PROTO Team H. Levkowetz Internet-Draft Ericsson Intended status: Informational D. Meyer Expires: April 25, 2007 Cisco/University of Oregon L. Eggert NEC A. Mankin October 22, 2006 Document Shepherding from Working Group Last Call to Publication draft-ietf-proto-wgchair-doc-shepherding-08 Status of this Memo By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt. The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. This Internet-Draft will expire on April 25, 2007. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006). Abstract This document describes methodologies that have been designed to improve and facilitate IETF document flow processing. It specifies a set of procedures under which a working group chair or secretary serves as the primary Document Shepherd for a document that has been Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Document Shepherding October 2006 submitted to the IESG for publication. Before this, the Area Director responsible for the working group has traditionally filled the shepherding role. A Document Shepherd's responsibilities include: o Providing the Document Shepherd Write-Up accompanying a document that is forwarded to the IESG when publication is requested. o During AD Evaluation by the Responsible Area Director, managing the discussion between the editors, the working group, and the Responsible Area Director. o During IESG evaluation, following up on all IESG feedback ("DISCUSS" and "COMMENT" items) related to the shepherded document. o Following up on IANA and RFC Editor requests in the post-approval shepherding of the document. In summary, a Document Shepherd continues to care for a shepherded document during its post-WG lifetime just as he or she has cared for it while responsible for the document in the working group. Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 2] Internet-Draft Document Shepherding October 2006 Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3. Process Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.1. Document Shepherd Write-Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 3.2. Document Shepherding during AD Evaluation . . . . . . . . 10 3.3. Document Shepherding during IESG Evaluation . . . . . . . 11 4. Shepherding the Document's IANA Actions . . . . . . . . . . . 14 5. Document Shepherding after IESG Approval . . . . . . . . . . . 15 6. When Not to Use the Document Shepherding Process . . . . . . . 16 7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 8. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 9. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 10. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Appendix A. Example Document Announcement Write-Ups . . . . . . . 18 A.1. Example Document Announcement Write-Up for draft-ietf-avt-rtp-midi-format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 A.2. Example Document Announcement Write-Up for draft-ietf-imss-ip-over-fibre-channel . . . . . . . . . . 19 Appendix B. Working Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 22 Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 3] Internet-Draft Document Shepherding October 2006 1. Introduction Early in 2004, the IESG undertook several experiments aimed at evaluating whether any of the proposed changes to the IETF document flow process would yield qualitative improvements in document throughput and quality. One such experiment, referred to as the "PROTO process" or "PROTO" (because it was created by the "PROcess and TOols" or PROTO [PROTO] team, is a set of methodologies designed to involve working group chairs or secretaries more directly in their documents' approval life cycle. In particular, the PROTO team focused on improvements to the part of a document's life cycle that occurs after the working group and document editor have forwarded it to the IESG for publication. By the end of 2004, the IESG had evaluated the utility of the PROTO methodologies based on data obtained through several pilot projects that had run throughout the year, and subsequently decided to adopt the PROTO process for all documents and working groups. This document describes this process. The methodologies developed and piloted by the PROTO team focus on the working group chair or secretary as the primary Document Shepherd. The primary objective of this document shepherding process is to improve document-processing throughput and document quality by enabling a partnership between the Responsible Area Director and the Document Shepherd. In particular, this partnership has the explicit goal of enfranchising the Document Shepherd while at the same time offloading a specific part of the follow-up work that has traditionally been responsibility of the Responsible Area Director. The Responsible Area Director has tens or many tens of documents to follow, while the Document Shepherd has only a few at a time. Flowing the responsibility to the working group level can ensure more attention and more timely response. Consequently, the document shepherding process includes follow-up work during all document-processing