Defining "Protocol"

Etymologically Taming the Wild New Field of Protocol Studies

In everyday life, the word “protocol” is so broad that it could mean anything. I find it difficult to explain to people what is and – more importantly – what isn’t a protocol. After some reading and a handful of conversations, I’ve gotten much better at knowing a protocol when I see it. 

So at this point, I’ve merely grokked the concept. And with my summer now committed to the wild new field of protocol studies… This level of understanding gives me some anxiety. If I can’t put it in writing, how could I explain it over a pint?

My goal is to be able to quickly define “protocol” for someone who is curious. After, it should be relatively easy for them to point out if something is, or isn’t a protocol. 

With that in mind, I don’t want to ossify or set in stone a definition too early. Part of the Summer of Protocols (SoP) work is forming a useful definition of the P-word. This is my first attempt towards that goal, by studying the origins and evolution of the word “protocol”.

I’ll start by exploring some contemporary definitions, then analyzing etymology. 

Definitions

I’m already building on the shoulders of contemporary intellectual heavyweights. The SoP Pilot Study is the cornerstone of my understanding. It’s very long so, like any good Gen Z, I asked ChatGPT summarizes the authors’ definition of “protocol”:

“Overall, a protocol is a standardized set of rules and procedures that govern communication and interaction within a specific context or system.”***

In the form of a single sentence, ChatGPT might have just created the perfect sleeping pill. But, it’s a useful start.

Contrast that with the Merriam-Webster dictionary entry:

1. An original draft, minute, or record of a document or transaction;

2. a) A preliminary memorandum often formulated and signed by diplomatic negotiators as a basis for a final convention or treaty,

   b) The records or minutes of a diplomatic conference or congress that show officially the agreements arrived at by the negotiators;

3. a) A code prescribing strict adherence to correct etiquette and precedence (as in diplomatic exchange and in the military services),

   b) A set of conventions governing the treatment and especially the formatting of data in an electronic communications system;

4. A detailed plan of a scientific or medical experiment, treatment, or procedure.

Under both of these definitions there are tons and tons of things that qualify as protocols. That is the reality – there are lots of things that are protocols. But the Merriam-Webster definition is unwieldy and I don’t plan on memorizing it to recite as a party trick.

And one way I like to define “protocol”:

“Codes (cultural, computational, medical, moral, philosophical, etc.) that help coordinate collective human action.”

With those three definitions, protocol is still a very broad category of things. What we do know is that there is an element of structure, or orderliness, and that protocols affect the flow of information, whether it’s digital, physical, verbal, emotional, etc. 

Etymology

So where did the word protocol come from? According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, protocol originated in the 15th century as the word prothogol or “prologue”. In medieval Latin, protocollum or “draft” or “the first sheet of a volume”.

After that, the word’s meaning as draft, first copy, or initial version developed into being defined as a record of a transaction or a diplomatic agreement.

Finally, the modern sense of the word protocol can be defined as “conventional proper conduct” and this definition can be traced to a 1952 Russian, anti-Semitic propaganda piece called “Protocols of the (Learned) Elders of Zion''. (I’m still a bit confused about this, because the propaganda piece was originally published in 1903 under a different name.)

Today’s use of the word protocol is still very similar to that last definition. I think it’s what most people think of when they hear protocol – a socially acceptable, orderly way of doing things. The definition might have shifted again with the information age. Protocol, for the more technically astute, has to do with conventional proper conduct in the context of computers, math, and algorithms.

Protocols Today

New social media networks like BlueSky, Mastodon, and Farcaster are built on protocols. My understanding of how this works on a technical level is pretty much nonexistent. But they’re decentralized, peer-to-peer applications that are fundamentally different from apps like Twitter or Facebook.

The AT protocol is what BlueSky is built on top of. The AT protocol sets parameters for what qualifies as “conventional proper conduct”, then creativity takes over from there. It’s kind of like Euclid’s axioms and postulates of geometry. From just a few simple rules emerges an almost infinite number of interesting use cases. 

A lot of people think of protocols as being like the AT protocol. They’re right. And the growing popularity of protocolized social networks is probably a big factor in the surging interest in Protocol Studies. Which presents a great opportunity to examine the overlap between protocols mediated by digital technologies and protocols mediated simply by physical processes.

One hunch I, and some others, have: at the core of this discussion are humans – simultaneously the stewards of protocols and the sheep that mindlessly follow protocol. Protocol is conventional proper conduct, between humans, whether that is online or offline. This refers to conduct in many areas, not just software: personal greetings, coding standards, workplace safety, voting systems, following traffic signals, etc.

Protocols offer an interesting alternative to today’s forms of highly-centralized, late-industrialist organizations. They’re more of a Hayekian way of looking at the world – a more organic form of organized productivity. A catallaxy of useful protocols vs an economy of centrally managed platforms. I’m interested to see where this trend goes and if it can solve some of the big, hairy problems that we face today, like ocean management, mental health crises, the heart disease pandemic, and traffic fatalities. 

***Interestingly, but maybe unsurprisingly, ChatGPT did not pull the definition provided by the authors of the Pilot Study on protocols, which is: “A protocol is a stratum of codified behavior that allows for the construction or emergence of complex coordinated behaviors at adjacent loci.”