Guidelines for Reviewers of RFC Independent Submissions

Goals ¶

The Independent Submissions Editor (ISE) generally makes a publication decision based on the preponderance of competent reviews of drafts. As such, it's important to have good quality reviews from members of the community.

An independent submission review is meant to achieve two overarching goals:

1. Is the document appropriate for publication as an independent submission?

2. What improvements to the work should be made prior to publication?

Sometimes early work is not yet ready for publication but will be.

Who may submit a review? ¶

Anyone may submit a document review at any time prior to publication of an RFC. The Independent Submissions Editor (ISE) solicits specific individuals to review each document. The ISE requests that solicited reviews be completed within a month.

More reviews are always welcome, and are likely to improve the quality of both the documents under consideration and the series as a whole.

Reviews are accepted by email by the ISE.

Dissemination of Reviews ¶

All reviews (perhaps in summary) will be shared with the author(s), and many will be shared with the Independent Submissions Editorial Board (ISEB) for their information.

Unless a review is unsolicited or otherwise requested, the ISE will identify the reviewer to the author. It is expected that the review process will be both consultative and iterative, with an eye toward improving document quality.

Reviews may be posted publicly. If requested, your anonymity will be respected.

Contents of Reviews ¶

Questions that the ISE would like you to answer:

• Is the subject of this document relevant to the RFC Series?

  RFC 4846 provides details as to what is acceptable as an individual submission. Generally a draft must show that it is improving overall interoperability or otherwise provide some important insight or innovation relating to the Internet.

• Is this document technically competent, as far as you can tell?

  Are protocols and interfaces well specified? Is the specification safe and appropriate to deploy at scale? Is the document correct?

• Is this document in reasonable (not necessarily final) editorial shape?

  Works should concisely and clearly make their point. Was it easy to discern that point, and could you understand the approach being offered? Is the document complete?

• Are the abstract and introduction of this document reasonably clear?

  Does the introduction provide enough background for those Internet techies who may not be experts in the particular subject matter?
  Do the title and abstract fairly and accurately summarize the contents?

• Does the document make clear upfront how the specification does or does not relate to past or current IETF activities?

  An independent submission must not mislead the reader that it is a standard.

• How else can the document be improved?

  Any additional suggestions that you can make to improve the quality and clarity of the document will be welcomed by the ISE and in most cases will be welcomed by the author(s).

Questions? ¶

Feel free to contact the ISE rfc-ise@rfc-editor.org with any questions you may have about document reviews.