Hi.
(Changing the subject line because this is a little bit of a
diversion)
The proposed status writeup for this change contains the
statement:
"The closest precedent we have for this status chage is
the change of RFC20 to Internet Standard. [4] That shows
that if the text of an RFC is acceptable, the age of the
RFC isn't material in discussing proper RFC status. "
Because this proposed action may be precedent-setting whether it
is approved or not, I'd like to see that paragraph removed. If
RFC 20 is the nearest precedent, then I suggest we have no
precedent at all because:
(1) The status change to RFC 20 was from a status of
"unknown" to a status of "Standard". It was not a
change from one state defined in RFC 2026 to another
(2026 doesn't even mention "unknown").
(2) Whatever else RFC 20 may be, it is a technical
specification. The status change was justified on the
basis of deployed (and "running") code and existing
practices. Both of those hypothesis can be demonstrated
by examining the current Internet and noting that RFC
20-conformant ASCII is in very wide use (including in
the text and message handling of this discussion thread).
(3) Because of that "obviously deployed and in use"
property, part of the argument for reclassifying RFC 20
was that "Unknown" was an error, albeit one that
resulted naturally from the fact that there was no
systematic case-by-case community review of older
document when status designations were assigned to RFCs.
In that respect, "unknown" in more of a missing value in
the database than a specific status and the RFC 20
action filled in or corrected that missing value for
that RFC.
Other documents have been changed in status from one 2026
category to another without issuing new RFCs. Perhaps one or
more of them is a precedent for this proposed action. But the
RFC 20 status change is not and should not be cited as one in
the writeup/ rationale, especially if the writeup is expected to
be the only permanent documentation or what was discussed and
done here.
best,
john