Subject: Working Documents repository idea

From: Rich Parker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 01:10:41 -0700

I'm relatively new to the IETF mailing list, and have been amazed at
some of the thinking going on here - everyone seems to put their two
cents in on particular topics, and that makes sense to me.

All of the discussion about the RFC informational/experimental/standards
track confusion has gotten me to thinking:

There's this entire XML/HTML system for organizing the *CONCEPTS* of a
document, correct?  Why couldn't this architecture be established within
the documents themselves, by providing 'blind links' to future
documents.

For example, an Informational document inf1234 could contain hyperlinks
to experimental exp1234, standardards track std1234, and be ammended
with xxx1234.1, et cetera.  I am looking at this as maybe a way to make
the older documents more useful.  By creating a pre-defined hierarchy
for an open-ended numbering list, a site could provide older 'root'
document bases, as well as an easily identifiable way of determining
where the evolution of the document begins and ends.

In this schema, a document that expires without continuation's final
evolution could be reforwarded to a 'graveyard' document, possibly
containing researcher's reasons for not continuing the process.

I think that this would provide minimal overhead, with a significant
improvement for newcomer's comprehension of the standards system.  This
is coming from a relative newcomer to the ietf.  I have been a software
developer for over 15 years, but left the breadboard systems of the
1980's for database and vertical applications work, and have just
returned to internet-related development in the past 4 years.  It was a
significant hill to climb to understand the document layout at the
beginning, and I am proposing developing a discussion group on the idea
of making the standards, and their legacy origins, easier for non-ietf
members to understand.

Just a thought

Rich Parker
Software Engineer
Sculptor Developmental Techologies, Inc.