RFC SERIES OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE (RSOC)
January 17, 2019 RSOC Meeting

Reported by: Cindy Morgan, IETF Secretariat

ATTENDEES
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- Sarah Banks (Chair) 
- Heather Flanagan (RSE, non-voting)
- Tony Hansen 
- Christian Huitema
- Cindy Morgan (Scribe, non-voting)
- Adam Roach
- Peter Saint-Andre
- Robert Sparks (Lead) 
- Portia Wenze-Danley (IETF LLC Board Liaison, non-voting)


MINUTES
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0. Administrivia

  a. Approving the minutes 

  The minutes of the 2018-12-13 teleconference were approved.

  b. Action item review: Updating the RSOC procedures on the IAB website

  Tony Hansen reported that he has started reviewing the RSOC 
  procedures.

1. 2018 stats and RPC SLA
  a. SLA: https://www.rfc-editor.org/report-summary/

  Heather Flanagan reported that between the time spent testing the 
  new format tools, being closed for the holidays, and handling some 
  particularly complicated drafts, the RPC did not meet they their SLA 
  in Q4 2018.

  Robert Sparks asked Heather Flanagan if she expects the RPC to meet 
  the SLA in Q1 2019. Heather replied that between finishing up testing 
  on the format tools, documents being released from Cluster 238, and 
  the regular surge of documents that happens when the IESG changes in 
  March, she thinks that it is unlikely.

  b. Annual Publication Rate: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfcs-per-year/

  Heather Flanagan reported that the number of RFCs published per year 
  is on a downward trend because fewer documents are being submitted for 
  publication. 

  Sarah Banks asked of this would raise the question about reducing the 
  headcount for the RFC Production Center. Robert Sparks replied that he 
  wouldn't expect the question to be raised until after the transition 
  to v3 is complete and things are back to a steady running state.

  Adam Roach suggested that the reason for the decline in the number of 
  documents published may also be related to the number of documents 
  that are part of Cluster 238 and waiting on missing references for 
  publication.

  Christian Huitema asked if the number of citations on RFCs are being 
  tracked as a way to gauge the impact of their publication.

  Heather Flanagan replied that the RFC Series in not currently set up 
  to do proper citation tracking, but that some information is available 
  with the DOIs. Heather said that she should think about this more to 
  see if there are other indicators that could be used to track the 
  impact of RFCs. 

2. Proposed Survey feedback

  Heather Flanagan reported that there has been some discussion about 
  the proposed survey on the mailing list. Much of the feedback to date 
  has been about things outside the scope of the RFC Editor, i.e. on how 
  the process works before things are approved for publication. Heather 
  asked the RSOC if they think that the survey should be a joint effort 
  with the stream managers to collect input on their processes as well 
  as the publication process.

  After a brief discussion, the RSOC agreed that it would be better to 
  keep the survey targeted to the publication process. Heather Flanagan 
  will make sure that the stream managers see the other feedback that 
  has been received.

3. Format update

  Heather Flanagan reported that the RPC will be ready to sign off on 
  the testing of the new format tools by the end of January 2019, at 
  which time the tools will be opened up for testing by the community. 

  Robert Sparks said that he does not expect to see widespread community 
  participation in testing the tools until users are able to submit v3 
  documents into the I-D repository. He noted that it is probably time 
  to raise the question with the IESG about when v3 documents will be 
  allowed in the repository. 

  Adam Roach said that he would raise the question with the IESG. 
  Heather Flanagan noted that the IESG might want to discuss the 
  question at an upcoming informal telechat and invite Heather, Sandy 
  Ginoza, and Robert Sparks to participate in the discussion. 

  Heather Flanagan reported that Alice Russo has reached out to the Edu 
  team about finding someone to give a tutorial on how to create a 
  document that is ready for publication using the v3 tools.

4. Fifty Years of RFCs

  Heather Flanagan reported that she has reached out to several people 
  to provide text about Jon Postel's influence on the RFC series for 
  the Fifty Years of RFCs document.

5. RFC Series Outreach
  a. Statement for IAB, ISOC liaisons

  Heather Flanagan reported that she is drafting a statement for IETF 
  liaisons to share with their counterparts in other groups about how to 
  reference RFCs, with an eye towards specifying both RFC Type and 
  stream origin.