stages after Working Group Last Call, i.e., during AD Evaluation of a document, during IESG evaluation, and during post-approval processing by IANA and the RFC Editor. In these stages, it is the responsibility of the Document Shepherd to track and follow up on feedback received on a document from all relevant parties. The Document Shepherd is usually a chair of the working group that has produced the document. In consultation with the Responsible Area Director, the chairs may instead decide to appoint the working group secretary as the responsible Document Shepherd. The remainder of this document is organised as follows: Section 3 Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 4] Internet-Draft Document Shepherding October 2006 outlines the overall document shepherding process. Section 3.1 describes the Document Shepherd Write-Up that accompanies the publication request of a document. Section 3.2 describes the AD Evaluation shepherding process and Section 3.3 describes IESG DISCUSS shepherding. Finally, Section 6 describes those cases in which the document shepherding process should not be used. 2. Terminology The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14, RFC 2119 [RFC2119]. 3. Process Description The document shepherding process consists of the following tasks: o Providing the Document Shepherd Write-Up accompanying a document that is forwarded to the IESG when publication is requested, as described in Section 3.1. o During AD Evaluation of the document by the Responsible Area Director, managing the discussion between the editors, the working group and the Responsible Area Director, as described in Section 3.2. o During IESG evaluation, following up on all IESG feedback ("DISCUSS" and "COMMENT" items) related to the shepherded document, as described in Section 3.3. o Following up on IANA and RFC Editor requests as described in Section 4 and Section 5. The shepherd must keep the document moving forward, communicating about it with parties who review and comment it. The shepherd must obtain the working group's consensus for any substantive proposed changes. The shepherd is the leader for the document and for the working group, and maintains a critical and technical perspective. In summary, the Document Shepherd continues to care for a shepherded document during its post-WG lifetime just as he or she has done while responsible for the document in the working group. Before any document shepherding takes place, a single Document Shepherd MUST be identified for a document (he or she will be named in the Document Shepherd Write-Up) . Frequently, the chairs and the Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 5] Internet-Draft Document Shepherding October 2006 Responsible Area Director will decide that the working group will adopt the PROTO process for all their future documents. After that decision, the chairs, in consultation with the Responsible Area Director, decide on who should act as Document Shepherd for any given document. This is typically and by default one of the chairs of the working group. In consultation with the Responsible Area Director, the chairs MAY also decide to appoint the working group secretary as Document Shepherd for a given document. The Document Shepherd SHOULD NOT be an editor of the shepherded document. It is intended that the Document Shepherd role is filled by one person during the entire shepherding process. However, situations may occur when the Document Shepherd role may be reassigned to different persons during the lifetime of a document. It is up to the chairs and Responsible Area Director to identify situations when this may become necessary, and then consult to appoint a new Document Shepherd. It is important to note that the document shepherding process only applies to documents that are the product of a working group. It does not apply to documents that originate elsewhere. Additionally, Section 6 discusses other instances in which the document shepherding process does not apply. 3.1. Document Shepherd Write-Up When a working group decides that a document is ready for submission to the IESG for publication, it is the task of the Document Shepherd to complete a "Document Shepherd Write-Up" for the document. There are two parts to this task. First, the Document Shepherd answers questions (1.a) to (1.i) below to give the Responsible Area Director insight into the working group process that applied to this document. Note that while these questions may appear redundant in some cases, they are written to elicit information that the Responsible Area Director must be aware of (to this end, pointers to relevant entries in the WG archive are helpful). The goal here is to inform the Responsible Area Director about any issues that may have come up in IETF meetings, on the mailing list, or in private communication that they should be aware of prior to IESG evaluation of the shepherded document. Any significant issues mentioned in the questionnaire will probably lead to a follow-up discussion with the Responsible Area Director. The second part of the task is to prepare the "Document Announcement Write-Up" that is input to both the ballot for the IESG telechat and to the eventual IETF-wide announcement message. Item number (1.i) describes the elements of the Document Announcement Write-Up. Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 6] Internet-Draft Document Shepherding October 2006 A final sentence of the Document Announcement Write-Up, simply placed as a line at the end of the "Document Quality" section, can state the names of the Document Shepherd and the Responsible Area Director, because the announcement will not otherwise acknowledge them. The Document Shepherd SHOULD add this information and the Responsible Area Director SHOULD add it if it is not already there. Some examples of Document Announcement Write-Ups are included in Appendix A, and there are many more examples with subject lines such as "Protocol Action" and "Document Action" in the IETF-announce mailing list archive. (1.a) Who is the Document Shepherd for this document? Has the Document Shepherd personally reviewed this version of the document and, in particular, does he or she believe this version is ready for forwarding to the IESG for publication? (1.b) Has the document had adequate review both from key WG members and from key non-WG members? Does the Document Shepherd have any concerns about the depth or breadth of the reviews that have been performed? (1.c) Does the Document Shepherd have concerns that the document needs more review from a particular or broader perspective, e.g., security, operational complexity, someone familiar with AAA, internationalization or XML? (1.d) Does the Document Shepherd have any specific concerns or issues with this document that the Responsible Area Director and/or the IESG should be aware of? For example, perhaps he or she is uncomfortable with certain parts of the document, or has concerns whether there really is a need for it. In any event, if the WG has discussed those issues and has indicated that it still wishes to advance the document, detail those concerns here. (1.e) How solid is the WG consensus behind this document? Does it represent the strong concurrence of a few individuals, with others being silent, or does the WG as a whole understand and agree with it? (1.f) Has anyone threatened an appeal or otherwise indicated extreme discontent? If so, please summarise the areas of conflict in separate email messages to the Responsible Area Director. (It should be in a separate email because this questionnaire is entered into the ID Tracker.) Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 7] Internet-Draft Document Shepherding October 2006 (1.g) Has the Document Shepherd personally verified that the document satisfies all ID nits? (See http://www.ietf.org/ID-Checklist.html and http://tools.ietf.org/tools/idnits/). Boilerplate checks are not enough; this check needs to be thorough. Has the document met all formal review criteria it needs to, such as the MIB Doctor, media type and URI type reviews? (1.h) Has the document split its references into normative and informative? Are there normative references to documents that are not ready for advancement or are otherwise in an unclear state? If such normative references exist, what is the strategy for their completion? Are there normative references that are downward references, as described in [RFC3967]? If so, list these downward references to support the Area Director in the Last Call procedure for them [RFC3967]. (1.i) Has the Document Shepherd verified that the document IANA consideration section exists and is consistent with the body of the document? If the document specifies protocol extensions, are reservations requested in appropriate IANA registries? Are the IANA registries clearly identified? If the document creates a new registry, does it define the proposed initial contents of the registry and an allocation procedure for future registrations? Does it suggested a reasonable name for the new registry? See [I-D.narten-iana-considerations-rfc2434bis]. If the document describes an Expert Review process has Shepherd conferred with the Responsible Area Director so that the IESG can appoint the needed Expert during the IESG Evaluation? (1.j) Has the Document Shepherd verified that sections of the document that are written in a formal language, such as XML code, BNF rules, MIB definitions, etc., validate correctly in an automated checker? (1.k) The IESG approval announcement includes a Document Announcement Write-Up. Please provide such a Document Announcement Writeup? Recent examples can be found in the "Action" announcements for approved documents. The approval announcement contains the following sections: Technical Summary Relevant content can frequently be found in the abstract and/or introduction of the document. If not, this may be an indication that there are deficiencies in the abstract or introduction. Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 8] Internet-Draft Document Shepherding October 2006 Working Group Summary Was there anything in WG process that is worth noting? For example, was there controversy about particular points or were there decisions where the consensus was particularly rough? Document Quality Are there existing implementations of the protocol? Have a significant number of vendors indicated their plan to implement the specification? Are there any reviewers that merit special mention as having done a thorough review, e.g., one that resulted in important changes or a conclusion that the document had no substantive issues? If there was a MIB Doctor, Media Type or other expert review, what was its course (briefly)? In the case of a Media Type review, on what date was the request posted? Personnel Who is the Document Shepherd for this document? Who is the Responsible Area Director? The Document Shepherd MUST send the Document Shepherd Write-Up to the Responsible Area Director and iesg-secretary@ietf.org together with the request to publish the document. The Document Shepherd SHOULD also send the entire Document Shepherd Write-up to the working group mailing list. If the Document Shepherd feels that information which may prove to be sensitive, lead to possible appeals or is personal information needs to be written up, it SHOULD be sent in direct email to the Responsible Area Director, because the Document Shepherd Write-Up is published openly in the tracker. Question 1(f) of the Write-Up covers any material of this nature and specifies this more confidential handling. The Document Shepherd Write-Up is entered into the ID Tracker [IDTRACKER] as a "Comment." The name and email address of the Document Shepherd are entered into the ID Tracker, currently as a "Brief Note" (this may change in the future). The email address of the Document Shepherd MUST also be added to the "State or Version Change Notice To" field (typically the email addresses of all working group chairs, authors and the Secretary will be added). Entering the name and email of the Document Shepherd into the ID Tracker is REQUIRED to ensure that he or she will be copied on the email exchange between the editors, chairs, the IESG, the IESG secretariat, IANA and the RFC Editor during the review and approval process. There are still manual steps required for these parties to ensure they include the Document Shepherd, but it is hoped that in future, automated tools will ensure that Document Shepherds (and Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 9] Internet-Draft Document Shepherding October 2006 others) receive necessary communications. The contact information for the Document Shepherd is also important for the Gen-ART [GEN-ART] Directorate and other directorates, so they can know to whom to address reviews, in addition to the Responsible Area Director. 3.2. Document Shepherding during AD Evaluation The steps for document shepherding during AD Evaluation are as follows: (2.a) The Responsible Area Director reads, evaluates and comments on the document, as is the case when not using the document shepherding process. If the Responsible Area Director determines that the document is ready for IESG Evaluation, he or she indicates this to the Document Shepherd and the document shepherding process continues as described in Section 3.3. (2.b) If the Responsible Area Director has identified issues with a document that must be addressed before IESG Evaluation can commence, he or she sends a full evaluation to the Document Shepherd and SHOULD also enter the review into the ID Tracker. (2.c) The Document Shepherd reads the AD Evaluation comments, making very certain that all comments are understood, so that it is possible to follow up on them with the editors and working group. If there is some uncertainty as to what is requested, this SHOULD be resolved with the Responsible Area Director. (2.d) The Document Shepherd sends the AD Evaluation comments to the editors and to the working group mailing list, in order to have a permanent record of the comments. It is RECOMMENDED that the Document Shepherd solicit from the editors an estimate on when the required changes will be complete and a revised document can be expected. Working groups that use issue tracking SHOULD also record the issues (and eventually their resolution) in their issue tracker. (2.e) During the production of a revised document that addresses the AD Evaluation comments, it is strongly RECOMMENDED that the editors keep a list showing how each comment was addressed and what the revised text is. It is strongly RECOMMENDED that this list be forwarded to the Responsible Area Director together with the revised document. Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 10] Internet-Draft Document Shepherding October 2006 (2.f) In the event that the editors or working group disagrees with a comment raised by the Responsible Area Director or has previously considered and dismissed the issue, the Document Shepherd MUST resolve the issue with the Responsible Area Director before a revised document can be submitted. (2.g) The Document Shepherd iterates with the editors (and working group, if required) until all outstanding issues have been resolved and a revised document is available. At this point, the Document Shepherd notifies the Responsible Area Director and provides him or her with the revised document, the summary of issues and the resulting text changes. (2.h) The Responsible Area Director verifies that the issues he or she found during AD Evaluation are resolved in the revised version of the document by starting the process described in this section at step (2.a). 