Proposed change to Internet Draft Requirements

[Geert Jan de Groot <[e-mail]>]

I recently found out that I was commenting to an author about a draft that
was expired. I should have looked better, but I found:

-r--r--r--  1 1620     218288 Dec  9  1992 draft-ietf-dns-mibext-05.ps
-rw-rw-rw-  1 1620     257    Jun 15 00:18 draft-ietf-dns-mibext-05.txt

I was tired, so I printed the postscript file, looked at it, and gave
comments, which were useless.

There are three problems here:
1. While the text file was expired, the postscript file is still here
   (on ds.internic.net, and on nic.nordu.net);
2. It is not easy to see that the draft has expired, except for the
   large difference in size and the 'suspect' short text file.
3. From my printed, postscript (which appears to have been expired),
   it is not easy to see from where it came.

I propose three changes:
1. Would it be a good idea to name the expire note
   draft-ietf-dns-mibext-05.expired instead of .txt?
   This way, by looking at the name, one could see that the draft is
   no longer effective.
2. Remove _all_ versions of a draft text once it has expired 
   (both ps and txt);
3. In the required 'status of this memo', add a sentence telling the
   exact file name of the draft. The RFC number of and RFC is in the
   RFC itself; why not use this with drafts?
   Because of the format of some drafts, I cannot add the name myself
   because this would usually make the page too long for the paper.

There are a number of dead ps drafts out there. Possible candidates are:
	draft-crocker-ip-encaps-01.ps
	draft-hardcastle-mapping-00.ps
	draft-ietf-dns-mibext-05.ps
	draft-ietf-822ext-text-enriched-00.ps
	draft-ietf-mhsds-convert-00.ps
	draft-ietf-mhsds-infotree-02.ps
	draft-ietf-mhsds-mhsprofile-02.ps
	draft-ietf-mhsds-mhsuse-02.ps
	draft-ietf-mhsds-routdirectory-02.ps
	draft-ietf-mhsds-subtrees-02.ps
	draft-ietf-mhsds-supmapping-02.ps
	draft-ietf-nntp-news-01.ps
	draft-ietf-tuba-address-00.ps
	draft-rosenbaum-dns-storage-00.ps
so it looks like this is not an incident, but a generic problem.
Because of my thin pipe to the Internet (9600), I did not check the
contents of each corresponding .txt file. Maybe someone with better
connectivity can.

Comments?

Geert Jan