Re: Working Group Last Call on enumservices guide 12

On Fri, Oct 03, 2008 at 06:23:35PM -0400, Livingood, Jason wrote:

{this is a reply to a private response to my WGLC comments, quoted with
permission}

> > Regarding Terminology, the draft mixes "Registration", 
> > "Registration Template"
> > and "Registration Document", where I'd suggest the following 
> > distinctions to be consistently applied:
> > 
> >   "Registration" is what is entered into the Registry after 
> > an application has
> >           been approved.
> >   "Registration Template" is the multiline template given in 
> > section 11.
> >   "Enumservice Specification" is what the applicant uses to 
> > specify the
> >           actual data. In fact, the Registration Template 
> > should be copied into
> >           the specification document, as it is today.
> >           I'd suggest to completely drop the term 
> > "Registration Document".
> 
> I am not sure I agree.  We carefully considered all of these terms and
> some cannot be dropped due to cross-references with other documents.  If
> you can point on specific places in the I-D where the term is applied
> inconsistently or incorrectly, we appreciate the feedback asap.

The introduction says:

   For the purpose of this document, 'Registration Document' and
   'Registration' refer to a specification that defines an Enumservice
   and proposes its registration following the procedures outlined
   herein.

and thus makes "Registration" and "Registration Document" synonyms,
while actually stating that both denominate the Enumservice specification.
I'm not sure what cross-reference you have in mind, but neither RFC 5226
or RFC3761 nor the -bis draft use this term and it doesn't really sound
familiar in an IETF context to me.  With the terminology above I've tried
to follow the development and registration procedure in a, what I think, closer
fashion:

  You come up with an idea for an Enumservice and write the specification.
  This document is then used as a reference in the application form
  (aka "Registration Template") and the registration is actually the
  assignment of the codepoint or part of the namespace (as per RFC 5226,
  section 1), i.e., "what goes into the registry".

Apologies if I've managed to exhaust the WG on these process and terminology
issues, but I believe that the current wording is ambiguous and could
confuse or mislead potential "users".

Looking at specific examples, without any claim to completeness, have a
look at section 3:

>    All Enumservice Registration proposals are expected to conform also
>    to various requirements laid out in the following sections.
> 
> 3.1.  Functionality Requirements
> 
>    A registered Enumservice must be able to function as a selection
>    mechanism when choosing one NAPTR resource record from another.  That
>    means that the Registration MUST specify what is expected when using

"Enumservice Registration proposals" doesn't match the predefined
terminology and "the Registration MUST specify ..." suggests that the
content of the registry will have to compy, where its clearly the
specification that will be evaluated against this list of criteria.

-Peter