Subject: Re: WG Chairs' training/information/resources?

From: Frank Kastenholz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2002 15:25:29 -0500

>>
>>> There have been a lot of complaints about the normative/informative 
>>> references split.  The odd thing is that the purpose of the split is 
>>> speed up RFC processing -- it avoids long queue holds while 
>>> waiting for non-normative I-Ds to be ready.
>>
>>Yup, but it is the old transparency thing again.  It was being enforced
>>before it was announced.  It was not discussed before it was announced.
>>There was no simple explaination, like 'It makes the RFC editor's job
>>easier, it gives addtional clues to the readers about which references
>>are important.  Here is a quick example / use case so that authors
>>who have perform a split on existing documents have something to
>>base their work on.'

If the I* can not even put into place a relatively 
simple and innocuous policy, one that has no real
effect on the work being done, or on the technical
quality of our results, such as the normative/
informative one, without having an IETF-wide 
discussion and consensus building exercise then
we are all doomed.

Enforcement before announcement and grandfathering
are different matters.

Frank Kastenholz

---

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2002 15:15:12 -0500

In message <[email-masked]>, joh
[email-masked] writes:
>Hi Steve,
>> In other words, though the split has caused one problem, it was in an 
>> attempt to solve another.  I think it's helped.
>
>I think it is a good thing, but the process to do the good thing was
>flawed.  To me, that is what many folks are complaining about.
>

We hear you.

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb (me)
		http://www.wilyhacker.com ("Firewalls" book)