Re: [xml2rfc] xml2rfc online: references to I-Ds and associated dates

[Julian Reschke <[e-mail]>]

On 12.07.2019 15:44, Carsten Bormann wrote:
> On Jul 12, 2019, at 15:40, Julian Reschke <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>
>> That seems to be a rather big change to be introduced without notice.
>>
>> I think the first thing that needs to happen is the RFC Style Guide
>> would need to say how to handle the format. Right now it says "year
>> month”, and this is what tools have been generating for ages.
>
> Well, keeping with the style guide could now be the onus of the author (i.e., author has to delete the day to fulfill the style guide).
> I wouldn’t like that too much, as it makes automatically generated references (e.g., from a DOI) harder to use.
>
> Still, I have no idea what the semantics of the style guide are here when the interchange format is XML — the full date might be there, but the formatting tools don’t show it.  What is governed by the style guide?
> ...

The style guide says that RFCs and Internet Drafts are to be shown
without date:

<https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7322#section-4.8.6.3>
<https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7322#section-4.8.6.4>

And...:

<https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-flanagan-7322bis-03#section-4.8.6.2>
<https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-flanagan-7322bis-03#section-4.8.6.3>
<https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-flanagan-7322bis-03#section-4.8.6.4>

FWIW, it is silent about April 1st RFCs, but see:

<https://github.com/rfc-format/draft-iab-xml2rfc-v3-bis/issues/30>
(April 2018)

It is *also* silent about other kinds of references.

In a perfect world, the formatter would not need any knowledge specific
to what is being references. But that currently collides with the
reference database and the style guide.

Best regards, Julian