Re: RFC Errata: when to file, and when not to

[t.p. <[e-mail]>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Yoav Nir" <[e-mail]>
To: "t.p." <[e-mail]>
Cc: "Alessandro Vesely" <[e-mail]>; <[e-mail]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2012 11:58 AM
On Aug 7, 2012, at 11:29 AM, t.p. wrote:
> When I Google RFCnnnn, I am sometimes directed to www.ietf.org, which
is
> not much help here. Other times, I am directed to tools.ietf.org,
whose
> format I find less friendly but which does have 'errata exist' in the
> top right hand corner.  However, I cannot click on that,

No, but two lines above it, there's an "Errata" link, which you can
click.

> unlike the
> Obsoletes and Updates fields; but, more importantly, would your
average
> not-involved-in-standards audience know what errata are?  For me, the
> word comes from a classical education, before ever I got involved with
> standards, and so is a commonplace, but is it used in the world at
> large?  I suspect not.

Probably not, and neither is "bis". But what can you do about this?
It's either allow updating of RFCs after publication, or have a list or
corrections. Would it make it easier to find if they were called "notes"
or "corrections" instead of "errata"?

<tp>
Yes, corrections is what I see published in a newspaper to correct
errata in previous editions.  So far, it is the best word I can think of
(but there might be a better one:-).

In the html version of an RFC, it would be easy to provide old and new
in an easy to compare format (as some editors do for I-D), not perhaps
on permanent display but shown when 'errata' (or whatever name we
choose) is toggled.

Tom Petch
</tp>

Yoav