[Standards] XEP-0001: automatic deferral

[Dave Cridland]

On Thu Jan 31 05:33:11 2008, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
> I realize that the IETF defers Internet-Drafts after 6 months, but  
> they
> have many more specifications under consideration than we do and  
> thus
> need to keep the active list from becoming unduly large. Given the
> smaller number of protocols we work on at any one time -- and the  
> fact
> that so many of the XEPs are primarily authored by one person who  
> has
> limited cycles to spare (c'est moi aussi) -- I think it would be
> reasonable for us to defer XEPs after 12 months, not 6 months.

Actually, although the IETF does indeed do this, it's often a bit of  
a pain. One of my drafts - the Lemonade Profile update - consistently  
gets bitten by this. It's not (entirely) laziness, either, it's a  
profile document which collates and unifies a bunch of other work,  
and quite often there's been no changes significant enough to bother  
with for 6 months, and the expiry deadline happens without any of the  
authors noticing. Other documents have fallen into this somewhat  
annoying state, too - people are actively working on other things.  
When these documents expire, we're left with the somewhat annoying  
habit of republishing purely to unexpire (or sometimes, if we're  
quick enough, prevent the expiry). without any significant change -  
sometimes without any change at all other than the date.

Of course, other documents really are abandoned, and therefore need  
expiring - sometimes sooner than 6 months.

Given the numbers involved, would it be better to install a procedure  
that automatically puts inactive Experimental XEPs (ie as above, 6  
months) into a last-call-for-deferring state, which can be exited  
(back to experimental) by either an update being published, or by the  
Council. What this would mean is that documents where there's been no  
activity for 6 months could be swept onto deferred, but it's no  
longer automatic.

Dave.
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