Procedure:
When putting an informational or experimental document on the IESG agenda, issue a ballot with the "Prepare for Last Call" button just like for standards-track documents. Skip the Last Call section if no Last Call is desired. The Ballot Writeup is optional for informational documents, so you can leave it with the defaults, but you may find it useful to provide a writeup.
This leaves you with a Yes evaluation on the ballot. One Yes is required for the document to be published. This simply makes explicit what was previously implicit -- that putting an informational or experimental document on the agenda meant that you wanted it to be published.
For AD-sponsored documents, the only blocking position is "discuss". As with the standards track, "discuss" positions must be documented ASAP. Provided that there is one Yes and no Discuss positions, the document passes. If the document returns to a second telechat, it passes if there is one YES and not more than one Discuss (ADs who express support for a Discuss vote count as an additional discuss for this purpose and prevent advancement). Other positions may be recorded, but do not effect the outcome. "No-Objection" means that some level of review has been conducted and there is no blocking objection, but not enough review for "Yes." "Abstain" means that tha AD believes the document should not be published but is not willing to hold a blocking position.
For independent submissions by the RFC editor, "Yes" or "No-Objection" indicates agreement with the proposed disposition of the document. If the shepherding AD indicates a no-problem note then this indicates agreement with that no-problem note (and the corresponding IESG note). If the shepherding AD indicates a DNP response, then "Yes" indicates agreement with this. "Discuss" indicates a blocking disagreement with the proposed disposition of the document. Be sure to carefully consider RFC 3932; a discuss needs to have a proposed disposition of the document consistent with RFC 3932.
Telechat procedure:
The question that the secretariat asks on the telechat remains the same: "Does anyone have a problem with draft-(name) being published as (status)?", or "Does anyone have a problem with draft_(name)_ being given the IESG publication recommendation and note as currently suggested in the tracker?", depending on whether the documents originated from the IETF or the RFC Editor.
If an AD-sponsored Informational or Experimental document has at least one Yes and zero "discuss" then it passes. There is no requirement for other positions. "Recuse" and "Abstain" positions have no effect on the approval of the document.
Secretariat procedure on document approval:
If the writeup is incomplete (e.g., just contains the template), remove it before sending the announcement.
Note that this brings up an opportunity for even worse inconsistencies than we have worried about with standards-track documents. Since it's not even necessary to record a "noob", someone who read a document and was fine with it on one telechat might read the document again and have a problem with it the second time around. For this reason, recording "noob" when first deciding that you have no problem with an info document and respecting that position when it comes around again is encouraged.
Also, for RFC Editor submissions there is opportunity for inconsistency and even incorrect decisions, if the shepherding AD changes the IESG recommendation and/or note in the middle of the process. For this reason it is suggested that any changes are only discussed through e-mail and entered to the tracker during the telechat, when all the ADs are aware that the disposition of the shepherding AD has changed.
Note: the current ballots may still say things like "2/3 (9) yes or no-obj positions required for approval"; these are because the system has not yet been updated for this new procedure.
The content of this page was last updated on 2009-03-17. It was migrated from the old Trac wiki on 2023-02-17.