3.3. Document Shepherding during IESG Evaluation During IESG Evaluation of a document, ADs can bring forward two kinds of remarks about a document: DISCUSS item and COMMENT items. A DISCUSS blocks a document's approval process until it has been resolved; a COMMENT does not. This section details the steps that a Document Shepherd takes to resolve any DISCUSS and COMMENT items brought forward against a shepherded document during IESG Evaluation. Note that DISCUSS and COMMENT items are occasionally written in a manner that makes their intent unclear. In these cases, the Document Shepherd SHOULD start a discussion with the ADs who brought the items up to clarify their intent, keeping the Responsible Area Director informed. If this fails to clarify the intent, the Responsible Area Director may need to work towards a clarification inside the IESG. (3.a) Leading up to the IESG conference call, the Document Shepherd may see emails about the document from directorate reviewers on behalf of one or more ADs and also emailed copies of DISCUSS and COMMENT items entered into the ID Tracker. The Document Shepherd SHOULD immediately begin to work on resolving DISCUSS and COMMENT items with the ADs who have raised them, keeping the Responsible Area Director copied on the email exchange, so that he or she is able to support the the activity during the conference call. When dealing with directorate reviews, the Document Shepherd MUST involve the ADs to whom these directorates report to ensure that these ADs consider the review comments that need resolving. Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 11] Internet-Draft Document Shepherding October 2006 (3.b) Immediately following the conference call, when the document changes state from the "IESG Evaluation" state to one of the states requiring Document Shepherd action, e.g., "IESG Evaluation: Revised ID Needed" or "IESG Evaluation: AD Followup", the Document Shepherd will receive email. A state of "AD Followup" typically signifies the Responsible Area Director's hope that a resolution may be possible through a continued discussion or (more usually) through a small set of changes as "Notes to the RFC Editor." Note that there may be very exceptional cases when DISCUSS items are registered after an IESG conference call. In these cases, the AD who has raised the DISCUSS MUST notify the Document Shepherd about it. (The notification facility in the ID Tracker is very convenient for this purpose and also for the cases where the DISCUSS and COMMENT items are updated after they are partially resolved.) (3.c) The Document Shepherd then queries the ID Tracker to collect the remaining DISCUSS and COMMENT items raised against the document. The Document Shepherd analyses these items and initialises contact with the ADs who have placed them. The Responsible Area Director MUST be copied on all correspondence related to active DISCUSS or COMMENT items. This does not place the Responsible Area Director in the critical path towards a resolution, but should keep him or her informed about the state of the discussion. +-------+ +-------+ +-------+ | (3.b) | -----------> | (3.c) | ------------> | (3.d) | +-------+ Comments +-------+ Comments +-------+ collected /|\ | understood | | | | Comments not fully understood | | (Further AD/Document Shepherd | | discussion required) +---+ (3.d) The Document Shepherd then coordinates the resolution of DISCUSS and COMMENT items and builds a consistent interpretation of the comments. This step is similar to much of the process described in Section 3.2. Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 12] Internet-Draft Document Shepherding October 2006 +-------+ +-------+ | (3.c) | ---------------> | (3.d) | +-------+ Consistent +-------+ /|\ interpretation | | | Further AD/Document Shepherd | | discussion required +--------------------------+ (3.e) The Document Shepherd then communicates the DISCUSS and COMMENT items to the document editors and the working group, alerting them of any changes to the document that have accumulated during IESG processing, such as "Notes to the RFC Editor." If any changes will be substantive, the Document Shepherd, in consultation with the Responsible Area Director, as during other stages, MUST seek working group consensus. (3.f) After the editors resolve the DISCUSS and COMMENT items, the Document Shepherd reviews the resulting new version of the document, which will be a revised document, a set of "Notes to the RFC Editor", or both, using his or her technical expertise to ensure that all raised DISCUSS and COMMENT issues have been resolved. Note that the Document Shepherd