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Re: Call for review of proposed update to ID-Checklist

2008-07-09 08:49:37
Dear IESG,

From the discussion just prior to the recent appeal by John Klensin, it
was clear that the guidance regarding example domain names in IETF
documents provided in the ID-Checklist needed to be updated.  This point
was emphasized further during the discussion of the Klensin appeal.
Proposed text is now available.  Many thanks to Bert Wijnen for continuing
to edit the document.

The IESG solicits comments on this proposed update.  The IESG plans to
make a decision on this proposed text on 2008-07-17.  Please send
substantive comments to the ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org mailing lists by 
2008-07-16.
Exceptionally, comments may be sent to iesg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org instead.  In 
either
case, please retain the beginning of the Subject line to allow automated
sorting.

I agree with moving the 2606 check to "SHOULD".

It is often helpful to provide guidance about when SHOULDs might not be appropriate, when we have at least some experience where this is the case.

Were I to propose text, I think we have some experience that's popped up during the appeal discussion, as follows:

Addresses used in examples SHOULD use fully qualified domain names instead of literal IP addresses, and SHOULD use example fqdn's such as foo.example.com instead of real-world fqdn's. See [RFC2606] (Eastlake, D. and A. Panitz, "Reserved Top Level DNS Names," June 1999.) for example domain names that can be used.

The use of reserved example FQDNs, IP addresses or network prefixes may not be appropriate in all cases, including these (which have come up in practice):

o If an example describes a complex network topology, it could be appropriate to use a variety of names, IP addresses or prefixes that are easily disambiguated, so that the reader might follow the example more easily.

o If a standards-track document that does not use example names is advancing, it could be appropriate to minimize text changes as the document advances (the names used in the document have already been published, so the question should be whether there is additional damage that would result from the second publication on the standards track).

Thanks,

Spencer

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