Subject: [TOOLS-DEVELOPMENT] Expied drafts are move to "IESG State: Dead" from "AD is watching"

From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2017 13:13:47 +0100

Dear tools team,
I had somebody complain about a draft transitioning from "AD is
watching" to "Dead" on expiration and then staying in that state when a
new revision is submitted. Is there a particular reason why it works
this way?

Thank you,
Alexey

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From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2017 14:48:33 +0200

Hi Alexey,

> new revision is submitted. Is there a particular reason why it works

I've just looked at the draft expiration code.

To understand this, one should keep in mind that there are multiple states
and state machines associated with a draft.  One is the stream state, another
the iesg state, a third the rfc-editor state.

If a draft has not started IESG processing, nothing special would happen on
expiry.  The stream state would be expired, and would change back to active
with a new submission.

If the document has started IESG processing, and is in any state except
'watching' and 'dead', it won't be permitted to expire.  However, in state
'watching', the IESG state will be set to 'dead' on expiry, and will have
to be manually set back to 'watching' by the AD.  This does not affect the
stream state of the document, which should automatically go to 'active' on
re-submission.

I don't recall the reason why the IESG transition from 'watching' to 'dead'
has been explicitly coded in, but I can see several problems with not placing
an expired document in 'dead'.

The remaining question is whether the document's IESG state should be
automatically restored to something other than 'dead' when a new version
is submitted, and I suspect the answer is 'it depends' rather than a clear
'yes'; hence it's better to let the AD handle this manually.

I hope this helps.  If the document in question hasn't behaved according to
what I write above, I'd be happy to have a closer look.

Best regards,

	Henrik

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From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2017 10:49:55 -0400

This seems right to me.  The "AD is Watching" state is not supposed to block expiry, so what IESG state makes more sense for a expired draft?

Russ

> On Oct 24, 2017, at 8:13 AM, Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Dear tools team,
> _______________________________________________
> TOOLS-DEVELOPMENT mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/tools-development

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From: Ben Campbell <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2017 10:13:14 -0500

IIUC, The person that Alexey mentioned thought that the transition to “dead” should be an explicit AD/IESG action, not an automatic one.

 I’m not sure what I think about that—just relaying the message. It seem like some people read more meaning into the word “dead” than do others.

Ben.

> On Oct 24, 2017, at 9:49 AM, Russ Housley <[email-masked]> wrote:
>

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From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2017 18:44:12 +0200

On 2017-10-24 17:13, Ben Campbell wrote:
> IIUC, The person that Alexey mentioned thought that the transition to
> “dead” should be an explicit AD/IESG action, not an automatic one.
> 
> I’m not sure what I think about that—just relaying the message. It
> seem like some people read more meaning into the word “dead” than do
> others.

Seems to me that this is in part a matter of what should be manual and
what automatic.  Either moving expired drafts to dead so they don't litter
up various lists of items under IESG processing should be automatic,
and resurrecting them manual, or moving them to dead in the first place
should be manual.

Seeing this from the outside, the current setup makes most sense to me,
but if the IESG decides it should be handled differently, I'll adjust.

Best regards,

	Henrik