[ih] Cluster Addressing and CIDR

[Joe Touch]

John Day wrote:
>>
>> Authors will cease to present partially-complete ideas. There will be 
>> fewer work-in-progress drafts. There will, in summary, be less of this 
>> 'good or bad' research to preserve.
> 
> This is not the case and has not been the case with other groups.

There are some people (myself included) who will cease to publish 
drafts. That decreases (by definition) the set of what is published; to 
the extent that others care, it will further decrease that set.

> I have not noticed that the fact this material is available in the 
> group's paper trail has any effect on the amount or quality of the 
> contributions.

That's nearly impossible to measure. We have no series that was 
explicitly not archived then archived to compare. All we have are 
different communities right now.

...
>> The thing that makes IDs unique is _exactly_ the fact that they are 
>> NOT archived. Were that property to disappear, there would be a void.
> 
> No the problem we have is there is a void.  To modify an old adage, 
> those who can not know history are doomed to repeat it.  Actually now 
> that you mention it that may explain alot.

There always was, and continues to be a path for publication that some 
draft authors have chosen and others have not. Draft authors can always 
submit documents for Informational RFC; some have, others have not. 
Although there are some submissions which have been rejected (every 
system has its minimum standards), overall we already have a solution to 
this problem, and it doesn't involve archiving all drafts for historical 
purposes.

I agree that the world is less informed by not having the intermediate 
forms of "the Shining", e.g. That is as it has been - the choice of the 
author. All we do by archiving drafts is to take the ephemeral track away.

Joe