--On Friday, February 21, 2014 08:59 +0100 Brian Trammell <ietf@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > As long as (1) we have tools to map authors to documents for > search and aggregation purposes anyway, (2) we maintain the > reserved structure of draft-ietf-wg-* and other special second > elements, I don't see any reason to further restrict the > second element of the draft name. > > This came in handy recently in IPPM, where we had multiple > proposals for a performance metrics registry that started > pretty widely separated from each other. It would have been > arbitrary and inaccurate simply to choose an author name for > each the (individual draft) stages of the convergence; the > resulting draft-manyfolks-ippm-metric-registry-00 is IMO > accurately named. > > A policy strictly restricting element 2 to author names would > have required us to waste energy on a "what do we want to name > the band" discussion. Brian, I think this discussion will reach the point of diminishing returns rather quickly, but I note that: - IPPM, or any other WG, has very little control over what an I-D is called until it is accepted as a draft. Until then, it is formally an individual piece of work. So "what do we want to name the band" ought to be off-topic unless you want to provide guidance as to what the draft will be called if the WG adopts it... and then you get to mess only with what will come after draft-ietf-WGNAME- - No matter how many authors, collaborations, etc.., are involved in a particular draft, someone has to push the "submit" button (or send mail to the Secretariat) on the -00 version. That individual is a pretty good approximation to "first author" whether he or she is listed first in the header or not. Note that, that person is not listed in the headers and "author addresses" section as an author, the document is headed for manual submission anyway. - The problem with "draft-manyfolks-" is that it is likely to have an entirely different meaning in some other WG in some other area than it does in IPPM than it does in IPPM. Contrast that with, e.g., some longstanding semi-organizations whose membership is either constant or fairly well-defined (even if nominally anonymous) such as draft-ymbk-... Compared with "draft-manyfolks-... draft-ABCDEF-..., where "ABCDEF" are the first letters of the names of the major contributors, or something similar. Even if that is unique, I don't think that (or draft-manyfolks-...) are helpful because, outside the WG, they communicate no more useful information than draft-anonymous-..., YMMD. Of course, you could see if the powers that be would be happy with "draft-IPPM-manyfolks..." but, if you have gotten that far, why not just make it a WG draft and be done with it? best, john