Subject: [rfc-i] getting heads up on RFC-editor state for a draft

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2022 10:26:20 +0100

In some other fora we discussed how entry into AUTH48 state is
non-deterministic, and if authors could have a "maybe next week" heads up so
that they could set aside some time, that would probably help.

I suffer from enough narcism that I use followthatpage on my DT profile page
to learn about changes.  I'd really like to poll some RFC-editor Q state on a
single document.  We have, for instance:
  https://www.rfc-editor.org/current_queue.php#draft-richardson-mud-qrcode

But, it is really the entire queue presented.  I thought I could judge how
soon the document would reach the top by... how far it was from the top.

If I poll:
  https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-richardson-mud-qrcode/history/

I think that I get some useful information, but no prediction.
Maybe I'm missing something.

--
Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>, Sandelman Software Works
 -= IPv6 IoT consulting =-

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From: Jean Mahoney <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2022 16:44:29 -0500

Hi Michael,

> that they could set aside some time, that would probably help.

[JM] This is not quite a "maybe next week" notification, but when a 
document enters RFC-EDITOR state, an email is sent to the authors. The 
RPC tries to move a document from RFC-EDITOR state to AUTH48 within 3 
weeks (some documents may take longer, others can be processed more 
quickly. It just depends on document complexity, any cluster 
dependencies, and editor availability [1]).

The RPC is discussing providing more information in these email 
notifications so authors will have an general idea of when AUTH48 will 
occur.

> soon the document would reach the top by... how far it was from the top.

[JM] The default sort order for the Current Queue page is by the common 
sequence of the states (EDIT -> RFC-EDITOR -> AUTH48) then by weeks in 
queue. Even if the sort order was reversed, it would be hard to 
determine a "top" of the Current Queue page because the queue is served 
by several editors.

> Maybe I'm missing something.

[JM] You can take a look at the CurrQstats page [1] to get a feel for 
how long documents are in a given state. This may allow you to estimate 
when your document will enter AUTH48. You should check back for more 
current queue info when your document enters RFC-EDITOR state.

Best regards,

Jean

[1] Things are moving fairly quickly at the moment -- the average number 
of weeks in EDIT and RFC-EDITOR states is 1.7 and 1.2, respectively:  
https://www.rfc-editor.org/reports/CurrQstats.txt

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From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2022 23:14:46 +0100

On 22. Mar 2022, at 22:44, Jean Mahoney <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> [1] Things are moving fairly quickly at the moment -- the average number of weeks in EDIT and RFC-EDITOR states is 1.7 and 1.2, respectively:  https://www.rfc-editor.org/reports/CurrQstats.txt

Hi Jean,

this is amazing.

I used to take the transition to RFC-EDITOR state as my scheduling hint, but then there was a period when that started to take months (and of course not pure FIFO, so there was little predictive value).
Great to see we are back to a *very* short queue!

Beyond the author time scheduling issue, it is also interesting to see the actual AUTH48 time-so-far distribution (3.2 median, 8 average! Long-tailed indeed.) and AUTH48-DONE as well (5 and 13.5!).
These statistics don’t tell me how many of the latter dominating the 13.5 week (1/4 year) average are waiting for other documents to complete, but I guess that is most of them — the unproblematic ones are already published and don’t lower the average.

(The average MISSREF weeks (one year!) show a fundamental problem with normative references, but that is a much more complicated process issue.)

Grüße, Carsten

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From: Jean Mahoney <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2022 06:49:22 -0500

Hi Carsten,

> These statistics don’t tell me how many of the latter dominating the 13.5 week (1/4 year) average are waiting for other documents to complete, but I guess that is most of them — the unproblematic o…

[JM] You're right about the standalone RFCs: they don't linger in 
AUTH48-DONE. For these documents, AUTH48-DONE is for updating any IANA 
registries if needed and performing final checks before publishing, and 
these steps go pretty quickly. The documents with long AUTH48-DONE times 
are cluster docs waiting for other documents in their cluster to finish 
AUTH48.

The list of active clusters and their document states can be found here: 
https://www.rfc-editor.org/all_clusters.php

Currently there are 22 active clusters, with 16 of those having at least 
one MISSREF.

Best regards,

Jean