Formal SignWriting: Internet-Draft Record and Published Reference
draft-slevinski-formal-signwriting-11
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| Document | Type | Active Internet-Draft (individual) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Author | Stephen E Slevinski Jr | ||
| Last updated | 2026-05-30 | ||
| Replaces | draft-slevinski-signwriting-text | ||
| RFC stream | (None) | ||
| Intended RFC status | (None) | ||
| Formats | |||
| Stream | Stream state | (No stream defined) | |
| Consensus boilerplate | Unknown | ||
| RFC Editor Note | (None) | ||
| IESG | IESG state | I-D Exists | |
| Telechat date | (None) | ||
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| Send notices to | (None) |
draft-slevinski-formal-signwriting-11
Sutton-Slevinski Collaboration S. Slevinski
Internet-Draft www.sutton-signwriting.io
Intended status: Informational 30 May 2026
Expires: 1 December 2026
Formal SignWriting: Internet-Draft Record and Published Reference
draft-slevinski-formal-signwriting-11
Abstract
This document is the final Internet-Draft update for Formal
SignWriting. Formal SignWriting is the plain-text technical model
used by Sutton SignWriting resources for FSW, SWU, signboxes,
grammar, search, layout, rendering, styling, and implementation
practice.
The maintained reference publication is now the Formal SignWriting
series, version 1.0.0, published through Zenodo, GitHub, and the
author's website. This Internet-Draft is retained as a historical
IETF-facing bridge and cross-reference. It is not an IETF standard,
does not request IETF standardization, and should not be cited as the
current reference specification for Formal SignWriting.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
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."
This Internet-Draft will expire on 1 December 2026.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2026 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components
extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as
described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Status of This Internet-Draft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3. Relationship to the Formal SignWriting Series . . . . . . . . 3
4. Technical Scope Preserved by the Series . . . . . . . . . . . 3
5. Crosswalk from This Internet-Draft to the Series . . . . . . 4
6. Implementation and Citation Guidance . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
9. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1. Introduction
Formal SignWriting models signed text as structured plain text so
that Sutton SignWriting [SuttonSignWriting] can be stored, searched,
checked, laid out, rendered, and processed by software without losing
the written form.
Earlier versions of draft-slevinski-formal-signwriting served as
public IETF-facing working specifications for implementation and
review. Those drafts documented the technical model for Formal
SignWriting in ASCII (FSW), SignWriting in Unicode (SWU), signboxes,
grammar, query behavior, styling, rendering, and related
implementation practice [PriorID].
The maintained reference publication for this work has moved to the
Formal SignWriting series, version 1.0.0. This Internet-Draft
updates the IETF-visible record so that readers, reviewers,
implementers, and citation systems can distinguish the expired
Internet-Draft history from the current maintained publication
series.
2. Status of This Internet-Draft
This is an individual Internet-Draft. It is not an IETF standard,
has not become an RFC, and does not request publication as an RFC.
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This document records the IETF-facing history of Formal SignWriting
and identifies the maintained reference publication. Earlier
versions of this Internet-Draft remain useful as historical technical
records, but they are not the current citation target for Formal
SignWriting.
This document is expected to expire under normal Internet-Draft
rules. That expiration does not affect the Formal SignWriting
series, its DOI record, its GitHub repository, or the Sutton
SignWriting resources that implement the model.
3. Relationship to the Formal SignWriting Series
The current maintained reference is the Formal SignWriting series,
version 1.0.0, published through Zenodo with a DOI [FSWSeries].
Source materials are available on GitHub [FSWGitHub], and a living
web presentation is available on the author's website [FSWWebsite].
Readers implementing, citing, reviewing, or evaluating Formal
SignWriting should use the Formal SignWriting series rather than this
Internet-Draft. Use the series DOI when citing the technical series
as a whole. Use an artifact DOI when citing a specific technical
paper that has its own record.
This Internet-Draft does not supersede, duplicate, or restate the
full technical series. It points to the maintained publication path
and gives a crosswalk from the earlier Internet-Draft structure to
the current series.
