Re: [rsab] Preparing for RSAB's first document

Hi Alexis, hi all,

Thanks for starting this! I wanted to sent something earlier but was busy with other things. However, this was finally on my todo list for today.

I will send a separate mail soon and propose a more detailed process but please see some answers below.

> On 13. Mar 2024, at 02:02, Alexis Rossi <rsce@rfc-editor.org> wrote:
> 
> In anticipation of getting our first document from RSWG [1], it seems like we should start contemplating how the RSAB portion of the process will play out.
> 
> 
> 
> ** Notice & Comments - where do they live long term? **
> 
> RFC 9280 defines some things about how notices and comments should be presented/archived:
> 
> - "The RSAB shall announce plans and agendas for their meetings on the RFC Editor website and by email to the RSWG at least a week before such meetings." (Section  3.1.2.6)
> - "Notices are also to be made available and archived on the RFC Editor website.” (Section  3.2.3)
> - "Comments will be publicly archived on the RFC Editor website."  (Section  3.2.3)
> 
> Since this was written, it seems like a lot of functionality moved to Datatracker, so the requirement that things be on rfc-editor.org may now be out of date (obviously we’re already not doing the first one for agendas). The spirit here seems to be “all records are publicly available where the community can easily find them.” I’m hoping the solution is to have a page about RSAB on rfc-editor.org that points to Datatracker, or something or similar (rather than needing to update 9280 to be correct/less specific about implementation details). 
> 
> As a specific answer to “where” notice and comments live long term, I think they live in the mail archive?
> 
Yes, I would interpret this the same way that we keep the record in the datatracker and comments in the RSAB mail archive. I think it would be good to put some information on the RFC editor webpage that links to the ressources! I don’t think we need to update RFC9280 for that as long as it is clear where to find the information and there is a public record.

> 
> ** Notice & Comments - which lists? **
> 
> Question #1 - does this document have "the potential to significantly modify long-standing policies or historical characteristics of the RFC Series” (section 3.2.3), thus requiring “extra care”? If so, what “extra care” is required?

I would say by default there is usually no extra care required. I think that this part is in the doc for the case of a drastic change where we want to do more than the “usual” thing. As I said I will send an extra to make a proposal for the “usual” thing, however, I guess for every document before we send the call we should make a quick review if any additional outreach would make sense.

> 
> Question #2 - To which email lists (or other places) should we provide notice? Rfc-interest is specified in 9280, as well as saying "RSAB members should also send a notice to the communities they directly represent (e.g., the IETF and IRTF)” (section 3.2.3). Are there other lists we should post notice to?

I will make a concrete proposal in my next mail.

> 
> Question #3 - Should we require that Comments only be sent to one particular list for the sake of record keeping? Should that be rsab@rfc-editor.org?

Yes, I would propose to send the reply-to to rsab@rfc-editor.org <mailto:rsab@rfc-editor.org> for all calls. rsab@rfc-editor.org <mailto:rsab@rfc-editor.org> has a public archive, so I think that is fine.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ** Balloting **
> 
> Jean pointed out that balloting should be implemented on Datatracker (per https://github.com/ietf-tools/datatracker/issues/4332). Having never used the balloting system before, I guess I’m assuming that this will work as desired (I don’t know where it is or how to test it). Do we need to do any testing to make sure it functions as needed?

There is the dev instance of the datatracker (there was also the sandbox but that is currently not in use and redirects to the dev instance). So got to dt-main.dev.ietf.org <http://dt-main.dev.ietf.org/> (or sandbox.ietf.org <http://sandbox.ietf.org/>). There you can log in with anybody’s email address to get their view and simply use “password” as password. E.g. you can log in as RSWG chair by using Pete’s or Russ’ email address. All changes you do there will be reset after a while, so the instance is back in sync with the real datatracker and also no emails will be send (but there is a notice that tells you which emails would have been sent in the real instance).

I just tested this by logging in as Pete and going to the page of the 7997bis draft. There is already a tap for the RSAB evaluation but I don’t see a button to request RSAB review and also no RSAB state. I’m in touch with Robert now. For anything where we don’t have datatracker support we have to send emails manually. We can also look at this together in Brisbane if you want!

Mirja

> 
> Alexis
> 
> [1] https://github.com/paulehoffman/draft-rswg-rfc7990-updates
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