Re: [xml2rfc] RFC Bibtex format doi numbering incorrect

[Henrik Levkowetz <[e-mail]>]

Hi John,

On 2017-05-30 02:33, John Levine wrote:
> In article <[e-mail]> you write:
>>So you are saying that even if the RFC-Editor wished to define and publish
>>an algorithmic mapping between RFC numbers and DOI identifiers, they would
>>not be permitted to do so?
> 
> Not unless they could persuade the IAB to change RFC 7669.  Since that would
> be a bad idea, I doubt they would do so.
> 
> What is the problem with looking up DOIs the same way we look up the
> title, abstract, and umpteen other chunks of text in a reference?
> Everyone else in the world does it.  Why are we so bleeping special?

In general, there's no problem in that.  There _is_ a problem in not even being
able to talk about when that might or might not be feasible, and how to handle
such a situation.  There is also a problem that there does not seem to be an
authoritative URL for such lookups.

May I point out that even when you quoted 7669, the quote did not show an easy
way to look up the correct DOI for a given RFC number?  If there's no clearly
publicised resource which lets you programmatically look up the DOI for each or
all RFCs, permitting authoritative information and easy local caching, there's
no wonder if toolmakers starts to think in terms of algorithmic derivation of
the DOIs for RFCs.

I know a few places I could go to get DOI information for RFCs, but should the
knowledge I have about URLs in this space be required?  And how authoritative
are the various resources I might think of?

Personally, I'm going to use my knowledge here to correct the datatracker's
bibtex record, but that doesn't resolve the general issue above.


	Henrik