MAY also suggest resolutions to DISCUSS and COMMENT items, enter them into an issue tracker, or perform other steps to streamline the resolution of the evaluation comments. It is very important to resolve the comments in a timely way, while the discussion is current for everyone involved. (3.g) When the Document Shepherd is satisfied that the revised document addresses the evaluation comments, he or she communicates the resolution to the Responsible Area Director and the ADs that had raised the DISCUSS and COMMENT items. (3.h) Each AD who had raised a DISCUSS checks whether the communicated resolution addresses his or her items. If it does, the AD will clear the DISCUSS. It it does not, the AD notifies the Document Shepherd and adds information to the ID Tracker explaining why the DISCUSS was not resolved. The Document Shepherd informs the working group accordingly. (COMMENT items need not be checked and cleared, because they do not block the document, but ADs are encouraged to do so.) If a DISCUSS was not resolved to the satisfaction of the AD that has raised it or the Responsible Area Director, two possibilities exist: Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 13] Internet-Draft Document Shepherding October 2006 (a) The process returns to step (3.d), or (b) If no progress can be made on the resolution of the DISCUSS with the AD who has raised it, despite clarification and additional involvement of the Responsible Area Director, the Document Shepherd and working group might as a very last resort consider an appeal in accordance with the procedures described in [RFC2026] and referred to in [RFC2418]. The Document Shepherd SHOULD review the IESG's Discuss Criteria guidelines [I-D.iesg-discuss-criteria] and discuss with the Responsible Area Director whether there might be consideration against the unresolved DISCUSS by the rest of the IESG due to these guidelines. Once the process above has cleared all DISCUSS items, document shepherding continues with step (3.i). (3.i) The Responsible Area Director moves the document to the "Approved - Announcement to be sent" state in the ID Tracker. If he or she deems the changes to the revised document significant, there may be a new WG last call, or possibly a new IETF last call. The document goes through a new full IESG Evaluation process if there is a new IETF last call. 4. Shepherding the Document's IANA Actions IETF working group documents often include considerations requiring actions by the IANA, such as creating a new registry or adding information to an existing registry, perhaps after consulting an IESG-appointed Expert. Sometimes the actions required are by the IESG, such as appointment of a new Expert. IANA-related processing may also include a specified type of Expert review, such as review of proposed MIME media types on the designated ietf-types mailing list. The IANA reviews IETF documents and requests responses at any or all of the following times: in response to IETF Last Call, during the IESG Evaluation review of the document, and at the time when the IANA performs actions in its web-based registry for the document, usually but not always after IESG approval of the document. More details of the IANA process and IETF interaction are found in [I-D.narten-iana-considerations-rfc2434bis]. Whenever an IANA request comes, in whatever period, the requester from IANA MUST ensure that the Document Shepherd and the Responsible Area Director both receive the request. The Document Shepherd is responsible for responding as rapidly as possible. He or she should discuss requests that introduce any possible concerns with the Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 14] Internet-Draft Document Shepherding October 2006 Working Group. The Document Shepherd and the Responsible Area Director may decide in consultation that an IANA request leads to a change that needs additional review or approval. In general, the Working Group Shepherd ensures that the IANA process completes, checks that the registry is correct and that the IANA Matrix (www.iana.org/numbers.html) is complete and consistent, and troubleshoots when all is not well. At the end of IANA processing, the Document Shepherd should be sure that the RFC Editor has acknowledged IANA conclusion, that the handoff has been made. In summary, the task of shepherding the IANA actions is overlooked but is as important to coordinate and manage as all the other document reviews the Document Shepherd has managed. As with those, the Document Shepherd contributes greatly to quality and timeliness of the document by effective and responsive shepherding of the IANA requests. 