[Old-standards] Brief Procedural Proposal

[Eliot Lear]

Dear All,

Hello and thanks for joining the mailing list.  I would like to share 
with you the results of a discussion I had with Harald and see if the 
following proposed procedure meets with your collective approval.

1.  Start with a list we'll call the cruft list that contains EVERY 
document marked "Proposed Standard" that is prior to RFC 2000 and is not 
obsolete.

2.  Anyone can by email remove an RFC from the cruft list by simply 
saying, "please remove RFC xyz from the list".  In doing so, please 
indicate a brief reason why it should be removed and whether you think 
the document should be left at Proposed or advanced.

3.  A few weeks before the next IETF we'll broadcast the list so that 
others can see if there's anything on it they think should be removed.

4.  We'll present the list at the next IETF and ask for a last call 
thereafter.

In the end we'll be left with three lists:

1.  Documents left on the cruft list that should be moved to Historic.
2.  Documents removed from the cruft list that should be left alone.
3.  Documents removed from the cruft list that perhaps should be
     elevated.

In that last case, I propose we not debate procedure on this list as to 
how documents get elevated, but let that happen on the NEWTRK mailing 
list.  All we'll say here is that whatever that procedure is, the third 
group of docs are probably good candidates for trying it.

Finally, if someone wants to remove an RFC from the list and others 
object, the others should write a small draft indicating why the RFC 
should be downgraded.  In other words, follow the alternative procedure 
and gain consensus within the IETF.

The point of this procedure is to shake out as much OBVIOUS dead wood as 
possible.

If this works well for Proposed, we can next take a gander at Draft.

How does this sound?  If people are okay with this approach, I'll send 
the list of standards (which you yourselves can generate from 
http://www.rfc-editor.org/categories/rfc-proposed.html) and I will set 
up a web page that shows the current status of each doc in question.

Thanks,

Eliot