Tom, On 19-Oct-21 04:31, tom petch wrote: > On 15/10/2021 18:12, Murray S. Kucherawy wrote: >> Colleagues, >> >> I've got a draft that seeks to update BCP 97, which is the guidance around >> how we handle normative downward references. It's currently made up of >> three separate RFCs and an erratum, so this will consolidate those into a >> single document. The main mission here, though, is to update the guidance >> around normative references to external documents, especially those behind >> paywalls. >> >> The draft is being sponsored by Erik Kline and can be found in the >> datatracker here: >> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-kucherawy-bcp97bis/ >> >> Feedback is welcome, either on this thread or to me or Erik directly. If >> people are generally happy with it as-is, we can initiate Last Call before >> IETF 112 begins next month. > > I have called out a number of downrefs in the past year or two, of > Normative References to IETF documents that are not Standards Track RFC > or I-D, and the response has sometimes been for the author to revise the > I-D to make it an Informative Reference. This is a nonsense; the I-D > cannot be understood without the Reference in question. > > I can think of two explanations. > > 1) the author is not familiar with the processes and thinks that I-D > Nits it ordering the author to reclassify the reference > > 2) the author is familiar with the processes and is trying to game the > system. There's a possible 3rd explanation: 3) the reference didn't need to be normative in the first place. I certainly saw that a number of times as a Gen-ART reviewer. > Either way, I think that the process is failing in way that this I-D > does not address. If there's a failure, surely it's a failure of WG Last Call or IETF Last Call reviewers to detect that an Informative reference should be a Normative downref? That's not a process bug, it's poor execution of the process. Brian
