when editing documents that purport to describe existing practices and protocols, there is often a conflict between documenting existing practice and describing desirable practice (or undesirable practice). this conflict results in confusion of goals, and one possible result is that the document describes neither existing practice nor desirable practice. in resolving the conflict it is sometimes useful to separate the two efforts: - describe existing practice, warts and all - describe what is believed to be good or bad about the existing practice this doesn't have to be done in separate documents but the efforts should be separate so that each effort can have a clear focus. once there is an understanding about what is good and/or bad about existing practice, notes or footnotes can be added to the description of existing practice to inform the reader of these annotations. if there's not consensus about what is good or bad about existing practice, it may be useful to document the lack of consensus. Keith p.s. I am personally of the opinion that SPF in all but a few corner cases is harmful to the interoperability of Internet mail, so I'm very keen to have those limitations documented. _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf