Subject: [Tools-discuss] Stable URL to a Working Group?

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 15:18:41 +0100

I would like to have a link to a Working Group with a stable
identifier.

Today, LTRU (for instance), is at
http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html but in the future,
after its completion, the official URL will be
http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/HISTORY/ltru-charter.XXXXXX.html

Is there a way to have a stable URL?

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From: "Frank Ellermann" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 18:48:11 +0100

> Is there a way to have a stable URL?

IIRC <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/marid> (old WG) is stable,
I can't test it today, empty pages and 500 errors on the
tools server, likely caused by the DNS transition.

 Frank

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 07:50:52 +1300

> http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/HISTORY/ltru-charter.XXXXXX.html

Closed WGs are actually in http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/OLD/index.html

> Is there a way to have a stable URL?

IMHO, we shouldn't do that if there is any chance that a reader
will miss the fact that the WG is closed. For example,
there's nothing but the URL to tell you that
http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/OLD/ipv6-charter.html
is a closed group.

     Brian

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From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 20:30:30 +0100

> IIRC <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/marid> (old WG) is stable,

Yes, it is.  After the WG is closed, that is noted on the
page, and the background colour changes, to indicate it's not
a current WG.

> tools server, likely caused by the DNS transition.

Actually, one of the tools servers is having problems after a
kernel upgrade.  As soon as I get to it physically, I'm going
to downgrade again.  Till then, I've changed the DNS entries
to resolve to www3.tools.ietf.org which is up and running.

	Henrik

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From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:26:05 +0100

On Sat, Dec 15, 2007 at 07:50:52AM +1300,
 Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 21 lines which said:

> IMHO, we shouldn't do that if there is any chance that a reader will
> miss the fact that the WG is closed.

I tested with http://tools.ietf.org/wg/ipv6/ and the indications are:

* the background color. If you do not use lynx :-)
* the words "Concluded WG"

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From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:31:33 +0100

On Fri, Dec 14, 2007 at 06:48:11PM +0100,
 Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]> wrote 

> IIRC <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/marid> (old WG) is stable,

It does not work for every closed WG. For instance,
http://tools.ietf.org/wg/provreg says "Object not found!" (Provreg was
closed in april 2004.)

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From: Spencer Dawkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 07:01:43 -0600

If I might interject, I don't think the request was for a URL that appears 
to *be* stable (which is where this discussion went), but for a URL that was 
committed to *remain* stable.

That has something to do with a policy commitment, not just tools.

> http://tools.ietf.org/wg/provreg says "Object not found!" (Provreg was

I should also add that Gen-ART (and other) reviewers are asking authors to 
remove references to working groups "because RFCs live forever while working 
groups conclude".

We could discuss that policy, but not without a committed URL for working 
groups that remains active when the workin group concludes.

Thanks,

Spencer

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From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 21:30:04 +0100

> http://tools.ietf.org/wg/provreg says "Object not found!" (Provreg was

Correct.  I don't have a canonical list of concluded WGs, and haven't
gone back to re-create WGs closed before I set up the tools.ietf.org
WG pages.

I'll see about generating pages for concluded WGs now, though.

	Henrik

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From: "Frank Ellermann" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 17:34:14 +0100

> I'll see about generating pages for concluded WGs now, though.

Thanks.  For some inspirations what folks care about see the
page with a table of "other IETF lists", a proper subset of
these lists belonged to closed WGs.  It might be not obvious,
e.g. SMTP and RFC822 belonged to DRUMS at some point in time:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/public/nwg_list.cgi

 Frank