Re: [Gendispatch] Updating the IETF Discussion List Charter (was: Fwd: New Version Notification for draft-eggert-bcp45bis-02.txt)

[Eric Rescorla <[e-mail]>]

On Sun, Jun 26, 2022 at 2:08 PM Joel Halpern <[e-mail]> wrote:

> I would phrase it  a little differently.   If you use a working template
> using a preparation form you are comfortable with, it works pretty well.
> Yes, there are some hoops to jump through.  For example, we need the
> copyright grant.
>
I think this is generally accurate.

Having written a number of drafts with xml2rfc and with kramdown->xml2rfc
my experience is that xml2rfc has a number of mystery failure modes which
are hard to diagnose. It's a lot easier to get into those states editing
the xml directly because kramdown generally generates correct XML. However,
if you do manage to get into such a state with kramdown it can be very hard
to figure out what's going on!

-Ekr

If you like Markdown, use that template.  If you are Joe Touch and like
> Word, use that template.    If you are new to this, talk to someone.
> (While I can't point people who ask me to Markdown templates, I can and
> will point them to the people who can and will help.)
>
> Yours,
>
> Joel
> On 6/26/2022 1:17 PM, Eric Rescorla wrote:
>
> I agree that xml2rfc is quite clunky. My experience is that if you use
> Markdown, especially with MTs templates, it's generally quite easy.
>
> -Ekr
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 26, 2022 at 9:07 AM Keith Moore <[e-mail]>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 6/26/22 11:53, Barry Leiba wrote:
>>
>> Maybe
>> because I-Ds are too much work, maybe also because they look too much
>> like RFCs and have so many rules enforced on them these days.  I-Ds were
>> not originally intended to be that much work; we've layered on more and
>> more formal requirements and expectations over the years.
>>
>> This is an interesting point, because, no, I-Ds are not a lot of work
>> and do not have rules enforced on them.
>>
>> The rules and the nit-checker that points many of them out are for
>> when the I-D goes to the IESG, looking for approval to be published as
>> an RFC.  But just to post an individual Internet draft?  Just knock up
>> a text file in the approximate format, taking an existing one as an
>> example, give it a name that begins "draft-moore-" and ends with
>> "-00", and post it.  The rules at this stage are **very** few.
>>
>> Maybe part of the problem is that that's not clear, that because of
>> the rules that are applied at the latter stages we have fostered a
>> skewed perception of what's required just to post an initial idea.  We
>> should definitely fix that, if so.
>>
>> Well, there's clearly some sort of disconnect here, because every I-D
>> I've submitted for the past decade or more has required hours of fiddling
>> with xml with arbitrary rules, and boilerplate with arcane rules, and
>> responding to meaningless error messages, usually with a deadline looming,
>> iterating until a miracle happens and the document is actually accepted.
>> I realize that it's not strictly necessary to write I-Ds using xml2rfc but
>> I've been of the impression that the same rules are enforced either way.
>> So maybe this is a tools problem or a web site problem rather than a rules
>> problem, but I think there's some sort of problem there.
>>
>> Keith
>>
>>
>>
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>
>