I don't think that the Note Well note has much to do with what Joe started talking about we have had this discussion before quite a few years ago (pre tools) I suggested moving "expired" IDs to an "expired IDs" directory rather than removing them from the IETF public repository as well as posting all the old expired IDs in the same directory (changing only the filename to prepend "expired-") seemed like a good idea to me & to many other people, for the reasons people find the tools ID archive useful & the IESG at the time said to move ahead Steve Coya started the (long) process f pulling the old IDs from backup tapes as he was finishing that process a new IESG was seated and the new IESG was not as in favor of the idea and wanted a fuller mailing list discussion (there had been a short discussion when I proposed the idea) there were a few people (Joe was one) that felt that IDs were published under the rights implied in rfc 2026, which said that IDs expired, and, thus, the IETF did to have the right to not remove them (there fact that other repositories existed did not change the IETF's rights in their opinion - in at least one case someone (I think Bill Manning) sent letters to some of those archives asking that their ID be removed) with support from the then IETF lawyer, I suggested that there be a way for a ID author to request that their ID be removed from the expired IDs directory but that idea did not carry the day and the expired IDs directory idea died then, at some later point, the tools function showed up - I do not think I was still on the IESG at that point so I do not know if the IESG discussed the question I think this is a very useful service (for history of how the technology evolved and for prior art searches in patent cases) and think that pretending that anything published on the Internet ever quite goes away is not realistic. Scott On Sep 14, 2012, at 1:35 AM, Joe Touch <touch@xxxxxxx> wrote: > Note well, as you noted well, does not go back to the beginning of all IDs.