[rfc-i] What, never!?

[Alfred Hönes]

At Tue Feb 16 10:59:40 PST 2010, Bob Braden wrote:

> As you know, RFCs never change once published.  However, the RFC-online
> process, that has been re-entering the "lost" early RFCs, brings up an
> exception.
>
> We recently got an Errata report for RFC 68, an RFC-online document that
> has been restored. We have generally tried hard to avoid NEW errors
> creeping into the restored documents, but in the case of RFC 68 we failed.
>
> Policy: an errata report for an error that existed in the original
> version of a restored RFC will be retained as an erratum and the error
> will be left in the repository.  However, if the errata report specifies
> a transcription error that was added during restoration of the document
> online, then the RFC Editor will change the restored document to remove
> the transcription error.
>
> Thus, the RFC Editor will fix RFC 68 and delete the corresponding errata
> report.
>
> Bob Braden
> Acting RFC Series Editor

Bob,

This policy indeed seems correct and justified, as has been confirmed
on this list by others.

I'd also like to thank you RFC Editor folks for quickly recovering
the missing text in the newly published transcription of RFC 97.

>From your policy I tentatively derive a corollary:

   Reports of flaws in _transcriptions_ of historic RFCs SHOULD NOT
   be reported via the RFC Errata pages, but preferably via email
   to rfc-editor(at)rfc-editor.org .
   This recommendation applies to RFCs for which a facsimile PDF is
   available online or for which the reporter has access to an original
   document or a copy, so that the reporter can make the distinction
   between originary flaws and flaws in the ASCII transcription.

Is that conclusion reasonable ?

Kind regards,
  Alfred HÎnes.

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| TR-Sys Alfred Hoenes   |  Alfred Hoenes   Dipl.-Math., Dipl.-Phys.  |
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