[rfc-i] Better markup may get processed faster (was: Re: Proposed new RFC submission requirements)

["Martin J. Dürst"]

On 2012/05/28 11:47, Joe Touch wrote:

> On May 27, 2012, at 4:38 PM, Julian Reschke<julian.reschke at gmx.de>  wrote:

>> My argument is for a source format that contains sufficient information so that the processor can issue warnings when needed *and* can generate the optimal code.
>
>
> Source formats should be up to the author.
>
> All formats may need to have components checked. That need not be native to the format.

Well, let's just do a little thought experiment, and let's assume that 
there are two (source/input/submission) documents with (e.g.) ABNF in 
it. In one document, the ABNF is clearly marked as such. In the other 
document, the ABNF isn't marked up.

Let's for a moment abstract from why there is this difference. It may be 
that one author's tool makes it easy to add this information, but the 
other author's tool makes it difficult or impossible. It may also be 
that one author cares about this, but the other does not care. Or it may 
be a combination of these and potentially other reasons.

Now this document is being processed by fellow WG members, shepherds, WG 
chairs, ADs, IESG members, the RFC Editor and maybe others. Some of them 
will be checking the ABNF, either because that's what a checklist 
instructs them to do, or because it's what they like to do anyway when 
they look at a document. Obviously, with marked-up ABNF, a future 
idnit-like tool would just spit out: "ABNF checked, okay" (or some 
such). Without the necessary markup, the same tool might say "make sure 
to check ABNF by hand".

Would it be acceptable if this lead to documents where ABNF is marked up 
being processed faster than documents not having that markup? The delay 
could range between a few minutes (the time it takes to do the manual 
extraction/checking for a shepherd) and a few weeks (the time it takes 
for a shepherd or somebody else to drop the ball because they were 
annoyed at the document, or the author who couldn't care to add the markup).

Regards,   Martin.