Hi. Mark Andrews's recent note "RFC 3484 Section 6 Rule 9" suggests to me that there is a missing piece in the recent IESG and RFC Editor errata-handling proposals. Without taking a position on whether his particular change should be made, there is a potential problem when maklng a substantive change quickly is important. I suggest that it would be useful to add an additional explicit state category to the the RFC Editor's list, one that would presumably be handed out of band (although I'd have no objection to having it automated). The description would read something like the following: 5. Standards change: When a document has been approved (via Protocol Action Notice or equivalent) that updates or obsoletes an existing Standards Track or BCP document, an erratum entry may be added that points to the action notice and the approved Internet-Draft. This is intended to be a short-lived entry, providing information to the community for important cases during the period between IESG approval and publication of the new RFC. These notices are intended to exceptional circumstances and will be added at the discretion of the RFC Editor (e.g., in circumstances when it appears that RFC publication of the new document will be delayed) or at the request of the IESG or a relevant Area Director. In other words, while I agree that errata are an undesirable way to make a substantive technical change to a standards-track document, I'm sympathetic to Mark's concern that the process of getting consensus on, and publishing, an RFC may take too long, especially given notions of 60 day publication holds to allow for appeals. This change would provide an errata-based mechanism for warning the community that one or more provisions of a standards-track document were already considered inappropriate or obsolete, thereby largely cutting publication delay out of the timeline, without introducing additional process mechanisms or using errata inappropriately. john _______________________________________________ IETF mailing list IETF@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf