Subject: IESG Statement on Document Shepherds

From: IESG Secretary <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2010 09:57:25 -0700 (PDT)

This statement provides guidance from the IESG on selection of a
Document Shepherd for documents from IETF working groups and documents
from individuals.

RFC 4858 defines the role of the Document Shepherd for documents from
IETF working groups, and it also says:

   The Document Shepherd is usually a chair of the working group that
   has produced the document. In consultation with the Responsible Area
   Director, the chairs may instead decide to appoint the working group
   secretary as the responsible Document Shepherd.

Experience has shown that a successful Document Shepherd need not be the
working group chair or secretary. In fact, the IESG encourages the
working group chair to select an active working group participant that
has strong understanding of the document content, is familiar with the
document history, and is familiar with the IETF standards process. The
Document Shepherd of a working group document should not be an author or
editor of the document.

Not all individual submissions have a Document Shepherd other than an
author or editor of the document. When there is one, the Document
Shepherd is selected by the Responsible Area Director in consultation
with the document authors or editors.

The Document Shepherd prepares a publication request write-up. The
template for the write-up can be found here:

For working group documents:

http://www.ietf.org/iesg/template/doc-writeup.html

For individual documents:

http://www.ietf.org/iesg/template/individual-doc-writeup.html