Pete,
--On Tuesday, March 27, 2018 17:59 -0500 Pete Resnick
<presnick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> While I generally agree with John here, let's not forget what
> caused the IESG to put together that procedure in the first
> place and let's not get back to that previous state:
>
> The problem is that "moving to Historic" is really a Standards
> Track thing to do. What was happening before is that these
> "moves" were being done in Informational RFCs, and anyone who
> didn't happen to notice the Last-Call for the document, or
> decided not to care all that much because the document was
> Informational, was not going to notice that the IESG was
> making this declaration that another document had moved to
> Historic status. Not only that, these moves to Historic were
> not being properly kept track of, and it took a good deal of
> research to figure out when certain old docs became Historic,
> and why.
Yes, absolutely. That is also the reason why several of us
have argued for much clearer (and more obviously
available)definitions of what "obsolete" and "historic" actually
mean (and the relationship between the two) and against those
actions being taken by a note in the datatracker that can't be
found unless one knows where to look. It is also why I believe
a reference to the documentation and rationale for the action
should be included in the RFC Editor's index pages.
Those more formal and well-documented actions are particularly
important given our history of sometimes specifying the action
or its rationale in a statement or brief paragraph in the middle
of a document that is mostly about something else. I assume
that was the reason the IESG has asked that a note about
documents being obsoleted be included in the abstract about the
obsoleting one. IMO, while it may call attention to the action,
that information is sometimes appropriate in an abstract and
sometimes not, but it is rarely the best way to proceed if the
intent is to heighten awareness rather than to provide cover.
However, my point was that those concerns do not justify our
descending into mindless following of rules that may not
adequately cover all cases... or of forcing documents that
propose particular actions into rigid formats, especially
formats rigid enough to discourage actual reading.
> (BTW: Personally, I think it's bad form for any document to
> say, "This document moves X to Historic", as it does in this
> case. I think "This document requests that X be moved to
> Historic" is probably more accurate.)
Yes, probably. But this is ultimately the same problem with
tense that we run into with "IANA is requested to..." (almost
always true in I-Ds) and "IANA has..." (typically true of RFCs
given current procedures for coordination between the RFC
Editor, IANA, and the IESG). In a perfect world, we would
probably use the first forms in I-Ds and let the RFC Editor
change the text after the IANA action is taken and confirmed.
However, while I believe the current Production Center
arrangements are more reliable than things used to be, there
have been examples of the changes slipping through the cracks,
which creates a different type of confusion. Perhaps what we
should be saying is more along the lines of "Thie memo documents
the move of X to Historic and the reason(s) for that move."
> In this case, the name of the Informational draft is so
> painfully obvious that I think the IESG could "just do the
> right thing". They certainly don't need to re-Last-Call this
> document; simply Last-Calling the move to Historic is (more
> than) sufficient.
Yes, exactly. The intent was not exactly secret or easily
missed.
> But lets not go back to the previous state
> of randomly, and without any breadcrumbs, declaring things as
> Historic.
Strongly agree. If anything, we need clearer definitions,
better documentation, and more consensus about criteria. What
we don't need is rigid rules that lack provision for exceptional
cases and that need to be followed mindlessly.
john
