2017-03-30-rsoc-minutes
slides-interim-2022-rfcedprog-07-sessa-2017-03-30-rsoc-minutes-00

RFC SERIES OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE (RSOC)
March 30, 2017 RSOC Meeting, Chicago

Reported by: Cindy Morgan, IETF Secretariat

ATTENDEES
---------------------------------
 Sarah Banks (Chair)
 Nevil Brownlee
 Heather Flanagan (RSE, non-voting)
 Joel Halpern
 Tony Hansen (remote)
 Joe Hildebrand
 Bob Hinden
 Cindy Morgan (Scribe, non-voting)
 Ray Pelletier (IAOC Liaison, non-voting)
 Adam Roach
 Robert Sparks (Lead)

MINUTES
---------------------------------

1. Approval of Minutes

  The minutes of the 13 February 2017 RSOC Meeting were approved.

2. Agenda bash

  An executive session on RSE time was added to the agenda.

3. RPC SLA

  Heather Flanagan reported that the RPC will miss the SLA for Q1 by 
  about 2%. There was a cluster of documents (the largest ever dealt 
  with) that included documents from multiple Areas, which slowed down 
  processing time. Heather added that they did learn some things about 
  how to improve the cluster and AUTH48 pages, but that this situation 
  was an outlier and shouldn't lead to any process changes.

  Tony Hansen asked whether the SLA was at Level 1 or Level 2. Heather 
  Flanagan replied that it was Level 1. There were not enough pages to 
  get to Level 2; the cluster was challenging for reasons other than 
  page count.  Robert Sparks added that the IESG has discussed how this 
  situation came to be and is taking steps to prevent such large 
  clusters in the future.

4. Projects

4.1. Format

  Heather Flanagan reported that the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) have 
  been developed and that the community feedback thus far has been good.

  The format tools are progressing and being tracked in GitHub.

  There is a draft with non-ASCII characters in RFC Editor queue. The 
  editors' tools will need to be changed in order to handle this; the 
  author is fine with the document sitting in the queue until the tools 
  can handle it. Heather Flanagan said that she is concerned about the 
  precedent this might set. Robert Sparks asked how long this is 
  expected to take. Heather replied that she was not sure; the editors 
  will need to work with their IT department to get the right libraries 
  on their computers. Robert noted that it may require changing 
  applications in addition to libraries.

  Robert Sparks suggested that the RPC watch for opportunities to get 
  the document with non-ASCII characters published as early as is 
  reasonable, which hopefully will be before the whole tool chain is 
  available for v3. Bob Hinden suggested that the RPC may need a new 
  state, "Waiting for new format work to complete."

  Heather Flanagan reported that she is collecting volunteers to act as 
  subject matter expert for non-ASCII character questions:

  - Francis Bond: Chinese, Japanese; can get information on Devnagari 
    and Hangul
  - Patrik Fälström: Unicode
  - Alexey Melnikov: Russian Cyrillic
  - Xing Li: Chinese

  Bob Hinden said that he could point Heather to someone who can help 
  with Hebrew.

4.2. Style Guide

  Heather Flanagan reported that she is starting the -bis process for 
  the RFC Style Guide <draft-flanagan-7322bis>. The initial changes 
  include: 

  - incorporating information that had been added from the web portion 
    of the style guide since the release of RFC 7322
  - added advice on style for images
  - changes to reference format for RFCs to add stream abbreviation

5. RPC Programmer update

  Heather Flanagan reported that the RPC Programmer has completed the 
  following projects:

  - server upgrades
  - conversion to MySQLi (public-facing work)
  - adding field to the database and various pages for easier internal 
    tracking 

  Projects currently in the backlog include:

  - pretty, stable errata URLs
  - updates to cluster AUTH48 pages
  - RFC 10K issue (scoping/timeline)
  - v3 errata updates

  The priority of those projects partially depends on discussions that 
  will happen during IETF 98. Bob Hinden asked if the RFC 10K issue and 
  the format issues are expected to collide. Heather Flanagan replied 
  that she does not think so.

6. Discussion topics

6.1. Archiving and paper

  The RSOC briefly revisited the discussion about archiving the RFC 
  Series on paper, but did not change their decision to stop printing 
  paper copies.

6.2. Clarifying AUTH48 procedures

  Bob Hinden recapped a recent situation in 6MAN, where one of the 
  authors submitted new XML during AUTH48 that changed the 
  Acknowledgements section without running that by the other authors. 
  The other authors did not notice until quite late, and the document 
  was nearly finished before they objected. The document was left in 
  limbo while this was going on. Eventually the AD asked the WG whether 
  the new text should stay in or not; the WG decided that it should not.

  The situation raised the question whether the RFC Editor should accept 
  new XML from an author during AUTH48. Robert Sparks asked what the 
  difference would have been if the new text hadn't been submitted in 
  XML. Bob Hinden replied that the authors could have been more likely 
  to notice immediately. Robert countered that the authors are supposed 
  to check the diffs every time the RFC Editor supplies a new version. 
  Heather Flanagan added that this was not the only time that authors 
  edit the XML and send it to the editors; if it is a technical change, 
  the editors flag it as needing explicit approval, but if it is not a 
  technical change it is generally incorporated without comment.

  Bob Hinden said that AUTH48 is for the authors to review what the RFC 
  Editor has done; it is not a place for the authors to add new text. 
  Since this was not an editorial change, the change was out of scope. 
  Joel Halpern replied that that is up to the IESG, and whether the 
  change affects IETF consensus. Heather Flanagan added that the IESG 
  did discuss this earlier in the week, but there was no consensus about 
  how to handle the issue.

  Heather Flanagan said that the editors will be a bit more sensitive to 
  what they flag in the future.


7. AOB

  Nevil Brownlee asked if there had been any news on the DOI front. 
  Heather Flanagan replied that there has not.


8. RSE Time (partial executive session)

  Robert Sparks noted that the previous expectation of the IAB was that 
  the RSE time was increased to deal with the format work, but would 
  come back down eventually. However, the reality has been that the 
  amount of RSE time needed has steadily increased, and is not expected 
  to go back down.  RSOC needs to give the IAB updated guidance on what 
  level of effort is expected by the RSE.

  Heather Flanagan noted that the role of the RSE has changed over the 
  past five years. It is changing into a more executive role, with 
  outreach and guidance to other groups. Heather said that she does not 
  see the role getting any bigger than it is currently, but she does not 
  see it getting smaller, either. She thinks the initial estimation of 
  what the role is was too small.

  The RSOC continued this discussion in an executive session.