RFC0003: Documentation conventions

Network Working Group                                                 4689
RFC-3                                                           April 1969
                                                             Steve Crocker
                                                                      UCLA


                        DOCUMENTATION CONVENTIONS



The Network Working Group seems to consist of Steve Carr of Utah, Jeff
Rulifson and Bill Duvall at SRI, and Steve Crocker and Gerard Deloche
at UCLA.  Membership is not closed.

The Network Working Group (NWG) is concerned with the HOST software, the
strategies for using the network, and initial experiments with the network.

Documentation of the NWG's effort is through notes such as this.  Notes
may be produced at any site by anybody and included in this series.
                        

CONTENT

The content of a NWG note may be any thought, suggestion, etc. related to
the HOST software or other aspect of the network.  Notes are encouraged to
be timely rather than polished.  Philosophical positions without examples
or other specifics, specific suggestions or implementation techniques
without introductory or background explication, and explicit questions
without any attempted answers are all acceptable.  The minimum length for 
a NWG note is one sentence.

These standards (or lack of them) are stated explicitly for two reasons.
First, there is a tendency to view a written statement as ipso facto 
authoritative, and we hope to promote the exchange and discussion of 
considerably less than authoritative ideas.  Second, there is a natural
hesitancy to publish something unpolished, and we hope to ease this
inhibition.

FORM

Every NWG note should bear the following information:

        1.  "Network Working Group"
            "Request for Comments:" x
            where x is a serial number.
            Serial numbers are assigned by Bill Duvall at SRI

        2.  Author and affiliation

        3.  Date

        4.  Title.  The title need not be unique.

DISTRIBUTION

One copy only will be sent from the author's site to"

        1.  Bob Kahn, BB&N
        2.  Larry Roberts, ARPA
        3.  Steve Carr, UCLA
        4.  Jeff Rulifson, UTAH
        5.  Ron Stoughton, UCSB
        6.  Steve Crocker, UCLA

Reproduction if desired may be handled locally.  

OTHER NOTES

Two notes (1 & 2) have been written so far.  These are both titled HOST
Software and are by Steve Crocker and Bill Duvall, separately.

Other notes planned are on

        1.  Network Timetable
        2.  The Philosophy of NIL
        3.  Specifications for NIL
        4.  Deeper Documentation of HOST Software.