Re: [IAB] issue with the URLs in the ID boilerplate

[John C Klensin <klensin at jck.com>]

--On Friday, October 23, 2009 07:55 -0700 Paul Hoffman
<paul.hoffman at vpnc.org> wrote:

> At 10:48 AM -0400 10/23/09, Jeffrey Hutzelman wrote:
>> While removing cruft and shortening boilerplate are laudable
>> goals, the _correct_ solution to having published ID's with
>> URL's that no longer work, given that the namespace is under
>> our control, is to FIX THE BROKEN PAGES!
> 
> If almost no one is using the URLs, then the correct solution
> is to get rid of them.

Agreed.   Given our nominal "expires in six months" provisions,
the above is, at most, an argument for making the URL work,
changing the boilerplate, waiting six months, and then undoing
the URL if we have reason to do that.  But, if almost no one is
using them, that seems like a lot of effort for very little
payoff.

>> There's no reason that
>> http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt, which has worked
>> for a very long time and is published in lots of places,
>> should not continue to return a copy of the _current_ I-D
>> abstracts file.
> 
> Sure, but that does not explain why every reader of every
> Internet Draft needs to see the URL.

Again, yes.   The fact that many of us have bookmarks and macros
with that URL in them is a much stronger argument for keeping
that link working than anything having to do with unreferenced
URLs in I-D boilerplate.

      john