Re: [Emailcore] Navigating 5321bis (and predecessors)

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

--On Thursday, January 7, 2021 10:25 +0100 Alessandro Vesely
<[e-mail]> wrote:

>> (2) Are there ways that we can mitigate the problems with
>> finding things. [...]  Would that be worth doing in terms of
>> finding information or is the table of contents sufficient?
>> Other ideas?
> 
> I think an index is useless nowadays, since page numbers are
> not a univocal reference anymore (they only appear in PDFs and
> are presumably going to depend on paper formats.)

I hope it is sorted out quickly --certainly before 5321bis is
ready-- but the xml2rfc vocabulary defines index ("<iref>")
elements which presumably means it is someone's problem (not
ours) to implement them in a way that is sensible for all
relevant output formats.  My personal opinion is that will mean
index entries have to end up targeting section numbers, not page
numbers, but I wait to see what others come up with.   However,
unless there is a proposal and community consensus to declare
that markup element useless and/or obsolete, I think we get to
assume that they will work in some meaningful way.

> Rather, I'd insert [See also <xref>] notes wherever
> appropriate.

As I think I mentioned in an earlier note, that is already
underway.  I welcome pointers to additional places where such
cross-references would be helpful.

best,
   john