CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_ Reported by Karen Roubicek/BBN AGENDA 1. Review Charter, Objectives, Goals. 2. Review current version of bibliography, assign remaining tasks. 3. Discuss remaining issues (appropriateness of categories, keywords, RFC format) 4. Determine publication schedule. 5. Discuss maintenance of bibliography, update procedures 6. Discuss distribution. 7. Determine action items for next meeting, future projects. MINUTES The meeting began with a review of the charter of the USER-DOC Working Group, and a check to see if the group was meeting its goals. A draft of the bibliography was successfully generated in December, thanks particularly to the efforts of the "Editorial Board". The Board met twice since the last IETF using the videoteleconferencing facilities at SRI, ISI, DARPA and BBN. The current draft of the bibliography is significantly more complete than the previous version. The group went through the individual entries and made comments. There is still a small amount of additional research as well as some additions and corrections that are required before the bibliography is complete. These specific assignments will be done by members of the Editorial Board. The question of multiple repositories for RFCs was discussed. Although there are collections of RFCs available on several hosts in the Internet, the group decided that in the interest of centralizing access and ensuring that readers would be able to find all the RFCs mentioned in the "basic beige" list, only the main collection at SRI would be listed in the RFC section (Section 12). However, the Introduction to the bibliography will be revised to state that RFCs are available elsewhere (e.g., Merit, CSNET) In discussing which items should be included or excluded from certain sections, the group decided that some form of disclaimer should be put into the Introduction. The concern is that an organization or author might complain if their entry were not included and the group wanted to state up front that the bibliography is not all-inclusive but rather a sampling of what resources are available. Karen Armstrong will write the disclaimer. On a similar topic, Jack Hahn expressed concern that even though the bibliography covers selected "basic materials", there is still a need for a short list, of perhaps 4 or 5 entries, for those users who don't have the time to go through the entire bibliography. Jack Hahn will provide Karen Bowers with a suggested list and she will change the Introduction accordingly. 1 All the attendees concurred on the value and need for an online, searchable version of the bibliography. However, the more pressing need is to make the document available as soon as possible, so the group agreed that a refer and formatted version will be available first, while a small group (Lee Oattes and Mary Stahl) will pursue the options for an online searchable form. The current draft of the bibliography contains keywords, but there were strong feelings that those keywords are not effective and should not be included in this hardcopy version. Mary Stahl and Berlin Moore, as members of the Keyword Committee, will spend some time looking for the correct set of keywords. For the correct formatting of the bibliography for submission as an RFC in the FYI series, Joyce Reynolds referred the Editorial Committee to RFC 1111, Request for Comments on Request for Comments. Some organizational issues were raised, including the need to break up the Introduction for clarity's sake. Chapter 10, Online Files, was viewed as misleading, because several of the other documents listed throughout the bibliography are available online. This chapter was intended to refer to documents that were exclusively online. As an alternative, the items listed in Chapter 10 will be merged into the other chapters according to category and a separate appendix will list all online documents. The publication schedule is as follows: o March 7 - research/writing assignments due o March 21 - Formatted version of bibliography to be put into Internet Drafts Directory o March-May IETF - Comment period o May IETF - Submission as formal FYI RFC Mary Stahl, Tracy LaQuey and Karen Roubicek will be responsible for maintaining the bibliography. As was decided at the last IETF meeting, the bibliography will be updated annually. In addition to the bibliography's availability online in the RFC repositories (at the NIC and in the shadow directories elsewhere on the Internet), the group brought up the option of additional hardcopy distribution. Mary Stahl will pursue the possibility of SRI providing and distributing paper copies and will let the group know what price the NIC would charge. Final points in the discussion led into topics to be taken up in the User Services Working Group, including an RFC about distribution procedures for documents and information, standards for document formatting and retrieval, and the need for other networking documents (e.g. comprehensive glossary of networking terms) in the future. 2 ATTENDEES Armstrong, Karen armstrong@sds.sdsc.edu Bowers, Karen L. kbowers@nri.reston.va.us Enger, Robert M. enger@sccgate.scc.com Hahn, Jack hahn@umd5.umd.edu Jacobsen, Ole ole@csli.stanford.edu Moore, Berlin prepnet@andrew.cmu.edu Oattes, Lee oattes@utcs.utoronto.ca Reynolds, Joyce K. jkrey@venera.isi.edu Roubicek, Karen roubicek@nnsc.nsf.net Smith, Pat psmith@merit.edu Stahl, Mary stahl@nisc.sri.com Sturtevant, Allen sturtevant@ccc.nmfecc.gov Wobus, John jmwobus@suvm.acs.syr.edu Yuan, Aileen aileen@gateway.mitre.org 3