5. Document Shepherding after IESG Approval After the IESG Evaluation and resolution described in Section 3.3, the IESG approves the document, and the Responsible Area Director uses the tracker to ask for any final changes to the Document Announcement Write-Up and to ask for it to be issued. The Document Shepherd may have some edits for the Responsible Area Director, such as minor Notes to the RFC Editor, and this is the time to consult and provide them. The announcement goes to the general community and to the RFC Editor, and now the Document Shepherd (identified in the Announcemen Write-Up) continues to shepherd the document through its technical publication. The RFC Editor currently makes a number of types of requests to the authors, Document Shepherd and Responsible Area Director. The Document Shepherd SHOULD lead in responding to the RFC editor and shepherding the document through its technical publication, through the post-approval period. The RFC Editor request types include: editorial queries about dangling, missing, informative and normative citations (good shepherding should try to pre-catch these, but they happen); requests for unedited source, e.g. xml; occasional technical comments; and copy-edits for review and close scrutiny by the authors (AUTH48). On the latter, the Document Shepherd SHOULD lead in checking that copy-edits have in no case affected a consensus wording of the working group which prepared the document, and in bringing speed to this checking by multiple co- authors. The Document Shepherd also consults with the Responsible Area Director in reviewing proposed post-approval changes to the document by any authors. These may require Area Director approval, Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 15] Internet-Draft Document Shepherding October 2006 and they often need to be presented to the working group for consent if not a full consensus procedure. As in other periods of document review, the Document Shepherd provides attentiveness and timeliness by serving as the informed representative of the document and helping its advancement and its integrity. 6. When Not to Use the Document Shepherding Process As mentioned in Section 3, the Document Shepherd SHOULD NOT be an editor of the shepherded document. If this cannot be avoided by making another working group chair or secretary the Document Shepherd, the document shepherding process SHOULD NOT be used. There are several other cases in which the document shepherding process SHOULD NOT be used. These include: 1. Cases, where the Document Shepherd is the primary author or editor of a large percentage of the documents produced by the working group. 2. Cases, where the Responsible Area Director expects communication difficulties with the Document Shepherd (either due to experience, strong views stated by the Document Shepherd, or other issues). 3. Cases, where the working group itself is either very old, losing energy, or winding down, i.e., cases, where it would not be productive to initiate new processes or procedures. Finally, note that other cases exist in which using the document shepherding process may not be productive. The final determination as to whether to use the document shepherding process or not is left to the Responsible Area Director. If the document shepherding process is not used, the Responsible Area Director acts as Document Shepherd, just as he or she did in the past. 7. Security Considerations This document specifies a change to IETF document-processing procedures. As such, it neither raises nor considers protocol- specific security issues. 8. IANA Considerations This document creates no new requirements on IANA namespaces or other IANA requirements. Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 16] Internet-Draft Document Shepherding October 2006 9. Acknowledgments This document is the product of PROTO team, which includes the authors as well as Bill Fenner, Barbara Fuller, and Margaret Wasserman. Aaron Falk worked actively in PROTO till the start of 2006 and worked on earlier versions of the document. The Document Shepherd Write-Up originated in an idea by John Klensin. Thomas Narten and Margaret Wasserman implemented it for the entire Internet Area, and their template was the basis of the version used today. Colin Perkins wrote the Document Announcement Write-Up for draft-ietf-avt-rtp-midi-format included in Appendix A.1. David Black wrote the Document Announcement Write-Up for draft-ietf-imss-ip-over-fibre-channel included in Appendix A.2. Frank Ellermann and Olafur Gudmundsson have suggested improvements to the document during IETF Last Call. 10. Informative References [RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996. [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. [RFC2418] Bradner, S., "IETF Working Group Guidelines and Procedures", BCP 25, RFC 2418, September 1998. [RFC3967] Bush, R. and T. Narten, "Clarifying when Standards Track Documents may Refer Normatively to Documents at a Lower Level", BCP 97, RFC 3967, December 2004. [I-D.iesg-discuss-criteria] Peterson, J., "DISCUSS Criteria in IESG Review", draft-iesg-discuss-criteria-02 (work in progress), February 2006. [I-D.narten-iana-considerations-rfc2434bis] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", draft-narten-iana-considerations-rfc2434bis-05 (work in progress), September 2006. [IDTRACKER] Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 17] Internet-Draft Document Shepherding October 2006 "The IETF Internet-Draft Tracker", Web