At 21:45 08/01/04, John C Klensin wrote:
A better answer would have been "the term 'request for comment' is
historical, dating from a time when the preferred way to make a formal
comment on a document involved writing another document, which then was
numbered into the series". That mechanism is still available, although
usually very slow. But documents that become RFCs are now first posted as
Internet Drafts (see http://www.ietf.org/ID); comments on those are both
solicited and, usually, handled very quickly.
Today, the RFC Series, despite retention of the original name and
numbering series, acts as a permanent, archival, repository of
information, decisions taken, and standards published. As such, documents
in the series are subjected to review and editing processes (which differ
somewhat depending on the type of document and are appropriate for
conventional references from conventional documents. Running
conversations, logs of comments, etc., are not well suited for that
archival and reference role, regardless of their other advantages and
disadvantages.
Could it not be useful to have a "List of Comments" (LOC) for each RFC?
Where experience about the RFC reading, testing and implementation could be
listed by the authors (or a successor) from experience and questions
received. It would avoid the same questions to be debated again and again
and it would help further thinking. These comments could start with a
summary of the WG debated issues, explaining the whys of some options. I
suppose the implementation would be easy enough since it would follow the
same numbering scheme and titles. Such a LOC being an updated appendix
could be reviewed and help preparing replacements.
jfc