Folks, I wrote up a draft, http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-loughney-what-standards-00.txt which discusses similar issues. I'd appreciate comments, as I intend on updating the document soon. Thanks, John -- original message -- Subject: Re: [isdf] Re: www.internetforce.org From: "jfcm" <info@xxxxxxxx> Date: 8th January 2004 11:32:43 pm At 21:45 08/01/04, John C Klensin wrote: >A better answer would have been "the term 'request for comment' is >historical, dating from a time when the preferred way to make a formal >comment on a document involved writing another document, which then was >numbered into the series". That mechanism is still available, although >usually very slow. But documents that become RFCs are now first posted as >Internet Drafts (see http://www.ietf.org/ID); comments on those are both >solicited and, usually, handled very quickly. > >Today, the RFC Series, despite retention of the original name and >numbering series, acts as a permanent, archival, repository of >information, decisions taken, and standards published. As such, documents >in the series are subjected to review and editing processes (which differ >somewhat depending on the type of document and are appropriate for >conventional references from conventional documents. Running >conversations, logs of comments, etc., are not well suited for that >archival and reference role, regardless of their other advantages and >disadvantages. Could it not be useful to have a "List of Comments" (LOC) for each RFC? Where experience about the RFC reading, testing and implementation could be listed by the authors (or a successor) from experience and questions received. It would avoid the same questions to be debated again and again and it would help further thinking. These comments could start with a summary of the WG debated issues, explaining the whys of some options. I suppose the implementation would be easy enough since it would follow the same numbering scheme and titles. Such a LOC being an updated appendix could be reviewed and help preparing replacements. jfc