Note: I'm not subscribed to this ietf-822 list.
The non-ASCII headers document that used to be called MIME Part 2 is now
called MIME Part 3. I think this would be confusing to many. Many people
use the term "MIME Part 2 headers" or "MIME-2 headers".
Haven't heard this myself. The usual usage I hear is "1522 headers". Before the
RFC number was assigned it was "YYYY" ("XXXX" was the euphemism for MIME
Part I).
As a practical matter, however, the IETF deals with changed numbering all the
time and don't seem to have a problem with it. The entire RFC process
inherently assigns numbers to documents, these numbers can, and do, change all
the time, and people have to cope with this whether they like it or not.
In other words, I think this is a needless worry about something of little
consequence.
I would suggest either:
1. Call it MIME Part 2 as is it used to be, and give some other
document the name MIME Part 3.
Not possible. The ordering of the documents is very carefully worked out to
minimize (but not eliminate) forward references. It cannot be changed without
tons of work, and even with tons of work I'm reasonably sure that the result
would not make any sense.
2. Don't give them part numbers at all. Just give them more
descriptive names such as "MIME Non-ASCII Headers" or something like
that.
Well, you can take the numbers out of the titles, and perhaps the RFC
Editor should do that, but if you really are right about people calling
the parts by relative position numbers I would not expect this to make
any difference.
Put another way, if relative numbering really is used, people are just going to
have to live with change. And if relative number really isn't used, the titles
make no difference.
Ned