4. Technical Scope Preserved by the Series
The Formal SignWriting series preserves and expands the technical
scope previously carried by draft-slevinski-formal-signwriting. That
scope includes:
* Formal SignWriting as a plain-text technical model for written
sign text;
* FSW as the stable ASCII production encoding;
* SWU as an isomorphic Unicode-oriented representation supported by
Sutton SignWriting resources;
* the two-part word model of an optional temporal prefix and a
required spatial signbox;
* symbols, coordinates, centering, bounding boxes, and signbox
structure;
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* valid token patterns, grammar, parsing, and transformation
behavior;
* query strings, regular-expression search, and matching logic;
* vertical and horizontal sign text layout;
* SVG, font, and output-oriented rendering models;
* style strings and presentation markup;
* libraries, datasets, transformations, and implementation pathways;
and
* encoding stewardship, stability, forkability, and the boundary
between computational validity and linguistic judgment.
5. Crosswalk from This Internet-Draft to the Series
The following table maps the major technical areas of earlier
versions of this Internet-Draft to the current Formal SignWriting
series.
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+=======================================+======================+
| Earlier Internet-Draft area | Current reference in |
| | the series |
+=======================================+======================+
| Core model; two-part word of time and | Formal SignWriting |
| space | |
+---------------------------------------+----------------------+
| Character sets; FSW and SWU | FSW and SWU |
| conversion | |
+---------------------------------------+----------------------+
| Symbols, coordinates, centering, | The Shape of a Sign |
| bounding boxes, and signbox shape | |
+---------------------------------------+----------------------+
| Token patterns, syntax, and grammar | Grammar of Formal |
| | SignWriting |
+---------------------------------------+----------------------+
| Query language and regular-expression | Searching Signed |
| search | Text |
+---------------------------------------+----------------------+
| Vertical writing, horizontal writing, | Sign Text Layout |
| lanes, centering, and passage layout | |
+---------------------------------------+----------------------+
| SVG, fonts, layout, and output models | Rendering Formal |
| | SignWriting |
+---------------------------------------+----------------------+
| Style strings and presentation markup | Styling Signs |
+---------------------------------------+----------------------+
| Libraries, datasets, transformations, | Formal SignWriting |
| and implementation pathways | in Practice |
+---------------------------------------+----------------------+
| Stability, stewardship, and authority | Encoding Stewardship |
| boundaries | and Stability |
+---------------------------------------+----------------------+
Table 1
6. Implementation and Citation Guidance
Do not implement from this Internet-Draft as the current reference
specification. Implementers should use the Formal SignWriting series
and the current Sutton SignWriting libraries, datasets, and
documentation.
Do not cite this Internet-Draft as the current specification for
Formal SignWriting. This document may be cited only as a historical
Internet-Draft record or IETF-facing transition note. Current
citations should use the Formal SignWriting series DOI or the DOI for
the specific series artifact being cited.
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The fact that draft-slevinski-formal-signwriting did not become an
RFC is a fact about the IETF publication path. It does not determine
the status of Formal SignWriting as a maintained technical model,
production encoding practice, or Sutton SignWriting infrastructure
component.
7. IANA Considerations
This document makes no request of IANA.
8. Security Considerations
This document defines no protocol, registry, network service,
authentication mechanism, executable format, or wire format. It
introduces no new security considerations for the Internet.
9. Informative References
[FSWGitHub]
Slevinski, S., "Formal SignWriting GitHub Repository",
2026, <https://github.com/sutton-signwriting/formal-
signwriting>.
[FSWSeries]
Slevinski, S., "Formal SignWriting", 2026,
<https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20074767>.
[FSWWebsite]
Slevinski, S., "Formal SignWriting Series Website", 2026,
<https://steveslevinski.me/#series/formal-signwriting>.
[PriorID] Slevinski, S., "Formal SignWriting, draft-slevinski-
formal-signwriting-10", 12 October 2025,
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-slevinski-formal-
signwriting-10.html>.
[SuttonSignWriting]
Slevinski, S., "Sutton SignWriting Resources",
<https://www.sutton-signwriting.io/>.
Author's Address
Steve Slevinski
www.sutton-signwriting.io
Email: slevinski@signwriting.org
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