[rfc-i] [IAB] draft-iab-xml2rfc-03, "2.19 <displayreference> "

[julian.reschke at gmx.de (Julian Reschke)]

On 2016-03-02 17:05, Paul Hoffman wrote:
> On 2 Mar 2016, at 7:42, Joe Hildebrand (jhildebr) wrote:
>
>> It doesn't sound like you're strongly in favor of keeping this
>> functionality.  Are there others who think it's more important than this?
>
> I think the functionality of <displayreference> is extremely important
> for RFC readability. From the v3 doc:
>     This element gives a mapping between the anchor of a reference and a
>     name that will be displayed instead.  This allows authors to display
>     more mnemonic anchor names for automatically-included references.
>     The mapping in this element only applies to <xref> elements whose
>     format is "default".
>
> When I was editing the IKEv2 specs, which had a zillion references to
> older RFCs, using descriptive names in the references helped
> implementers understand what they were reading. I have been told by
> other RFC authors that it has been useful to them as well.

That part can be achieved by changing the anchor attribute in the 
<reference> element (once it's pasted into the XML source, which for 
some reason some people do not like).

> I understand that some names might not be useable as "to" references
> because the allowed format for those references is limited; I don't

Hmm, which? Example? We have a "political" restriction to US-ASCII (not 
yet in the spec perhaps), but other than that?

> think that's a good enough reason to get rid of the functionality. If
> some people can't make he "to" references exactly what they want, that's
> a limitation we should live with.

> I'm fine with the idea that the prep tool will remove <displayreference>
> from the prepped XML if we can do so.

How is it supposed to do that when to="3GBLA"?

Best regards, Julian