Templates for Internet-Drafts Containing MIB Modules
draft-harrington-text-mib-doc-template-06

Christian Vogt's review:

This document defines a template for Internet drafts that specify new MIBs, and provides guidelines for filling it out.

The document is well written.  It is a good idea to create a template for documents of a kind that are structured in a very similar way.  This makes these documents faster to write, easier to read and review, and more consistent.  Three things that should be addressed, however:

(1)  I would suggest removing the specific boilerplate from the template.  Hard-coding the boilerplate into the template necessitates an update of the template whenever the boilerplate changes.  This is bound to happen occasionally.

It would be more appropriate to describe where the current boilerplate can be found without explicitly re-printing it.  The 2nd paragraph in section 2 ("Overview") already provides an appropriate reference to the current boilerplate, so the boilerplate re-print later in the template is not necessary.

(2)  Editorial:  Initializing the intended status of the MIB document to "historic" in the template is confusion.  Suggestion:  Use a more obvious placeholder such as "STATUS".

(3)  Suggestion for further work:  Update RFC 4181 ("Guidelines for Authors and Reviewers of MIB Documents") to reference this MIB template and suggest using it where possible.

Agree with Cullen. An ION is a better choice for this.

I am sympathetic with Ron's question regarding whether this should be something other BCP (perhaps informational?). However, I will defer to Ron, Dan, the MIB doctor's, and others, since I am not an expert in this area.

  Comments from Gen-ART Review by Brian Carpenter.

  > Appendix A.  Change Log

  Presumably the Foreword to RFC Editor should request this to be
  removed. Ditto Appendix B, which appears to be empty.

  > Appendix C.  Text Template with Advice

  There should be advice that the I-D header and trailer boilerplate
  texts were current at the time of publication of the template, but
  must be checked for currency when the template is used. Like 
  [[anchor6]]. 

  Is there a plan to maintain a template with current boilerplate, or
  do we just hope everyone uses xml2rfc?