Re: Last Call: <draft-leiba-cotton-iana-5226bis-12.txt> (Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs) to Best Current Practice

[Barry Leiba <[e-mail]>]

>> Would anyone object, and would this address your concern, Stephen, if
>> I should change the text like this:
>>
>> OLD
>>    If information for registered items has been or is being moved to
>>    other documents, then, of course, the registration information should
>>    be changed to point to those other documents. In no case is it
>>    reasonable to leave documentation pointers to the obsoleted document
>>    for any registries or registered items that are still in current use.
>> NEW
>>    If information for registered items has been or is being moved to
>>    other documents, then the registration information should be changed
>>    to point to those other documents. In most cases, documentation
>>    references should not be left pointing to the obsoleted document
>>    for registries or registered items that are still in current use.
>> END
>
> That is better, but I'm still worried that it'd be used by well meaning
> folk to force authors to do more work than is needed for no real gain.
>
> My preferred OLD/NEW would be:
>
> OLD
>    If information for registered items has been or is being moved to
>    other documents, then, of course, the registration information should
>    be changed to point to those other documents. In no case is it
>    reasonable to leave documentation pointers to the obsoleted document
>    for any registries or registered items that are still in current use.
> NEW
>    If information for registered items has been or is being moved to
>    other documents, then the registration information should be changed
>    to point to those other documents. Ensuring that registry entries
>    point to the most recent document as their definition is encouraged
>    but not necessary as the RFC series meta-data documents the relevant
>    relationships (OBSOLETED by etc) so readers will not be misled.
> END

Well, and *that* is so fluffy that I strongly object to it.  I think
it's bizarre to directly say that it's unnecessary and you don't need
to worry about it.  I can't think of any other place where we so
casually accept stale references.  For example, we flag I-Ds that
point to obsolete references and ask for justification to leave them
in... otherwise, they're updated before or by the RFC Editor (usually
before).

I think the change I've already proposed is a reasonable compromise.
"In most cases" isn't "in all cases".

Barry