Re: [Rfcplusplus] Qualified labels

On 7/9/18 9:23 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I don't think there's any disagreement that better labels are
> desirable. I do think this would all be a lot simpler if we
> could just agree to move to a single-stage standards track,
> but since we must support status changes within the standards
> track, including obsoletion, we are forced to have external
> labels that are not in the archived format. That's an opportunity
> as well as a challenge. So here's a proposal:
>
> 1) Continue to use the RFC series as today for multiple purposes.
> But recognise more clearly that the number is an archival reference.
>
> 2) For all normal purposes, including citations, use a *qualified*
> label. Rather than writing a formal definition, there's an example
> of each qualifier below.
>
> An advantage is that this can be retrofitted straightforwardly
> to *all* RFCs, indexes, citation libraries, etc.
If we were to pursue this path:

That's not quite straightforward. It's easy if you just snapshot the 
current qualifiers, but if you want to be historically correct, it's 
going to take some non-straightforward work. It would also need a 
decision about edges like the following (both for handling what has 
happened, and what could happen in the future):

Would RFC5249-INFO and RFC5249-PS be different documents, or aliases for 
the same document? (I assume having RFC5249-INFO disappear from the 
archival record would be unacceptable). How would a user finding 
RFC5249-INFO learn about RFC5249-PS? (And a string of very familiar 
questions would follow here).
>   And it
> could be removed just as easily if it proves to be a problem
> rather than a solution.
>
> RFC8200-STD (or RFC8200-STD86)
> RFC8414-PS
> RFC5681-DS
> RFC2026-BCP (or RFC2026-BCP9)
>
> RFC7557-EXPT
> RFC8394-INFO  (for IETF informationals)
> RFC7663-IAB
> RFC7575-RSCH  (for IRTF informationals)
> RFC8351-INDEP (for Independent informationals)
>
> RFC2460-OBS
> RFC1128-UNK
> RFC1130-HIST
>
> Regards
>      Brian
>
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