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Re: RFC2821bis-01 Issue 4: Client actions on receipt of 4yz and 5yz codes

2007-04-02 23:26:00

John C Klensin wrote:
In RFC 2821bis-01, Section 4.2.1 (Reply Code Severities and Theory), in
the description of the generic 4yz category, described the desired
action in terms of what the client "is encouraged to" do.  I was
persuaded in an off-list exchange that this can reasonably be changed to
"SHOULD" and -01 reflects that change.   For 5yz, there was a similar
construction that indicates that the client "is discouraged from"
repeating the request.  I was less confident about changing that to
"SHOULD NOT", so the "is discouraged" text remains in -01.

Question: Should the 5yz description  be changed to use "SHOULD NOT".  
If not, is "SHOULD" in the 4yz description reasonable?

To summarize the comments that have been received onlist:

Wording for 4yz:
        leave as "is encouraged"        0
        leave as "SHOULD"               0
        MAY is better wording           1

Wording for 5yz:
        leave as "is discouraged"       0
        SHOULD NOT is better wording    2
        could be MUST NOT               1
        MUST NOT is better wording      1

For 4yz, this does not show any consensus to change from SHOULD.

For 5yz, there is a trend to use SHOULD NOT instead of "is discouraged",
but the numbers are too low to really call a consensus yet.

Your pseudo-chair,
        Tony Hansen
        tony(_at_)att(_dot_)com

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