Subject: Eliminate Informational RFCs

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 08:52:03 -0600 (MDT)

> From: "Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <[email-masked]>

> ...
> > Gresham's Law says essentially that if you don't block or inhibit some
> > sources of input, the bad input will make the good extinct.
>
> Grsham's Law applied to money.  It says that, for example, if there
> are two coins with the same nominal value, say $1, but different
> intrinsic value, such as being made of silver and of base metal, that
> people will prefer to spend the coins with a lower intrinsic value and
> horde the ones with a greater intrinsic value.  This is true and base
> metal "silver dollars" have driven actual silver dollars out of
> circulation in the US but I don't think it applies to IDs nor have I
> seen evidence that people are hording good idea because there are low
> quality IDs being posted.

Gresham's Law does not say that people horde the good money indefinitely,
but that they treat it like bullion and take it out of circulation.  What
happens to bullion?--it often gets made into coins.  The gold and silver
in the old coins did not permanently disappear, but reappeared in new
coins mixed with more base metal.  That suggests an analogy for what
is happening with I-D's, but not what I was thinking.

> ...
> I think this has much more to do with the growth of the IETF.  That's
> a separate issue and perhaps the IETF should not be trying to do so
> much in so many areas but as the volume and variety of work
> increases, it is entirely reasonable that , on average, even the most
> knowledgeable and enthusiastic participants review and contribute to a
> smaller percentage of the work.

No, it's a restatement of nature of the growth.  Everyone has heard of
the IETF, and has decided to bring their--ah--issues and concerns.

>  ...
> > Or yet another, what percentage of I-D's eventually appear as RFC's?
> > What percentage of Informational RFC's are ever implemented or even
> > read after publication?  (the last value might be approximated by
> > looking at statistics from FTP servers such as venera.isi.edu;
> > count fetches of individual RFC's.)
>
> Some statistics would be interesting.

yes.

> The theory, as some have advocated, that it should take approval by an
> IAB or IESG member or WG (co-)chair for a draft to be published seems
> silly to me.  First of all, it leaves out the most obvious approver,
> the RFC-Editor (see the many draft-rfced- drafts).

Trivially fixed.

>                                                     Second, with such
> a huge body of potential approvers, it will have very little effect in
> reducing technically "bad" drafts.  What is really does is increase the
> cost of submitting a draft, not by imposing a monetary fee, but by
> imposing a mostly empty bureaucratic step.  It will discourage some
> good drafts whose authors don't want the hassle.  And it will have
> little effect on authors of bad drafts that are willing to put in 
> some work shopping around for approval.

Yes, you're probably right.

Here's an alternate proposal; eliminate the Informational catagory
of RFC's.

> Part of the IETF's success has come from being able to, on average,
> move faster than other organizations.  Lets not pour glue in the
> gears unless it is absolutely necessary.

The old IETF had a lot of glue, starting with its anonymity.
The new IETF has a lot of glue, starting with the glut of drafts and
the widespread delusion that anyone can get an influential RFC published.
Do you remember 10 or 15 years ago when people would not believe you when
you pointed out that any reasonable idea could be published as an RFC?
Now people think the idea need not be reasonable to be published.

Maybe it's hopeless.

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]

---

From: "Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 13:10:38 -0400

From:  Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date:  Mon, 23 Aug 1999 08:52:03 -0600 (MDT)
Message-Id:  <[email-masked]>
To:  [email-masked]
>Here's an alternate proposal; eliminate the Informational catagory

Many Informational RFCs are published by Working Groups, etc.  Perhaps
you mean individual Informational RFCs.  But, while individual IDs get
hardly any screening, this is not at all true for RFCs.  What started
out as the techncial and editorial judgement of the RFC-Editor and
then migrated to light IESG review to determine there is no conflict
with existing or proposed WGs and that the proposed RFC isn't
obviously bogus has now migrated further to what is at least a medium
weight review by the IESG of every individual Informational and
Experimental draft heading for RFC.  The only problem with this is the
effort required on the part of the IESG and the question of just what
criterion they are using.  While I'm sure the RFC-editor provides a
useful final check, the theoretic independence of the RFC-editor in
technical quality issues and the like has pretty much vanished, except
perhaps for April 1st RFCs.

I have submitted serveral individual Informational RFCs and I have not
felt the review by the IESG, suggesed changes, or suggested IESG notes
to be added was unreasonable.  All this delays the RFC process but
increases its quality.  (And, as far as I know, none of my individual
submissions has been "abused" for marketing purposes.}

>Maybe it's hopeless.

If so, it would certainly save a lot of bandwidth to stop worrying so
much about it.

>Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]

Donald

---

From: "Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 13:10:38 -0400

Donald