GUIDELINES FOR REVIEWERS OF RFC INDEPENDENT SUBMISSIONS
01 November 2022
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GOALS
An independent submission review is meant to achieve two overarching
goals:
1. Is the document appropriate for publication as an independent
submission?
2. What improvements to the work should be made prior to publication?
Sometimes early work is not yet ready for publication but will be.
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WHO MAY SUBMIT A REVIEW?
Anyone may submit a document review at any time prior to publication
of an RFC. The Independent Submissions Editor (ISE) solicits specific
individuals to review each document, but more reviews are always
welcome, and are likely to improve the quality of both the documents
under consideration and the series as a whole.
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DISSEMINATION OF REVIEWS
All reviews (perhaps in summary) will be shared with the author(s),
and many will be shared with the Independent Submissions Editorial
Board (ISEB) for their information.
By default, unless your review is unsolicited, the ISE will identify
you as the reviewer to the author. However, you may request reviewer
anonymity. TO REQUEST ANONYMITY, YOU MUST TELL US WHEN YOU SUBMIT
THE REVIEW.
Reviews may be posted publicly on the RFC Editor website, with author
approval. In this posting, your anonymity will be respected if you
requested it.
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CONTENTS OF REVIEWS
Questions that the ISE would like you to answer:
A. Is the subject of this document relevant to the RFC Series?
Although the series was originally broadly scoped to include any
aspect of computer networking, its scope has become centered on the
Internet. This includes changes to the TCP, UDP, and IP protocols,
services atop those protocols, formats that are transported by those
protocols, as well as related hardware issues (e.g., how to run IP
over X hardware). More speculative are documents specific to
particular link layer or physical layer technologies. Your opinion
here will be useful, although the ISE, in consultation with the ISEB,
will make the final decision.
B. Is this document technically competent, as far as you can tell?
Does the work build upon industry state-of-the-art? Are protocols
and interfaces well specified?
C. Is this document in reasonable (not necessarily final) editorial
shape?
Works should concisely and clearly make their point. Was it easy
to discern the point, and could you understand the approach being
offered?
D. Are the Abstract and Introduction of this document reasonably clear?
Does the Introduction provide enough background for those Internet
techies who may not be experts in the particular subject matter?
Do the Title and Abstract fairly and accurately summarize the
contents?
E. Does the document make clear upfront how the specification does or
does not relate to past or current IETF activities?
F. How else can the document be improved?
Any additional suggestions that you can make to improve the quality
and clarity of the document will be welcomed by the ISE and in most
cases will be welcomed by the author(s).
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QUESTIONS?
Feel free to contact the ISE (rfc-ise@rfc-editor.org) with any questions
you may have about document reviews.