--On Wednesday, August 13, 2008 3:27 PM +0200 Lars Eggert
<lars.eggert@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Looks good. My only comment is about where the justification
is to be provided - the PROTO writeup is at least an
alternative to putting this into the document itself, and IMO
it's a better alternative.
Lars,
There is a tricky balance about going into too much detail here.
In general, I prefer to see phrases like "in a way specified by
the IESG" to language about where things go (much less debates
about that language). On the other hand, this sort of document
is exactly the sort of place where the IESG specifies what it
wants to see and where it wants to see it, so being more
specific here doesn't disturb me too much.
The PROTO writeup is a fine place iff the IESG either includes
that writeup in the Last Call or, better, includes an explicit
note that the authors have asked for an exception to some
particular guideline and pointing to the PROTO writeup for their
explanation.
If the PROTO writeup is, in practice, only examined by the IESG,
then it is the IESG, and the IESG alone, reviewing the argument
for an exception and making the decision. The IESG should be
evaluating and reflecting community consensus if the community
cares. If the community doesn't, then I'm happy leaving thing
up to the IESG. But having something the community might want
to consider hidden in an obscure place, with no notice to the
community, should not, ever, be the basis for a conclusion that
the community doesn't care.
--On Wednesday, August 13, 2008 8:49 AM -0500 Eric Gray
<eric.gray@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Not having it actually in the RFC itself means that it
effectively disappears on publication. This is both a feature
and a flaw.
If the justification is included in the published RFC, the
precedent is very much clearer (and - thus - much less likely
to be the cause of confusion and discussion in the future).
Eric, while it is clearly a judgment call about what is
important, your suggestion above could easily be extended to
suggest that it was necessary to have all WG discussions about
alternatives included in every WG-produced, Standards-track RFC
that is published. Sometimes that might not be a bad idea but,
as a rule I think it leads to absurdity.
Ultimately, an argument that an exception should be made in a
particular case is an argument that the choice is technically
and substantively harmless and hence essentially an editorial
matter. If that is true, then we certainly don't preserve
long-term documentation of editorial decisions (doing so would
lead, not merely to absurdity, but to madness). If the matter
is judged by the community to be substantive and not editorial,
then I would expect the exception request to be rejected, so
there would be nothing much to document.
john
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