Re: [datatracker-rqmts] What are WG drafts?

[Fred Baker <[e-mail]>]

On Nov 2, 2010, at 10:14 AM, Paul Hoffman wrote:

> At 9:15 AM -0700 11/2/10, Fred Baker wrote:
>> One of the slides wonders what the rule is for identifying drafts associated with a working group. As I'm sure you know, there has been a convention for a long time in naming: draft-ietf-<wg>-*-nn.txt is a working group draft, and draft-<author>-<wg>-*-nn.txt is an individual submission to a working group. draft monikers that mention no working group are general submissions going nowhere in particular. I'm pretty sure that Henrik's existing tool looks for "draft-ietf-<wg>" and "anything containing <wg>" for the two areas.
>> 
>> I like the convention; I find it useful. I do go a little crazy with the set of people that don't choose to use it, though; I get people posting drafts and then wanting to discuss them for several meetings in my WG but not follow the convention, which means that I have to manually track things. Since a "convention" is not a "rule" (eg, I don't care to be a hard-ass about it), I put in the extra work, but there is a part of me that would like the tool to be able to remember for me in some sense. "documents that follow the convention plus those I add".
> 
> Henrik: I believe that some actual WG drafts do not follow the draft-ietf-wgname rule. Is that true? If so, how does the Datatracker know to show them in the WG charter page? Is that done by hand?

Drafts that the secretariat understands to be working group drafts follow the convention. To test that assertion, pick a working group and try filing a draft named draft-ietf-<wg>-*.txt. You will find the secretariat contacting the chair for permission to post it.

That doesn't stop chairs from treating individual submissions to the working group as if they were working group drafts. I suspect we all do that; I know I do for small projects that are within charter but have a relatively narrow interest group. Where it gets crazy is people who disregard the convention entirely, as the tools have no organizing handle. A part of me wants to tell them to get their act together.