[rfc-i] Proper status for pre-IETF RFCs currently with "unknown"

[John C Klensin]

--On Sunday, November 06, 2011 08:09 -0800 Joe Touch
<touch at isi.edu> wrote:

>> So I propose that we ask the RFC Editor to create a new
>> category, called, e.g., "ARPANET".  The list of categories in
>> RFC 2026 need not be changed (unless the IETF Stream wants to
>> use it for IETF Stream documents) because, seen as above, the
>> categories in 2026 are relevant to the IETF Stream.  We then
>> reclassify all of the ARPANET-period Network Working Group
>> documents, or at least those that are listed as "UNKNOWN",
>> into that category.
> 
> For exactly the reasons *you* state above, this is completely
> inappropriate.

If the RFC Editor does it, rather than the IESG/IETF doing it, I
don't understand why.   Certainly the status of those documents
is not, in any sense, "unknown".  We know what they are; they
just don't have any status at all wrt the IETF steam other than
"not in it".

> I appreciate and agree with the goal of differentiating groups
> of RFCs. 
> 
> That requires creating names/streams for NEW RFCs. Suggestions
> to add/modify/reclassify these old, pre-IESG RFCs need to be
> off the table.

Note that they have already been [re]classified once because
classifications are a relatively new development in the life of
the series.

> I appreciate the problem it causes. It requires the IESG (and
> the IETF) to create its own series and names, which need to
> earn their own reputation independently. That time is long
> overdue, IMO.

If I understand you, you are suggesting that we call the IETF
Stream today be separated from the RFC Series entirely?  I think
the time at which that might have been possible is long gone and
that it is a far more radical suggestion than classifying a
bunch of early documents out of "unknown".  

YMMD, but I don't believe that discussion is even worth having
today (even though I would prefer it to notions of getting rid
of the Independent Stream).

    john