Re: [rfc-i] Referencing Internet Drafts

["Heather Flanagan (RFC Series Editor)" <[e-mail]>]

On 6/16/17 11:42 AM, Paul Kyzivat wrote:
> On 6/16/17 2:33 PM, Julian Reschke wrote:
>> On 2017-06-16 20:19, Heather Flanagan (RFC Series Editor) wrote:
>>> ...
>>> Who would make the call as to whether an I-D is a work in progress or a
>>> [stale|historic|overtaken by events|your favorite term here] I-D? It's
>>> not a simple case of time, and the author of the I-D being referenced
>>> might have a difference of opinion than the author doing the
>>> referencing.
>>> ...
>>
>> There'll be edge cases, right. But if an ID hasn't been updated in
>> years, it's likely abandoned, right?
> 
> Isn't it sufficient to define that an ID that is the most recent version
> and hasn't expired is a work in progress, and that others are historic?
> 

I don't think it's quite that tidy. For example, there are drafts that
are expired but which are in one of the stream manager's queue for
consideration (e.g.,
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-young-entity-category/).

There's also a certain consideration about how useful it is to make this
distinction when someone reads the RFC referencing these I-Ds in a year;
all the I-Ds may be historic, or may be revised, or may be replaced, or
a mix of all the above. Unless the author of the RFC doing the
referencing is careful to explain the context in which he or she is
referencing the I-D (which they should do regardless) I'm not sure we're
helping the reader with an "the I-D being referenced was older than six
months at the time this RFC was published".

-Heather
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