Subject: Re: What to do with URLs in IETF docs? (was: RE: Citation bug in RFC 2425)

From: "John Border" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 09:50:59 -0500

I am wondering if the draft encountered was the PILC PEP draft since that
draft has some "naked" URLs in it.  (It is not clear because the PILC PEP draft
URLs do not references documents and I am not sure of the original context of
this comment.)

    The PILC PEP draft references are naked because there is no specific
document to reference so there is no author, title, date, etc.  Basically, they
are related to the implementation examples section of the draft and cite
product examples, pointing to company web site for details on the products.
 When I first put these in, I solicited advice on whether they were
appropriate.  I was told that they are not ideal but were acceptable if no
alternative exists.  The only alternative I could come up with was marketing
documentation from the companies and I found this less palatable than just
referencing the web sites.

    So, my question is, are the references in the PILC PEP draft acceptable or
not?  Reading the email message I am responding to, I thought of another
compromise solution which is to mention the companies by name and include their
web site URLs in the running text but leave them out of the reference section.
 But, it is not clear whether or not mentioning companies by name (even in an
example implementations section) is a good idea either...

								John

On Nov 5,  9:36am, Spencer Dawkins wrote:
> Subject: RE: What to do with URLs in IETF docs? (was: RE: Citation bug in
>
> Oh, yeah. I agree completely - whatever we do with a URL, it should be in
> addition to relatively-normal-looking reference description (Author, Title,
> Date, published-in, ISBN numbers, etc.). The URL should be a shortcut, not a
> replacement.
>
> Bare URLs are MAYBE ok in "did you see this morning's Dilbert" e-mail.
> Anything else is just gross!
>
> Spencer
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Mitton [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Friday, November 05, 1999 10:33 AM
> To: Dawkins, Spencer [RICH1:2011-I:EXCH]; [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: What to do with URLs in IETF docs? (was: RE: Citation bug
> in RFC 2425)
>
>
> I ran into a "naked" URL as a reference in someone's draft recently, and I
> don't like it at all.  I would like to insist that all references to
> include an Author, Title, and Date as minimum, then some information about
> the publication details which could include a URL.  A dead URL with no info
> on what it was, or how to maybe track down an equivalent copy is totally
> useless.
>
>          Dave.
>
> [ Attachment (application/x-html): ".prt21363sbbbb" 1953 bytes
>   Encoded with "quoted-printable" ]
>-- End of excerpt from Spencer Dawkins

---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 08 Nov 1999 11:18:01 -0500

At 09:50 08.11.99 -0500, John Border wrote:

>document to reference so there is no author, title, date, etc.  Basically, 
>they are related to the implementation examples section of the draft and cite

One example from draft-ietf-pilc-pep-00.txt:

    [SPACENET]  http://www.spacenet.com/

Referring text:

    There is no one dominant PEP implementation used with VSAT networks.
    Each VSAT network vendor tends to implement their own version of PEP,
    integrated with the other features of their VSAT product.  [HNS] and
    [SPACENET] describe VSAT products with integrated PEP capabilities.

This is obviously insufficient to track down the information 3 years later, 
given the frequency of buyouts, mergers, splits and renamings that plague 
this industry.

A little more complete reference could have been

    [SPACENET] Spacenet Inc, VSAT technology vendor based in Virginia, US,
        owned (1999) by Gilat Technologies, Israel. Website at
        http://www.spacenet.com/

This gives you enough keywords that Alta Vista and friends can probably 
rescue you from the loss of the main URL.
Which I think is what the community is looking for.

                            Harald A

--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, Maxware, Norway
[email-masked]