On 2013-10-30 12:11, Bjoern Hoehrmann wrote: > * Julian Reschke wrote: >> On 2013-10-29 21:29, Bradner, Scott wrote: >>> seems to me to be completely reasonable to say MUST include the number of the RFC that describes >>> the protocol being registered (for example) > >> But then: >> >>> 6. Guidance in the use of these Imperatives >>> >>> Imperatives of the type defined in this memo must be used with care >>> and sparingly. In particular, they MUST only be used where it is >>> actually required for interoperation or to limit behavior which has >>> potential for causing harm (e.g., limiting retransmisssions) For >>> example, they must not be used to try to impose a particular method >>> on implementors where the method is not required for >>> interoperability. >> >> To me this indicates that we should keep them out of registrations >> procedures. >> >> (I also note that the "MUST" in the text I quoted shouldn't been used if >> the text followed its own advice :-). > > You think there is no potential for causing harm in inappropriately > using these imperatives? I rather think there is. And having proper > information in registries is quite often necessary to achieve inter- > operation.
Yes, but does using RFC2119 keywords here actually improve the registrations?
Of course it's impossible to be sure, but I can say that overall media type registration quality has ticked up when we've released revised registration procedures that make increased used of the RFC 2119 vocabulary.
Anyway, I'll leave this to the IESG / our AD to make a choice.
Um, actually, this is not really up to the IESG. The most the IESG could realistically say is that use of RFC 2119 language specifically is inappropriate in current and future registration documents. That would leave the door open to such documents specifying their own compliance vocabulary, and I can assure you that is exactly what would happen for any document I'm involved with. There's nothing magical about RFC 2119. I suppose the IESG could then go so far as to say that such documents should never use such vocabularies, but that seems rather unlikely. Ned