Application: https://datatracker.ietf.org/, 2002. [PROTO] "The IESG PROcess and TOols (PROTO) Team", Web Page: http://psg.com/~mrw/PROTO-Team, 2004. [GEN-ART] "The General Area Review Team (GEN-ART)", Web Page: http://www.alvestrand.no/ietf/gen/review-guidelines.html, 2005. Appendix A. Example Document Announcement Write-Ups This appendix includes two examples of Document Announcement Write- Ups. Many more examples with Subject lines such as "Protocol Action" and "Document Action" can be found in the IETF-announce mailing list archive. A.1. Example Document Announcement Write-Up for draft-ietf-avt-rtp-midi-format Technical Summary These documents define the RTP Payload format for MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface), and additional guidelines on implementation specifically concerning the timing of reception and transmission for best performance in different applications. MIDI is a real-time media, which however is brittle to losses and errors. Therefore the RTP payload format defines recovery journals as a way of avoiding persistent audible errors, and discusses congestion control handling for these journals. The RTP payload for MIDI encodes the broad range of MIDI commands. The format is suitable for interactive applications (such as network musical performance) and content-delivery (such as file streaming). Working Group Summary There is consensus in the WG to publish these documents. Document Quality This RTP Payload format has been implemented during the development of the specification and successfully tested over an IP network between two remote sites, thus showing that the technical solution is successfully working. It has been reviewed by the MIDI Manufacturers Association and their comments have been Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 18] Internet-Draft Document Shepherding October 2006 addressed. Allison Mankin reviewed the document for the IESG, including a careful review with the editor of the media types, in parallel with ietf-types list review requested on 2006-01-08, which raised no issues. Magnus Westerlund and Colin Perkins jointly shepherded these documents. A.2. Example Document Announcement Write-Up for draft-ietf-imss-ip-over-fibre-channel Technical Summary This document specifies the encapsulation of IPv6, IPv4 and ARP packets over Fibre Channel. This document also specifies the methods for forming IPv6 link-local addresses and statelessly autoconfigured IPv6 addresses on Fibre Channel networks, and a mechanism to perform IPv4 address resolution over Fibre Channel networks. This document (when published as RFC) obsoletes RFC2625 and RFC3831. Working Group Summary This document has been reviewed by Fibre Channel experts in Technical Committee T11 (Fibre Channel standards organization) in addition to members of the IMSS WG. There is solid support for this document both in the WG and from T11. Document Quality This document replaces and consolidates two separate RFCs on IPv4 over Fibre Channel (RFC 2625) and IPv6 over Fibre Channel (RFC 3831). Most of its technical content is unchanged from those RFCs. The technical changes that have been made are primarily based on implementation experience. The protocol has been reviewed for the IESG by David L. Black (WG chair). Also Bert Wijnen has reviewed this document for the IESG. In addition, Brian Haberman has done a review for the INT Area as requested by WG-chair (David Black) via Margaret Wasserman. Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 19] Internet-Draft Document Shepherding October 2006 Appendix B. Working Documents (This section should be removed by the RFC editor before publication.) The current working documents for this document are available at this web site: http://tools.ietf.org/wg/proto/ draft-ietf-proto-wgchair-doc-shepherding/ Authors' Addresses Henrik Levkowetz Torsgatan 71 Stockholm S-113 37 Sweden Phone: +46 708 32 16 08 Email: henrik@levkowetz.com David Meyer 1225 Kincaid St Eugene, OR 97403 USA Phone: +1 541 346 1747 Email: dmm@1-4-5.net Lars Eggert NEC Network Laboratories Kurfuerstenanlage 36 Heidelberg 69115 Germany Phone: +49 6221 4342 143 Fax: +49 6221 4342 155 Email: lars.eggert@netlab.nec.de URI: http://www.netlab.nec.de/ Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 20] Internet-Draft Document Shepherding October 2006 Allison Mankin Phone: +1-301-728-7199 Email: mankin@psg.com URI: http://www.psg.com/~mankin Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 21] Internet-Draft Document Shepherding October 2006 Full Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006). This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights. This document and the information contained herein are provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. 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The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at ietf-ipr@ietf.org. Acknowledgment Funding for the RFC Editor function is provided by the IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA). Levkowetz, et al. Expires April 25, 2007 [Page 22]