Re: [Rfced-future] [IAB] Welcome to the RFC Editor Future Development Program

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

--On Tuesday, March 31, 2020 08:03 +1100 Mark Nottingham
<[e-mail]> wrote:

>> On 31 Mar 2020, at 7:37 am, Brian E Carpenter
>> <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> 
>> what are the basic principles
>> of the RFC series and its Editor's role? I'm not sure that
>> has really ever been properly written down as a separate
>> "mission statement" or whatever.
> 
> 
> One thing that occurred to me recently is that, while this
> program is defined with the following scope:
> 
>>  Discussion of changes to how the RFC Editor function is
>>  managed, staffed, and overseen are all within scope. 
> 
> It isn't said whether discussion of the RFC Series itself (and
> potential changes to it) are in scope. Defining the principles
> of the series seems like it's more the latter than the former.

Mark, I can't parse "latter and former" in the above.
 
> Could we (Eliot?) come to some determination about whether the
> latter is in scope or not for this program? I suspect having
> that well understood -- either way it goes -- will help
> considerably.

Definitely.  

As two tests of the scope question, I may not have correctly
understood the proposals but, if I have, various people
including yourself have suggested that IETF Standards Track
documents (presumably including both technical and procedural
BCP) and possibly all IETF Stream documents either become living
documents or be restructured so that each one is complete onto
itself rather than, as is typical, normatively referencing a
collection of others.   Independent of the merits of those ideas
(and other issues with them), such a change might call for a
radically different structure of the RFC Editor Function and
probably a different role and set of qualifications for the RSE.


I have also heard it suggested that, in the absence of an
incumbent RSE, this would be the right time to split the Series
up into separately-numbered series for each stream or for the
IETF stream separate from the others.  That, too, might require
a different structure and/or a different set of qualifications
for the RSE.

So, would those two examples be in scope or not?

thanks,
   john