Subject: Guidelines for internet-draft documents

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 05:00:00 -0700

The IESG recently had a discussion on how to improve the ability of
internet draft authors to predict what will become of their documents once
they are sent to us. The result of that was a web page, the merger of a lot
of commentary from various sources, which I ran by a number of recent
authors of internet drafts for their comments. The feedback was mostly
positive - folks felt that the discussion was beneficial.

If you are writing internet drafts, you may find it useful reading. It is
posted at http://www.ietf.org/ID-nits.html

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From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 15:00:42 +0100 (BST)

On Wed, 28 Apr 1999, Fred Baker wrote:

> they are sent to us. 

Some regularly-updated statistics on the success rate/time to
review-and-publication of internet-drafts (as individual submissions
or as wg-endorsed drafts) for informational/bcp/standards track, the
time of process between last calls and appearance of RFCs across
various areas/groups etc would help greatly with such author
predictions. 

That's the sort of information that I was expecting to find on:

http://www.ietf.org/ID-nits.html

based on your description above (as opposed to 'I predict my draft
will be in limbo for an indeterminate amount of time'), but didn't.

Such information could be open to abuse, but strikes me as very useful
in showing How The Process Works and in encouraging new technologies
to go for drafts/public descriptions early to decrease deployment
before review/standardisation. 

Worth collating and providing?

Cheers,

L.

"Let's see; I'm submitting a draft under my own name as an individual
 submission; statistics show that my best chance of getting through
 the process is to go for informational and submit for April 1st!"

> The result of that was a web page, the merger of a lot

<[email-masked]>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>

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From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 15:00:42 +0100 (BST)

Cheers,

L.

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 17:38:16 -0400

> various areas/groups etc would help greatly with such author

to be at all meaningful, it would need to be a histogram.  a very few
drafts take a very long time; those would skew the average.

and I would want to caution about making predictions based on this -
the time it takes to get a document through the process has a LOT to do 
with the length and quality of the document, how controversial it is,
the level of IETF experience of the author or wg chair, whether it 
encompasses multiple areas, and the workload (and response time) 
of both the author/wg and the ADs for that area.  and individual 
documents, especially those intended for the standards-track, are 
more likely to be subject to delays than those from working groups,
because the ADs will take more time to make sure they get adequate
review.

also, what do you want to measure?  time between first draft and 
publication?  (or should we reset the clock for each new draft?)
time spent waiting for the AD to review the document?  time spent 
waiting for the author to respond to review feedback?  time waiting 
for the IESG to discuss the document once it is on the agenda?  
time in the RFC Editor's queue?

the point is, this is a complex process with lots of state
transitions and feedback loops, and the task is in different 
people's hands at different times.  any single measurement is 
likely to be misleading.

Keith

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 17:38:16 -0400

Keith