relationship.

The text that references Fig 3 is itself reasonably clear. The key terms 
in the text show up in the diagram. The arrows do suggest a progression 
similar to what is described in the text. But I can't ascribe a 
particular meaning to the arrows. They all look the same but seem to 
denote different relationships. Is it intended to simply be composition?

Based on the text accompanying Fig 4, I guess some composition is 
intended though not shown. E.g., multiple facts or states determining a 
problem.

I find figures 5 & 6 clearer. The arrows are still ambiguous, but the 
relationships are more apparent from context.

3) NIT:

In section 1: s/focus on those events have a negative effect/focus on 
those events that have a negative effect/

4) NIT: Missing term

In section 2.2 the term "control system" is used in the definition of 
several other terms in this section, but is not itself defined. It seems 
to be as much of a first class term as the others. So I suggest adding 
it as a term.